MOSCOW, December 6 (RIA Novosti) - A Moscow city court will select a jury December 29 in the trial of three suspects charged with murdering Forbes Russia Editor Paul Klebnikov.
Preliminary closed hearings began Tuesday.
The suspects are Fail Satretdinov, a notary from Moscow, and two Chechen residents Musa Vakhayev and Kazbek Dukuzov.
Paul Klebnikov, 41, was murdered in Moscow on July 9, 2004. He was a U.S. national from New York and worked for Forbes since 1989.
During the hearings, the defense made several motions, including a demand that the status of the defendants' detention be changed and that the case be returned to the Prosecutor General's Office. However, the court denied the motions.
"The criminal case will be heard behind closed doors because of the number of classified documents that have been included in the materials," Dukuzov's attorney Ruslan Khasanov said, adding that the prosecution had gathered more than 100 witnesses.
The injured party, Paul's brother Michael, did not claim any moral damages, saying that nothing could make up for the loss of a brother, husband and father.
Khasanov said the case against his client lacked evidence. "Even partial acquittal will not satisfy us," he said. "I believe there is no evidence of my client's guilt in the case."
The Prosecutor General's Office said investigators had established that Klebnikov was murdered by members of a Moscow-based Chechen criminal group that included Kazbek Dukuzov, Magomed Dukuzov, Musa Vakhayev and Magomed Edilsultanov.
"This criminal group was formed in 2002 in Moscow to conduct extortions and contract murders," the prosecution said in a statement.
Investigators said the journalist had been killed because he planned to write about the embezzlement of funds allocated to the reconstruction of war-ravaged Chechnya. They said they had identified the person who allegedly ordered the killing: "Chechen resident Khozh-Akhmed Nukhayev, who offered the criminals a monetary reward for Klebnikov's murder."
Nukhayev, Edilsultanov and Magomed Dukuzov have been placed on a wanted list.
