MOSCOW. Oct 27 (Interfax) - The Russian Investigative Committee's investigative department has formally indicted former policeman Sergei Khadzhikurbanov from an organized crime department under a criminal case dealing with the murder of Novaya Gazeta journalist Anna Politkovskaya, Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin told Interfax.
Khadzhikurbanov has been charged with a planned contract killing committed by an organized group, a crime described in Article 105, Part 2, Clauses 'zh' and 'z' of the Russian Criminal Code, Markin said.
"The investigation has charged Khadzhikurbanov of becoming the head of an organized criminal group after being released from a penitentiary on September 22, 2006, and leading it during the preparations for and commission of Politkovskaya's murder," he said.
Novaya Gazeta Managing Editor Sergei Sokolov told Interfax in commenting on this report: "It is difficult for me to make any conclusions, but, as far as I understand, such a working theory does exist and there are witnesses who have given such testimony."
It was reported earlier that Khadzhikurbanov was suspected of belonging to a criminal group organized by Lom-Ali Gaitukayev, a resident of Chechnya. The group also included former police officer Dmitry Pavlyuchenkov, who, according to law enforcement, has concluded a plea bargain with the investigation, and the Makhmudov brothers.
Pavlyuchenkov has already been indicted under the same criminal case, and Gaitukayev and Khadzhikurbanov have been brought to Moscow from penitentiaries at the investigative team's request, Markin said earlier.
"The investigation believes that Lom-Ali Gaitukayev contracted to kill Politkovskaya in exchange for money in July 2006. To this end, Gaitukayev set up a criminal group, which included Pavlyuchenkov, Gaitukayev's nephews Makhmudov, and former member of the Moscow city police's organized crime department Khadzhikurbanov, who was released from a penitentiary in September 2006," Markin said.
Pavlyuchenkov, who at the time headed a division within the Moscow city police's operational search department responsible for outdoor surveillance, "tasked his men with following the journalist to find out the routes and time of her movements around the city," he said.
"The information obtained by Pavlyuchenkov and the tool of the crime were passed to Rustam Makhmudov, the doer of the crime, and his accomplices, who had followed Politkovskaya for several days prior to the crime," he said.
New charges will be brought against Makhmudov, who was detained in Chechnya in spring 2011, and against his brothers Dzhabrail and Ibragim, who are currently under a travel ban, Markin said.
Politkovskaya was killed at about 4:00 p.m. on October 7, 2006, when she parked her car near her home on Lesnaya Street and entered the elevator in the lobby. The killer fired five shots at Politkovskaya, exited the lobby, got into a car waiting for him near Novoslobodskaya metro station and left the scene together with his accomplices.
The Makhmudov brothers, Ibragim and Dzhabrail, as well as Khadzhikurbanov were charged with killing Politkovskaya. Moscow's district military tribunal acquitted them in February 2009 in line with a jury verdict of acquittal. Federal Security Service officer Pavel Ryaguzov, who was charged over a different episode in this case, was acquitted as well.
The Russian Supreme Court then overturned the acquittal verdict and ordered the Prosecutor General's Office to combine the case opened against the Makhmudov brothers, Khadzhikurbanov and Ryaguzov with the case of Politkovskaya's suspected killer Rustam Makhmudov, as well as the cases opened against other unidentified persons involved in this crime, including those who ordered it.
Rustam Makhmudov was detained at the end of May and was remanded in custody.
The detention of former police officer Pavlyuchenkov, who was accused of masterminding the crime, was announced on August 23.
The investigation into Politkovskaya's murder has been extended until December 7, 2011, when Pavlyuchenkov's arrest term expires.