MOSCOW, October 9 (RIA Novosti) - A Moscow court postponed on Friday hearings on a libel suit filed by Joseph Stalin's grandson against a newspaper until October 13.

Yevgeny Dzhugashvili filed the suit against Novaya Gazeta over an article claiming the Soviet dictator personally ordered the killings of thousands of people.

He is demanding 10 million rubles ($340,000) in compensation from the paper, as well as a retraction of certain claims made.

The paper cited declassified documents signed by Stalin and handed to his chief of secret police Lavrenti Beria, ordering the killings.

The April 22 article, written by Anatoly Yablokov and headlined "Beria found guilty", was part of a supplement entitled 'The truth of the Gulag'.