Blowing Up Russia (38 page)
Authors: Alexander Litvinenko
Tags: #History, #Europe, #Russia & the Former Soviet Union, #Political Science, #General, #Intelligence & Espionage, #Terrorism, #World, #Russian & Former Soviet Union, #Social Science, #Violence in Society, #True Crime, #Espionage, #Murder
Felshtinsky: I d like to add, also directed to Sergei Adamovich, that we re actually grateful that this discussion is taking place in public, because the only thing that s truly important in this whole matter is that our discussion, our analysis, should be completely open. In essence, the only thing that could undermine this whole investigation is if attempts are made to make these meetings private and closed. Because the reality is - as many people have repeated, and as the slogan on the website says, I believe - we want to know the truth. And it s very important for us that our side - at least our side - should act publicly and openly. Because, unfortunately, the other side - let s call it the government, let s call it the FSB - is doing everything it can to prevent our discussions from being public, to prevent our facts and conclusions from reaching a wider public, in order to prevent anyone from knowing the truth about who is ultimately responsible for the terrorist attacks of September 1999. Therefore, I d like to express my gratitude to you one more time for the fact that this meeting, this discussion, is open and public. And I d like to hope that all other meetings of the Public Commission will be public as well, because this is the only opportunity that the Russian public has to find out any news about this issue.
Thank you. I can probably give the floor to Alexander now.
Litvinenko: Hello. Thank you very, very much for inviting us to this meeting. Yuri Felshtinsky and I are giving these materials specifically to you. Why? Because you re working publicly and openly.
I want to add the following to what Felshtinsky has said. I d like you to question the people whom we re going to name as witnesses just as publicly and openly, with reporters present. This will protect all of us from all kinds of fabrications, machinations, insinuations, and charges to the effect that someone somewhere is trying to fabricate something or to give this whole matter a political spin. In other words, in order for us to find the truth and in order for people to believe that it really is the truth, we must do this openly. That s my position. And that s why I m turning specifically to you.
Felshtinsky: We re probably ready now to give the floor to Moscow, and to answer any questions that may come up or have already come up.
Yushenkov: Yuri, I still think that Alexander should very briefly go over the contents of the documents he sent us, to give the members of the press a chance to see the heart of the matter.
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Litvinenko: Yes, of course. Here s what I want to say about the materials.
Yuri Felshtinsky and I managed to get in contact with Achemez Gochiyaev, who, according to the FSB account, is the leader of the terrorist group that organized the bombing of the apartment buildings in the city of Moscow in September 1999. I believe that the materials which Gochiyaev sent us are highly relevant for establishing the truth.
I want to stress that Achemez Gochiyaev came to us on his own initiative, and as far as I know, these materials, this declaration which he sent us, were given freely and voluntarily.
In his declaration, Achemez Gochiyaev provided quite detailed autobiographical information, which you, respected members of the Commission, should have no trouble verifying, In addition, Achemez Gochiyaev stated that he did, in fact, rent the spaces where the bombings took place. But that he did so at the request of his acquaintance.
In my view, the most important statement contained in this declaration is that Achemez Gochiyaev, after the second bombing took place - on September 13, on Kashirskoye Highway - that he himself, according to his own declaration, notified the police, the emergency medical service, and the 911 emergency service, that other bombings might take place at other addresses that he had rented, including the ones on Borisovskie Prudy and in Kapotnya.
I want to note the following: A stockpile of explosives was indeed discovered at the address on Borisovskie Prudy, with six timers, ready to be used. And this is where I, as a former intelligence operative, have a very serious question for the law enforcement agencies. If you really went to this address and discovered six timers there, and a stockpile of explosives, then why didn t you set up an ambush, as an operative would say, and arrest the criminals when they came to get these explosives, but announced everything on TV instead? In other words, warned the criminals that the location where these explosives and these timers were stored was known to the police.
Next. Achemez Gochiyaev gives [& ] information about the person at whose request he rented these storage spaces. I think this person won t be so hard to find if use is made of all available means for tracking a person down, including the means available to lawyers.
A lawyer has the right to track this person down. I think that the law enforcement agencies must also help in this task.
In addition, Achemez Gochiyaev makes the very serious claim that his sister was subjected to unlawful methods of investigation (she was tortured to make her denounce her brother). He also states that his brother, who works as a policeman in KarachayevoCherkessia, warned him that there were orders not to arrest him, but to eliminate him.
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These facts can also be checked, and I d like you to check them publicly and openly. In other words, I d like you to call these people in for the Commission s next meeting, in front of reporters, in front of the public, and let them testify or explain why they don t want to testify.
These are the statements that I consider most important. If they re verified, they can help us get to the truth in this matter. That s all.
Yushenkov: Alexander, could you show these videotapes and photographs now? And second: when was the last time you had contact with Gochiyaev? Are you sure that he s still alive, etc.?
Litvinenko: Let s start from his declaration. Here is his handwritten declaration on six pages.
Yushenkov: We received it, we have it. We haven t received the photographs and videotapes.
Litvinenko: I think that a comparison of his handwriting will make it easy determine whether or not he wrote it.
Second. Here are the photographs of himself that he sent us. Here are the magnified photographs. First photograph&
Yushenkov: Can we get more focus? Is there a cameraman there?& Maybe, closer to the camera, Yuri? No?
Felshtinsky: These photos will be delivered to you in electronic format. They re already up - I m just now being told - on the website Grani.ru. That s why we didn t send them.
It ll be easier to look at them on the internet.
Litvinenko: Here s a photo, here s a second photo of him. Here s another personal photo, another one.
Yushenkov: Thank you. If they ll be up on the website, there s no need.
Litvinenko: In order to establish whether or not this person is Gochiyaev, we consulted an expert and gave this expert all of these photographs together with the official photographs from the FSB website - the photograph from the Wanted section on their website. This is that photo, the photo from the Wanted section. Here s that photo and two photos in which he s pictured together with Khattab. Supposedly.
The expert s conclusion was that, based on the photographs that were sent us by Gochiyaev and on the photographs that are posted on the Wanted site, he could make a positive identification of Gochiyaev. In other words, this and this is the same person. The expert also said that this photograph, where Gochiyaev appears with Khattab - on this
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photograph, a positive identification cannot be made. This photograph cannot be used as evidence in court, and there may also be traces of digital manipulation. In other words, in normal language, this photograph is a fake, which cannot be a document.
And so the next question immediately comes up: what reasons does law enforcement have to show the public a fake?
Sergei Nikolayevich, could you repeat the questions.
Yushenkov: When was the last time you were in contact with Gochiyaev? You had no direct contact with him, right? Only through intermediaries?
Litvinenko: In terms of establishing a connection with Gochiyaev, establishing a contact with him - I d like Yuri Felshtinsky to clarify this issue, because all contacts& Well, first he had a contact with the intermediary, then I did. And you know, the situation here is like this: We re now trying not to lose this connection, this contact, because the agreement with the intermediary is that after these materials are verified& Gochiyaev writes, in fact, that this is a brief description, we ll talk about the details later.
My hope is that Gochiyaev himself will learn about what s happening, and if we have some other additional questions, I think he will give us answers. But I d ask Yuri Felshtinsky to talk about these contacts in greater detail.
Felshtinsky: I believe some information has already been given to you. The members of the Commission have it in printed form. But I want to say right from the start, before the reporters start asking questions about this topic, that our contacts are a one-sided affair.
Put it this way: Gochiyaev, the people around Gochiyaev, Gochiyaev s intermediaries, Gochiyaev s messengers - however you want to put it - have the opportunity to contact us, but we don t have the opportunity to contact them.
Nevertheless, this dialogue is perfectly real. The possibility of reaching Gochiyaev, of talking to Gochiyaev, undoubtedly exists. It s possible to get answers to certain questions. And in this sense, I think our work is more effective than that of certain government agencies. I think it s clear why this is so. For the same exact reason that it s clear to absolutely everyone, even to Gochiyaev, that what we re interested in is the truth, while the Federal Security Service is interested in completely different problems. That s the short answer to this question.
There was a question as to when the first contact was made. We ve described this episode, too. Gochiyaev gave his testimony in several installments on April 24, if I m not mistaken.
I d like to add a few words about the photographs. Here are the photographs that our independent expert in London has concluded are not very convincing or inauthentic and has even called a photo-montage. They are the only connection that exists between Khattab and Gochiyaev. In fact, it must be said that these photographs are currently the
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only connection between Khattab, Chechnya, and the September 1999 bombings. In other words, after many, many months of painstaking work by the Federal Security Service, they have no evidence and no indications that the September 1999 operations in Moscow were carried out by Chechens, by Chechen field commanders, including Khattab.
Moreover, we all know that some time ago the Federal Security Service arrested Dekkushev and brought him to Moscow, and that Dekkushev, according to the FSB s statement, testified that the bombings in Moscow had been perpetrated by this same Khattab, by these same Chechens.
In connection with this, I want to announce that we have in our possession the written testimony of two other participants - according to the FSB account - of the bombings in Moscow in September 1999, Krymshamkhalov and Batchayev. They ve already given us their testimony. And according to this testimony (which we have in written form, as well as on videotape), neither Khattab, nor any Chechen field commanders, nor any Chechens at all, had anything to do with the September 1999 bombings in Moscow. I make this announcement in connection with the fact that the Federal Security Service is currently involved in a quite real, serious hunt for these people, that it is entirely possible that sooner or later these people might meet the same fate that met Dekkushev, and we don t know what testimony they ll give once they re in the hands of the FSB.
Moreover, if the FSB is interested in the participants of bombings at the lowest level - people such as Dekkushev, Batchayev, and Krymshamkhalov, all of whom the FSB claims were participants in the bombings - then we, in contrast to the FSB, are interested not only in those who physically blew up the buildings, but also in those who issued the orders that these buildings should be blown up, and also in those who handled this operation at the middle level.
Therefore, I must announce, again publicly and openly, that according to Krymshamkhalov s and Batchayev s testimony, the leaders of the operation to blow up the buildings in Moscow in September 1999 are the Federal [Security] Service of the Russian Federation. In this same written testimony, the head of this operation is named as FSB Director Nikolai Platonovich Patrushev. According to this same written testimony, the individual in charge of its execution was Major General and Director of the Department for the Defense of Constitutional Order German Alekseevich Ugriumov, who died in unclear circumstances on 31 May 2001 (there are very serious reasons to believe that he was killed by the Federal Security Service itself).
Also, we are now checking the possibility that one of the real leaders of this operation at the ground level was the well-known security agent Max Lazovsky. As you know, it was more or less legally established that he had a connection to the terrorist attacks in Moscow in 1994, and most likely to the terrorist attacks in Moscow in 1996.
We are now checking all of this information. This information supplements the information from Gochiyaev, which we relayed to you earlier.
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Yushenkov: Thank you. Is there a representative of the FSB here? Who would like to ask a question, I mean. (Audience laughter.) No, yes? Sergei Adamovich, then how did we decide? First Commission members ask questions about specifics, and then reporters, yes?
Borschev: Alexander, could you be more specific: Gochiyaev personally called to warn about possible bombings on Borisovskie Prudy and in Kapotnya? And do we know the name of the person who received this information from him?
Litvinenko: According to Gochiyaev s declaration, on the morning of the 13th he personally called the police, the emergency medical service, and 911. As a former law enforcement agent, I know for a fact that all such communications are tape-recorded.
Therefore, I think that if the Commission requests and obtains from law enforcement the tape-recordings [of the phone calls] to 911, to the police, and to the emergency medical service, and if it listens to them at a meeting - publicly, openly - then all of this information can be checked.
In addition, the number of the mobile phone that Gochiyaev used can be established, and the records can be checked: what phone calls came from this number on the morning of the 13th. You can take a specific stretch of time and find out this information. This is a task for specialists. I think that Trepashkin and other lawyers are in a position to arrange it. They can write the official inquiry requests, obtain the records, submit them to experts, give them a legal, juridical evaluation, and present these materials in their entirety before the Commission and before the Russian public.
Thank you. I can probably give the floor to Alexander now.
Litvinenko: Hello. Thank you very, very much for inviting us to this meeting. Yuri Felshtinsky and I are giving these materials specifically to you. Why? Because you re working publicly and openly.
I want to add the following to what Felshtinsky has said. I d like you to question the people whom we re going to name as witnesses just as publicly and openly, with reporters present. This will protect all of us from all kinds of fabrications, machinations, insinuations, and charges to the effect that someone somewhere is trying to fabricate something or to give this whole matter a political spin. In other words, in order for us to find the truth and in order for people to believe that it really is the truth, we must do this openly. That s my position. And that s why I m turning specifically to you.
Felshtinsky: We re probably ready now to give the floor to Moscow, and to answer any questions that may come up or have already come up.
Yushenkov: Yuri, I still think that Alexander should very briefly go over the contents of the documents he sent us, to give the members of the press a chance to see the heart of the matter.
209
210
Litvinenko: Yes, of course. Here s what I want to say about the materials.
Yuri Felshtinsky and I managed to get in contact with Achemez Gochiyaev, who, according to the FSB account, is the leader of the terrorist group that organized the bombing of the apartment buildings in the city of Moscow in September 1999. I believe that the materials which Gochiyaev sent us are highly relevant for establishing the truth.
I want to stress that Achemez Gochiyaev came to us on his own initiative, and as far as I know, these materials, this declaration which he sent us, were given freely and voluntarily.
In his declaration, Achemez Gochiyaev provided quite detailed autobiographical information, which you, respected members of the Commission, should have no trouble verifying, In addition, Achemez Gochiyaev stated that he did, in fact, rent the spaces where the bombings took place. But that he did so at the request of his acquaintance.
In my view, the most important statement contained in this declaration is that Achemez Gochiyaev, after the second bombing took place - on September 13, on Kashirskoye Highway - that he himself, according to his own declaration, notified the police, the emergency medical service, and the 911 emergency service, that other bombings might take place at other addresses that he had rented, including the ones on Borisovskie Prudy and in Kapotnya.
I want to note the following: A stockpile of explosives was indeed discovered at the address on Borisovskie Prudy, with six timers, ready to be used. And this is where I, as a former intelligence operative, have a very serious question for the law enforcement agencies. If you really went to this address and discovered six timers there, and a stockpile of explosives, then why didn t you set up an ambush, as an operative would say, and arrest the criminals when they came to get these explosives, but announced everything on TV instead? In other words, warned the criminals that the location where these explosives and these timers were stored was known to the police.
Next. Achemez Gochiyaev gives [& ] information about the person at whose request he rented these storage spaces. I think this person won t be so hard to find if use is made of all available means for tracking a person down, including the means available to lawyers.
A lawyer has the right to track this person down. I think that the law enforcement agencies must also help in this task.
In addition, Achemez Gochiyaev makes the very serious claim that his sister was subjected to unlawful methods of investigation (she was tortured to make her denounce her brother). He also states that his brother, who works as a policeman in KarachayevoCherkessia, warned him that there were orders not to arrest him, but to eliminate him.
210
211
These facts can also be checked, and I d like you to check them publicly and openly. In other words, I d like you to call these people in for the Commission s next meeting, in front of reporters, in front of the public, and let them testify or explain why they don t want to testify.
These are the statements that I consider most important. If they re verified, they can help us get to the truth in this matter. That s all.
Yushenkov: Alexander, could you show these videotapes and photographs now? And second: when was the last time you had contact with Gochiyaev? Are you sure that he s still alive, etc.?
Litvinenko: Let s start from his declaration. Here is his handwritten declaration on six pages.
Yushenkov: We received it, we have it. We haven t received the photographs and videotapes.
Litvinenko: I think that a comparison of his handwriting will make it easy determine whether or not he wrote it.
Second. Here are the photographs of himself that he sent us. Here are the magnified photographs. First photograph&
Yushenkov: Can we get more focus? Is there a cameraman there?& Maybe, closer to the camera, Yuri? No?
Felshtinsky: These photos will be delivered to you in electronic format. They re already up - I m just now being told - on the website Grani.ru. That s why we didn t send them.
It ll be easier to look at them on the internet.
Litvinenko: Here s a photo, here s a second photo of him. Here s another personal photo, another one.
Yushenkov: Thank you. If they ll be up on the website, there s no need.
Litvinenko: In order to establish whether or not this person is Gochiyaev, we consulted an expert and gave this expert all of these photographs together with the official photographs from the FSB website - the photograph from the Wanted section on their website. This is that photo, the photo from the Wanted section. Here s that photo and two photos in which he s pictured together with Khattab. Supposedly.
The expert s conclusion was that, based on the photographs that were sent us by Gochiyaev and on the photographs that are posted on the Wanted site, he could make a positive identification of Gochiyaev. In other words, this and this is the same person. The expert also said that this photograph, where Gochiyaev appears with Khattab - on this
211
212
photograph, a positive identification cannot be made. This photograph cannot be used as evidence in court, and there may also be traces of digital manipulation. In other words, in normal language, this photograph is a fake, which cannot be a document.
And so the next question immediately comes up: what reasons does law enforcement have to show the public a fake?
Sergei Nikolayevich, could you repeat the questions.
Yushenkov: When was the last time you were in contact with Gochiyaev? You had no direct contact with him, right? Only through intermediaries?
Litvinenko: In terms of establishing a connection with Gochiyaev, establishing a contact with him - I d like Yuri Felshtinsky to clarify this issue, because all contacts& Well, first he had a contact with the intermediary, then I did. And you know, the situation here is like this: We re now trying not to lose this connection, this contact, because the agreement with the intermediary is that after these materials are verified& Gochiyaev writes, in fact, that this is a brief description, we ll talk about the details later.
My hope is that Gochiyaev himself will learn about what s happening, and if we have some other additional questions, I think he will give us answers. But I d ask Yuri Felshtinsky to talk about these contacts in greater detail.
Felshtinsky: I believe some information has already been given to you. The members of the Commission have it in printed form. But I want to say right from the start, before the reporters start asking questions about this topic, that our contacts are a one-sided affair.
Put it this way: Gochiyaev, the people around Gochiyaev, Gochiyaev s intermediaries, Gochiyaev s messengers - however you want to put it - have the opportunity to contact us, but we don t have the opportunity to contact them.
Nevertheless, this dialogue is perfectly real. The possibility of reaching Gochiyaev, of talking to Gochiyaev, undoubtedly exists. It s possible to get answers to certain questions. And in this sense, I think our work is more effective than that of certain government agencies. I think it s clear why this is so. For the same exact reason that it s clear to absolutely everyone, even to Gochiyaev, that what we re interested in is the truth, while the Federal Security Service is interested in completely different problems. That s the short answer to this question.
There was a question as to when the first contact was made. We ve described this episode, too. Gochiyaev gave his testimony in several installments on April 24, if I m not mistaken.
I d like to add a few words about the photographs. Here are the photographs that our independent expert in London has concluded are not very convincing or inauthentic and has even called a photo-montage. They are the only connection that exists between Khattab and Gochiyaev. In fact, it must be said that these photographs are currently the
212
213
only connection between Khattab, Chechnya, and the September 1999 bombings. In other words, after many, many months of painstaking work by the Federal Security Service, they have no evidence and no indications that the September 1999 operations in Moscow were carried out by Chechens, by Chechen field commanders, including Khattab.
Moreover, we all know that some time ago the Federal Security Service arrested Dekkushev and brought him to Moscow, and that Dekkushev, according to the FSB s statement, testified that the bombings in Moscow had been perpetrated by this same Khattab, by these same Chechens.
In connection with this, I want to announce that we have in our possession the written testimony of two other participants - according to the FSB account - of the bombings in Moscow in September 1999, Krymshamkhalov and Batchayev. They ve already given us their testimony. And according to this testimony (which we have in written form, as well as on videotape), neither Khattab, nor any Chechen field commanders, nor any Chechens at all, had anything to do with the September 1999 bombings in Moscow. I make this announcement in connection with the fact that the Federal Security Service is currently involved in a quite real, serious hunt for these people, that it is entirely possible that sooner or later these people might meet the same fate that met Dekkushev, and we don t know what testimony they ll give once they re in the hands of the FSB.
Moreover, if the FSB is interested in the participants of bombings at the lowest level - people such as Dekkushev, Batchayev, and Krymshamkhalov, all of whom the FSB claims were participants in the bombings - then we, in contrast to the FSB, are interested not only in those who physically blew up the buildings, but also in those who issued the orders that these buildings should be blown up, and also in those who handled this operation at the middle level.
Therefore, I must announce, again publicly and openly, that according to Krymshamkhalov s and Batchayev s testimony, the leaders of the operation to blow up the buildings in Moscow in September 1999 are the Federal [Security] Service of the Russian Federation. In this same written testimony, the head of this operation is named as FSB Director Nikolai Platonovich Patrushev. According to this same written testimony, the individual in charge of its execution was Major General and Director of the Department for the Defense of Constitutional Order German Alekseevich Ugriumov, who died in unclear circumstances on 31 May 2001 (there are very serious reasons to believe that he was killed by the Federal Security Service itself).
Also, we are now checking the possibility that one of the real leaders of this operation at the ground level was the well-known security agent Max Lazovsky. As you know, it was more or less legally established that he had a connection to the terrorist attacks in Moscow in 1994, and most likely to the terrorist attacks in Moscow in 1996.
We are now checking all of this information. This information supplements the information from Gochiyaev, which we relayed to you earlier.
213
214
Yushenkov: Thank you. Is there a representative of the FSB here? Who would like to ask a question, I mean. (Audience laughter.) No, yes? Sergei Adamovich, then how did we decide? First Commission members ask questions about specifics, and then reporters, yes?
Borschev: Alexander, could you be more specific: Gochiyaev personally called to warn about possible bombings on Borisovskie Prudy and in Kapotnya? And do we know the name of the person who received this information from him?
Litvinenko: According to Gochiyaev s declaration, on the morning of the 13th he personally called the police, the emergency medical service, and 911. As a former law enforcement agent, I know for a fact that all such communications are tape-recorded.
Therefore, I think that if the Commission requests and obtains from law enforcement the tape-recordings [of the phone calls] to 911, to the police, and to the emergency medical service, and if it listens to them at a meeting - publicly, openly - then all of this information can be checked.
In addition, the number of the mobile phone that Gochiyaev used can be established, and the records can be checked: what phone calls came from this number on the morning of the 13th. You can take a specific stretch of time and find out this information. This is a task for specialists. I think that Trepashkin and other lawyers are in a position to arrange it. They can write the official inquiry requests, obtain the records, submit them to experts, give them a legal, juridical evaluation, and present these materials in their entirety before the Commission and before the Russian public.
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