New trials ordered in journalist slaying

MOSCOW, June 25 (UPI) -- Russia's Supreme Court has overturned acquittals for three men charged in the 2006 slaying of an investigative journalist and ordered a retrial, officials say.

The Moscow Military District Court had acquitted Dzhabrail and Ibragim Makhmudov, brothers from Chechnya, and former police officer Sergei Khadzhikurbanov in the slaying of Anna Politkovskaya.

The jury found the prosecutors had failed to prove guilt, RIA Novosti reported. The defense planned an appeal.

Novaya Gazeta reporter Politkovskaya, who gained international recognition for her reports of atrocities against civilians in the troubled Caucasus republic of Chechnya, was gunned down in an elevator in her Moscow apartment building in October 2006.

Police called it a contract killing.