MOSCOW, January 10 (RIA Novosti) - The Russian Prosecutor General's Office is "90% certain" of a guilty verdict in the trial of three men suspected of the murder of Paul Klebnikov, a spokeswoman said Tuesday.
In an interview with the Ekho Moskvy radio station, Natalya Vishnyakova said the investigation had established that the crime was carried out on the orders of Khozh-Akhmed Nukhayev, a resident of the Russian Chechen Republic.
According to the authorities, Nukhayev had recruited a Chechen gang, including Musa Bakhayev and Kazbek Dukuzov - who were arrested by Belarus police in Minsk on November 17 last year - and Magomed Dukuzov and Magomed Edilsultanov, who are still on the federal wanted list.
The trial of Bakhayev and Kazbek Dukuzov, and of Fail Sadretdinov, a notary, opened Tuesday and is to resume Wednesday at the Moscow city court.
Khebnikov, the editor of the Russian version of Forbes magazine, was murdered in Moscow on July 9, 2004. He was a United States national, who lived in New York and had worked for Forbes since 1989.
Vishnyakova said the investigation had also established that the gang was linked with the murder of former Chechen Deputy Prime Minister Yan Sergunin and the attack on entrepreneur Alexei Pichugin, who was seriously wounded last June.
