Defense lawyer Dmitry Afanasyev said his clients had immediately recognized the man who tortured them. The two Russian citizens said the Colonel beat them in the head and attacked them with dogs during the first days after their arrests. However, the judge interrupted them and said this statement should be made the next day, after the Colonel gave his testimony.

Defense lawyers announced on Sunday that their clients had been tortured, the newspaper says. According to Mr. Afanasyev, evidence extracted under torture should be rejected by the court, in accordance with the New York Convention of 1984, to which both Russia and Qatar are parties.

The Nezavisimaya Gazeta newspaper reports that Yandarbiyev's widow attended the hearing. "I have come to see the faces of the men who killed my husband," she was quoted as saying. The widow added that she would like the hearing to be open to the public. She said her teenage son Dawoud, who was also injured in the attack, was still in hospital.

Former Chechen leader Zelimkhan Yanderbiyev was killed in a car bombing in Doha in mid-February. On February 19, Qatari authorities arrested three Russian citizens on suspicion of involvement in the assassination. The Russian Foreign Ministry said the men, who were on a business trip to the Russian Embassy in Qatar, were intelligence officers, and they were carrying out information and analytical activities connected with the fight against international terrorism. According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, they had nothing to do with the killing of Yanderbiyev. Qatari authorities released one of the arrested Russians, Alexander Fetisov, who had diplomatic immunity. He returned to Russia on March 24. The other two Russians were indicted on February 26.