(Dzhabrail Makhmudov e o advogado Murad Musaev abandonam juntos o tribunal. AP Photo/Misha Japar)The jury took less than two hours to bring back a unanimous verdict of not guilty on the counts relating to the Politkovskaya killing, and, more surprisingly, not-guilty verdicts for Khadzhikurbanov and Ryaguzov on the travel agent case (The prosecution has exercised its right to appeal the verdict.) Ilya Politkovsky stood stonily as Dzhabrail and Ibragim were released from the cage. Dzhabrail came over and put out his hands. Reluctantly, Ilya took it. He listened to Dzhabrail express condolences for his loss and then merely said, 'Congratulations.' He said the same to the boy's mother. He continued to believe that the Makhmudovs knew something, even if, whatever they were doing whenever they were doing it, they hadn't meant any harm.
That evening, I took the subway to Politkovskaya's old neighborhood. Her doorway is the last one before a pleasant residential area turns into a business district that's under radical reconstruction. Four fifteen-story office buildings are in varying stages of completion rights across the street; next to them, recently opened, is a ten-story Holiday Inn. The sidewalk has been torn up and replaced by wooden planks and a corrugated metal roof. The green Lada wouldn't be able to park around the corner now, because a construction median occupies the middle lane and an aboveground pipe runs along the street. There is a new entrance to the subway station, not two hundred feet from her house. And one more addition. Like the many plaques throughout the city, explaining that Pushkin or Bulgakov or Lenin lived or spoke at this address, there is a plaque next to Politkovskaya's doorway. It reads, 'In this building lived, and was cruelly murdered on October 7, 2006 Anna Politkovskaya.'
On the day of the verdict, the courthouse was besieged by video cameras. When Karina Moskalenko came outside, she began to address them, twenty microphones gathered in a great bunch like flowers before her. 'Sit!' someone called to the microphone holders, and on commanded they crouched down so that the cameras behind them had a view. Moskalenko thanked the international press for paying attention to the killing and the trial; she pleaded with them to continue to pay attention; the real killers hadn't been caught, she said, much less put on trial, and the press and civil society had a responsibility to keep up the pressure. It was Moskalenko's moment. 'I've dreamed my whole life as a lawyer of a trial like this,' she had told the day before. 'The openness to the press, the adversarial process, before a jury, a judge who lets the sides express their opinions.' She didn't want it to end. Her next case would be another trial of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and that one would be rigged.
That evening, I took the subway to Politkovskaya's old neighborhood. Her doorway is the last one before a pleasant residential area turns into a business district that's under radical reconstruction. Four fifteen-story office buildings are in varying stages of completion rights across the street; next to them, recently opened, is a ten-story Holiday Inn. The sidewalk has been torn up and replaced by wooden planks and a corrugated metal roof. The green Lada wouldn't be able to park around the corner now, because a construction median occupies the middle lane and an aboveground pipe runs along the street. There is a new entrance to the subway station, not two hundred feet from her house. And one more addition. Like the many plaques throughout the city, explaining that Pushkin or Bulgakov or Lenin lived or spoke at this address, there is a plaque next to Politkovskaya's doorway. It reads, 'In this building lived, and was cruelly murdered on October 7, 2006 Anna Politkovskaya.'
On the day of the verdict, the courthouse was besieged by video cameras. When Karina Moskalenko came outside, she began to address them, twenty microphones gathered in a great bunch like flowers before her. 'Sit!' someone called to the microphone holders, and on commanded they crouched down so that the cameras behind them had a view. Moskalenko thanked the international press for paying attention to the killing and the trial; she pleaded with them to continue to pay attention; the real killers hadn't been caught, she said, much less put on trial, and the press and civil society had a responsibility to keep up the pressure. It was Moskalenko's moment. 'I've dreamed my whole life as a lawyer of a trial like this,' she had told the day before. 'The openness to the press, the adversarial process, before a jury, a judge who lets the sides express their opinions.' She didn't want it to end. Her next case would be another trial of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and that one would be rigged.
(Mesmo depois assassinada, Anna Politkovskaya continua a ser a principal voz da oposicao Russa. Yuri Kochetkov/EPA)
FINAL...
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