The jurors say the guilt of the defendants – Sergey Khadzhikurbanov, accused of arranging the murder, brothers Dzhabrail and Ibragim Makhmudov, accused of involvement in the murder, and Pavel Ryaguzov, accused of other offences, – had not been proven.

Politkovskaya, Russia’s most famous opposition journalist and a scathing critic of Kremlin power, was shot dead in her Moscow apartment block on October 7 2006. Prosecutors alleged that her assassin was a third Makhmudov brother, Rustam, who they say has now escaped abroad. The two other Makhmudov brothers watched out her flat before the killing and gave Rustam a lift to the scene, they said.

Friends of the murdered journalist described the investigation into her murder and the subsequent trial as deeply flawed. Police have apparently been unable to identify the person who ordered Politkovskaya’s assassination. Sources at Novaya Gazeta, the paper for which Politkovskaya worked as a special correspondent, have described the case against the accused as "very weak", suggesting the conspiracy was planned at a much higher level.

In their final words to the jury on Wednesday, 18 all four defendants insisted they were innocent. In a speech to the jury earlier this week, Karina Moskalenko, the lawyer for the Politkovskya family, said the murder had been ordered at a much higher level than the defendants.

"The whole thing has been organized at a high level, not at the level of the accused. I will never believe the Chechen boys had their own reasons [to kill Politkovskaya]," she said. "I have drawn my own conclusion that the boys have been used by someone. The question is whether they knew or not."

"Who could hate Politkovskaya for her articles? Those who are responsible for what was happening in the Chechen Republic," she said, without identifying any individuals.

Relatives and former colleagues of Politkovskaya said justice would not be served until the gunman and the mastermind were prosecuted.

‘Non-guilty verdict encourages further investigation. It is important that the national and international community went on paying careful attention to the investigation and  insisted on putting the client and the contractors to trial’, the member of the board of Russian Research Center for Human Rights commented the event.