Russia's Supreme Court today overturned the acquittal of the three men charged in connection with the 2006 murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya and ordered a retrial.
A jury in February acquitted the men suspected of helping the killer of Politkovskaya -- a Kremlin critic who wrote about rights abuses -- raising questions about Russia's resolve to protect freedom of speech.
The Supreme Court judge ordered "the sentence of the Moscow district military court cancelled and the criminal case sent for a new hearing in the same court."
A gunman shot Politkovskaya in the entrance of her central Moscow apartment block on October 7th, 2006.
After a four-month trial, a jury ruled in February that brothers Dzhabrail and Ibragim Makhmudov were not guilty of acting as accomplices in the murder and cleared former police officer Sergei Khadzhikurbanov of organising the crime.
Reuters