Moscow - The son and daughter of slain investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya took the stand in her murder trial Thursday, and spoke about their mother's growing sense of threat in the days before her death.

"She warned me she had seen strange people hanging around outside the entrance of the apartment building that weren't there earlier, and told me to be cautious," said Politkovskaya's daughter Vera, who moved in with her mother about one week before she was killed.

Three men are on trial at Moscow's military court accused of the murder of Politkovskaya, gunned down in a contract-style killing in the elevator of her apartment building in 2006.

Vera Politkovskaya said her mother "saw something" suspicious in that the men outside her apartment building did not smell of drink and were not alcoholics, and looked out of place.

"She published many different articles in connection with which her safety was threatened," Vera Politkovskaya said.

Politkovskaya's children said that over the five years before her death there had been signs that the journalist's life was in danger.

"Basically, though, mother tried to protect us from that kind of knowledge and shared her concerns with trusted colleagues at the newspaper," her son Ilya Politkovsky said during testimony Thursday.

The award-winning journalist for the daily Novaya Gazeta reported on alleged human rights abuses by the Kremlin during two wars in Chechnya in the early 1990s.

Politkovskaya's family and colleagues have been suspect and sharply critical of the trial, saying the defendants are only loosely tied to the murder.

None of the three men being tried in connection with the case are the suspected triggerman or man guilty of ordering her killing.

A defence lawyer in the case this week said evidence pointed to a Russian politician still based inside the country as the mastermind of the murder.

The journalist's killing shocked the international community and raised concerns about crackdowns on Kremlin-critical reporters under former president Vladimir Putin.

Putin, who was constitutionally barred from standing for a third consecutive term, ceded the Kremlin office to his handpicked successor Dmitry Medvedev in May. Putin is now serving as prime minister.