Moscow - A Russian court reversed its decision Tuesday to open to the public the trial of three men charged with the murder investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya.

The Moscow District Military Court ruled that the media and public would be barred from the trial after the jury's refusal to hear the case in front of the press.

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.

The slain journalist's family and colleagues have sharply criticized the investigation, complaining the defendants on trial are only loosely connected to the contract killing and of the investigation's secrecy and painstaking progress more than two years after her murder. (dpa)