The jury's decision to clear Interior Ministry officers Yevgeny Khudyakov and Sergei Arakcheyev of murder was overturned by the court's military collegium, following a Constitutional Court ruling that serious crimes committed in Chechnya should be examined by courts martial, not jurors, a lawyer for one of the defendants said.
"The [Supreme Court's] Military Collegium made the decision in connection with the Russian Constitutional Court's April 6 ruling that major crimes perpetrated in Chechnya be considered by courts martial without jurors' involvement," Irina Kuznetsova said.
Earlier, Chechen President Alu Alkhanov disputed the constitutionality of court legislation allowing a non-Chechen jury to try people suspected of committing crimes in Chechnya.
It is the second time the Supreme Court has reversed a jury's acquittal of Khudyakov and Arakcheyev, who are charged with killing three employees of a building firm in the Chechen capital, Grozny, in January 2003.
The men will now be tried by a panel of three professional judges, Kuznetsova said, adding that the retrial would not start until June.
