Russia starts retrial of Klebnikov murder suspects

MOSCOW, Feb 15 (Reuters) Russia today began the retrial of two men who were acquitted last year of murdering US journalist Paul Klebnikov in a case that stoked international concern about freedom of speech in Russia.

Two Chechens, Kazbek Dukuzov and Musa Vakhayev, were acquitted by a jury after a trial prosecutors said was flawed. The Supreme Court ordered a retrial.

The suspects, who walked free after their acquittal, were absent when a preliminary hearing started in Moscow City Court and it was unclear where they were.

Klebnikov, the editor of the Russian edition of Forbes magazine, was shot as he left his office in central Moscow on July 9, 2004. He later died of his injuries in a lift which stalled at a Moscow hospital.

Journalists' freedom to operate in Russia has come under renewed scrutiny since the murder last year of Russian reporter Anna Politkovskaya, who wrote scathing articles about Moscow's anti-insurgency operations in Chechnya.

Klebnikov's trial is seen by many observers as a test of Russia's often chaotic judicial system and of the country's resolve to find and punish his killers. Many high-profile murders in Russia go unsolved.

New York-based lobby group the Committee to Protect Journalists said in a statement: ''(We) urge court officials to make the proceedings open to the public, to ensure the suspects are present in court, and to sequester the jury.'' The first stage in the retrial was selecting a jury, said a spokeswoman for Moscow City Court.

But there was confusion about the whereabouts of the suspects, who told Reuters they were innocent as they left the courtroom after their acquittal in May.

''No one seems to know where they are,'' one source close to the trial told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

Klebnikov's murder has been raised repeatedly in conversations between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President George W.

Bush.

Klebnikov, a US citizen whose grandparents -- Russian nobles -- fled Russia during the 1917 Bolshevik revolution, reported on a world where Russian business, politics and organised crime overlap.

Reuters SP RN1436