Moscow - A Russian military court will allow public and media access to the trial of three men charged over the murder investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya, it ruled in a crucial first hearing Monday.

Police officer Sergei Khadzhikurbanov and two Chechen brothers, Dzhabrail and Ibragim Makhmudov, stand accused of plotting the murder of Politkovskaya, gunned down in front of her central Moscow flat in 2006.

Investigators are still hunting for a third Chechen man, Rustam Makhmudov, suspected of being the pointman in the contract killing.

Politkovskaya, an award-winning reporter for the Novaya Gazeta, was a fierce critic of the Kremlin's actions during two wars in Chechnya in the early 1990s.

Despite protest from Politkovskaya's legal team, the trial was being held before a military tribunal because of the involvement Pavel Ryaguzov, an agent with Russia's FSB security service.

Ryaguzov is suspected of having handed over Politkovskaya's home address to the contract killers.

Politkovskaya's family lawyers have said the FSB agent was only loosely tied to the case, while the other defendants did not deserve to be tried in a military court.

But they won a victory Monday in securing an open hearing.

Politkovskaya's killing sent shock ripples through the world media, and Kremlin critics said it revealed a crackdown on media freedom under former president Vladimir Putin. (dpa)