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Court to review Spartak fan murder case

The defendants' lawyers will lodge several petitions, and request the court to change the measure of restraint from custody to bail

MOSCOW, October 5 (Itar-Tass) — The Moscow City Court begins the trial on Wednesday of the case over the murder of Spartak fan Yuri Volkov in central Moscow in the summer of 2010. The preliminary hearings on Wednesday will be held behind closed doors, a court official told Itar-Tass.

The defendants' lawyers will lodge several petitions, and request the court to change the measure of restraint from custody to bail.

The case is expected to be reviewed by a jury. One of the defendants asked for jury trial, and under the law, his request cannot be denied.

Earlier, all the suspects were checked on polygraph. "I can tell that the results of the polygraph tests are not in the defendants' favor," one of the lawyers said.

Yuri Volkov, 22, was killed in a fight in central Moscow on July 10, 2010. The investigators said two groups of youngsters, numbering three and eight people, clashed in the Chistye Prudy area. The fight was motivated by "personal dislike," the police said.

Volkov was fatally stabbed and died in an ambulance. Another two people were hospitalized.

Charges were brought against two Chechnya natives: Akhmedpasha Aidayev (who is accused of murder) and Bekkhan Ibragimov (accused of hooliganism and malicious infliction of harm to health). Both deny their guilt saying Spartak fans had dragged them into the fight and that they had had no knives.

At present, the Moscow City Court reviews a similar case over the murder of Spartak fan Yegor Sviridov.