(Updates with adjournment, new quotes) By Guy Faulconbridge MOSCOW, Feb 15 (Reuters) - Russia on Thursday opened and adjourned the retrial of two Chechens accused of murdering U.S. journalist Paul Klebnikov because the suspects did not turn up in court. Klebnikov's 2004 murder stoked international concern about freedom of speech in Russia, an issue pushed back into the spotlight by the killing last year of crusading Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya. Two Chechens, Kazbek Dukuzov and Musa Vakhayev, were arrested on suspicion of shooting Klebnikov but a jury acquitted them in a trial prosecutors said was flawed. The Supreme Court ordered a retrial which is now being closely watched for evidence the Russian authorities -- who have a patchy record in solving high-profile murders -- can stage a fair trial. "Today's hearing was postponed until March 14 because the two defendants did not appear in court," said Anna Usachyova, a spokeswoman for the Moscow City Court. "They were sent official notification that they had to appear, which they signed, but they did not appear." The two suspects walked free from the courtroom after their acquittal in May, protesting their innocence. It was not clear on Thursday if police and prosecutors knew where they were, or if they would be trying to arrest them. Klebnikov, the editor of the Russian edition of Forbes magazine, was shot as he left his office in central Moscow on July 9, 2004. He later died of his injuries in a lift which stalled at a Moscow hospital. Klebnikov's murder has been raised repeatedly in conversations between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President George W. Bush. Reporters were not allowed into the courtroom during the proceedings. A lawyer for a third defendant Fail Sadretdinov, who is being tried together with the two Klebnikov suspects but over a separate case, told reporters outside the courtroom Dukuzov and Vakhayev were unlikely to attend their trial. "If they are sane they will not appear in court because they know very well that the state is not going to risk another acquittal," said lawyer Ruslan Koblev. His client was in court. Koblev said the court was told that Dukuzov is in Chechnya and Vakhayev was unable to attend because he is ill. New York-based lobby group the Committee to Protect Journalists said in a statement before the retrial began: "(We) urge court officials to make the proceedings open to the public, to ensure the suspects are present in court and to sequester the jury." Klebnikov, a U.S. citizen whose grandparents -- Russian nobles -- fled Russia during the 1917 Bolshevik revolution, reported on a world where Russian business, politics and organised crime overlap.
