“The investigation has identified some new suspects whose names I cannot reveal. If the mass media continues to keep the story in the spotlight helping the police in this way, we’ll be able to see more people in the dock, besides the four who were tried earlier. We now have reliable reports that the assassin is on the move from one European country to another and, unfortunately, not all NATO countries are actively cooperating with our law enforcement agencies. We could have caught the suspected murderer as early as April,” he said.

Sokolov added that neither Politkovskaya’s family, nor her colleagues, would be satisfied with the outcome of the case if the contractor doesn’t appear before the court.

The victim’s son, Ilya Politkovsky, also stated that a simple guilty verdict would not satisfy him.

“If the new case is similar to the one we saw earlier in Moscow district court, and a guilty verdict is brought in, we will not be satisfied. Because a guilty verdict in such a case is impossible,” Politkovsky said.

World-renowned journalist Anna Politkovskaya was killed on October 7, 2006 outside her Moscow apartment.

The four suspected accomplices were declared not guilty earlier this year, but Russia's Supreme Court quashed the ruling and sent the case back for a new investigation.

It's still not known who ordered the journalist's assassination.