New trial begins in killing of journalist

MOSCOW, Aug. 5 (UPI) -- A new trial began in Moscow Wednesday for three men acquitted last February in the slaying of Russian investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya.

Russia's Supreme Court ordered the two brothers from Chechnya and a former police officer be retried after throwing out their not guilty verdicts, the Russian news agency RIA Novosti reported.

Brothers Dzhabrail and Ibragim Makhmudov and Sergei Khadzhikurbanov were accused in the contract killing of Politkovskaya, who was gunned in an elevator of her Moscow apartment building in October 2006.

She gained international recognition for her investigative reports of atrocities against civilians in Chechnya.