Russian court overturns earlier verdict; convicts all five accused in scribe’s murder

A Moscow court on Tuesday convicted five men for involvement in the murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya, overturning an earlier verdict that had acquitted three of them in a previous trial.

The jury found that Rustam Makhmudov was the gunman who shot Politkovskaya in the elevator of her Moscow apartment building in 2006, and that four others - his two brothers, their uncle and a former policeman - were accomplices in the killing.

Both brothers and the policeman had been acquitted in a 2009 trial, but the Supreme Court ordered a new trial. A judge is expected to sentence the five men on Wednesday; all could face up to life in prison.

Politkovskaya's work in the Novaya Gazeta newspaper was sharply critical of the Kremlin and its policies in Chechnya. The Makhmudovs and their uncle are of Chechen origin.

Authorities have not identified any person as responsible for ordering the killing. Sergei Markin, a spokesman for Russia's Investigative Committee, was quoted by the RIA Novosti state news agency as saying it was pursuing "exhaustive measures" to identify that person.

"We agree with the verdict, but this is only a small part of those who are guilty in the crime," the journalist's son Ilya Politkovsky was quoted as telling the Interfax news agency.