Blowing Up Russia (41 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: We were contacted more or less the same way as with Gochiyaev. Yes, people got in touch with us and told us that they wanted to tell the truth, again, about what happened in September 1999. We are now in active contact with these people.
Naturally, as always, this contact isn t direct but through their intermediaries. I don t even know how to answer this question more precisely. These people, I repeat, are either participants or at least witnesses. They claim that they know everything [& ] - everything about what happened in Moscow in September 1999.
Alexander asked them questions, very many questions, to which they gave extensive answers. And from their answers to these questions (absolutely specific, so to speak, concrete questions, that we asked them) a very clear picture emerges.
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I repeat: this picture is that no Chechens, on any level, not even the hired Khattabs and so on, had anything to do with ordering the bombings in Moscow and Volgodonsk (and in Dagestan, by the way) in 1999, that this whole bombing campaign was organized by the Federal Security Service. I repeat: specific people are named.
Yushenkov: Yuri, when will you send us these materials, this testimony?
Felshtinsky: You know, I d like to say the following. You must understand, and I hope that the reporters will understand this also, that Alexander and I are two private citizens, we don t have ID s in our pockets, we don t have gun holsters on our belts, we don t have Russian or foreign law enforcement behind us. The work we re engaged in, which is actually quite difficult, exhausting, and even dangerous, is directed against a very powerful apparatus, which is called the Federal Security Service, that has tens of thousands of people working for it. While we strive to be as open as possible - going back to the question of openness - and to make public each new bit of evidence in this independent investigation of ours as quickly as possible - we (I hope you ll understand us) must devote a little attention to the safety of our work. And at this stage, right now, I don t want to give you the pieces of information that we already have, simply because, I repeat, these are people with whom - in contrast to Gochiyaev, with whom we re not in active contact at the moment - these are people, Krymshamkhalov and Batchayev, with whom we are in active contact, and from whom we re constantly receiving small installments of new information and new&
Yushenkov: Yura, everything s clear. Since the topic for today is only Gochiyaev, let s
[not] go into the topic of&
Litvinenko: Sergei Nikolayevich, I would also like to say, to point out, that we ourselves are constantly being watched. For example, Russian intelligence agents recently tried to enter my apartment. My wife didn t let them in. It was shown in court that they were not diplomats but Russian intelligence agents. Their documents [are in court], I can show them to you. You see what s going on? My relatives are being pressured. My close relatives, who come to visit me here, are detained and searched in Sheremetyevo, stripsearched, you understand? My 65-year-old mother-in-law was strip-searched in Sheremetyevo-2. There are constant threats. Over there is Mr. Trepashkin, the lawyer.
He ll confirm that they threatened me, that I ll be killed, thrown under a train, if I don t calm down. You see what s happening?
Yushenkov: No, we understand your position&
Litvinenko: These facts I ll also present to your Commission. I ll give you these facts.
Yushenkov: Fine, fine.
Litvinenko: Why are they doing this? Because they re not interested in being objective.
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Yushenkov: Please, next question.
RosBiznesKonsalting Information Agency: I have a question for Tatyana Morozova. If I m not mistaken, earlier you announced your intention to file a lawsuit against Russia in connection with the inadequate investigation of these bombings, [in which] your mother died. Tell us, please, have you acted on your intention, have you brought up charges?
Morozova: Yes, we filed a lawsuit and now the lawyers are handling it. The lawsuit was filed at the Lublin Municipal Court on March 4 of this year, right before the press conference on March 5.
I m very grateful to you, respected reporters and members of the press, for coming to this studio. I hope that my plea, my appeal, will reach all the people who answered those phone calls that Alexander spoke about, at the 03 emergency service, and the 911 emergency service. I hope that these people will respond and get in contact with the Moscow Commission that is investigating this tragedy. I truly hope that people will respond. I think that their hearts have not yet become frozen and that help will definitely come to us. Please, convey my appeal.
Yushenkov: Yes& Thank you. Who has questions? Raise your hand, so we can see.
Lev Moskovkin: I have a more ideological question. At the present time the position of the security services in the public consciousness is remarkably firm, in contrast to [& ] ago. Even if we take your side and accept your arguments - how should we understand them? What are you hoping to accomplish, what are you trying [& ]?
Yushenkov: I think we ve all said that we re investigating facts and want to determine the truth. El País, please.
Lev Moskovkin: That s probably a question for everyone, both for the Commission and for you& Well, you haven t answered& Alexander, the question is to you.
Litvinenko: I want to say the following. These bombings that happened - they affected every Russian family. How? Some people died under the ruins of these buildings. Some people are now fighting in Chechnya - the President of Russia has said explicitly that these bombings were the casus belli. Some people are now fighting in Chechnya, dying, killing. As for the majority of Russia s citizens, they have exchanged their freedom in return for safety. In other words, the people of Russia have given the law enforcement agencies permission, in return for their own safety, to search the trunks of their cars, to enter their apartments. They are forced to patrol the doorways of their buildings, and cannot walk twenty meters away from their apartment without a passport in their pocket, a residence permit, a registration. That s what we re talking about, you see.
And that s why I think that everyone must now define his own civic stance. And every Russian citizen must take an interest in discovering the truth. I want to find this truth, you understand? And to use, among other things, the experience that I have of twenty years in
226
227
law enforcement. I m not the most experienced agent. Nor am I an inexperienced agent. I don t want to say that. I ve simply served for twenty years, and I would like to devote the knowledge that I have to finding the criminals responsible for these bombings. That s my position.
Yushenkov: El País, Spain.
El País: I have a very specific question. Gochiyaev s testimony from April 24 shows that a certain man paid him a visit at his firm, a man whom he knew very well, and from the text it follows that this is the man who set him up. So the question is: why isn t this man named?
Yushenkov: This question has already been asked.
El País: Already been asked? I m sorry. But is this man from the FSB or not? (Audience laughter.) Felshtinsky: The last time Sasha answered, so I ll answer now. You see, what we ve shown you, what we ve received, is, I repeat, the first and so far the only written testimony of Gochiyaev s that we possess. I repeat: the assumption was - for Gochiyaev evidently, and for us of course - that this contact would continue.
On what grounds did Gochiyaev choose not to reveal the man s name (which we were very interested in, and believe me, this question was posed repeatedly, stubbornly and insistently) - I cannot now say. But as Alexander explained, to determine this man s name is a couple of days work for any investigator.
Nezavisimaya Gazeta: I have a question for the members of the Commission. Sergei Adamovich, you said that you re making use of official inquiry requests - sending letters to various agencies, government offices. I d like to know concretely: to what agencies, and how do they react? Are they receptive? Who tries to ignore you, and who [& ]?
Kovalyov: You see, I deliberately said that today there won t be any details about this issue. Probably, there won t be any details for quite a while. Why? I ll tell you. We re not limiting ourselves to isolated inquiry requests. We re engaged in an active correspondence. I have some experience from the 60s-80s, if you like. Not every response& You make a report about the correspondence only once you clearly understand that the correspondence is over, that everyone s position has been established and will not change. Then you can present it before the public.
Yushenkov: Some people have given very detailed answers.
Kovalyov: The most substantive and detailed answer came from the Minister of Education, Mr. Filippov.
Yushenkov: Simply about hexogene. About that research institute.
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228
As I understand it, there are no more questions. Our thanks to the reporters. Thank you, Alexander, Tatyana, Yuri. Sergei Adamovich, we ll conclude this part of the meeting for today, yes? Do the members of the Commission have any questions? When will we have our next meeting? [& ] Yes, fine. Respected reporters, thank you. Maybe we ll call a break and then meet in here? All right, so we ll call a break for the Commission members. Thank you, Alexander, Tatyana, Yuri. Goodbye.
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Appendix 15 An open letter to the Commission for the Investigation of the Bombings of Apartment Blocks in Moscow and Volgodonsk by Krymshamkhalov and Batchaev Esteemed Commission!
By force of circumstances we have found ourselves accomplices in a crime that took the lives of almost three hundred people. We are referring to the terrorist acts of September 1999 in Moscow and Volgodonsk.
Since then we have been declared wanted criminals at the federal and international levels and been obliged to hide from the law enforcement agencies of the Russian Federation.
Since September 1999 the special services of Russia have undertaken repeated attempts to arrest us or eliminate us. As a result of the statement made recently by Gochiyaev and ourselves in recent times these attempts have become more determined. It seems that in the near future our fate will indeed be arrest or death.
These are the reasons why we wish precisely at this time to address you in an open letter.
1. We confess to being accomplices in the terrorist acts that took place in Moscow and Volgodonsk in September 1999.
We declare that neither Khattab, nor Basaev, nor any of the Chechen field commanders had any connection whatever with the terrorist acts of September 1999.
We met Khattab and certain field commanders for the first time only after we had fled to Chechnya to evade pursuit by the Russian agencies of law enforcement following the terrorist acts.
2. We are accomplices in the terrorist acts at the very lowest level of execution, and we have no involvement at all with the actual explosions. We were only involved in transporting sacks, which we believed to contain explosive, for temporary storage and for subsequent use to blow up administrative buildings of the special services and military buildings, not apartment blocks.
We did not expect that the explosions would take place where the sacks were stored, in the basements of apartment blocks. We did not know the time when the terrorist acts were to be carried out.
Having learned of the explosions we fled to Chechnya.
3. Not being Chechens by nationality, we were sincere supporters of the Chechen people s struggle for independence. It is precisely these views of ours which allowed the
229
230
people who were really behind the organization and execution of the terrorist acts in Moscow and Volgodonsk in September 1999 to recruit us to take part in the organization of the terrorist acts. Today we understand that we were used blindfold and that in 1999 we did not understand who our commanders actually were and for whom we were actually working.
Today we understand this and we know. It has taken almost three years to come to terms with what happened, to gather the information and the proof of who actually stood behind us.
Many of those who took part in the September 1999 operations in Moscow, Volgodonsk, Ryazan and Dagestan are no longer alive. As long as we are alive, we want everyone to know what is most important. According to the information we have gathered, received from various participants in the operation at various levels, the instigator of the bombing operation in Russia in September 1999 was the Federal Security Service (FSB) of the Russian Federation. In this connection the name of the director of the FSB, Nikolai Platonovich Patrushev, was mentioned repeatedly.
The curator of the entire bombing program was German Ugriumov, who was subsequently eliminated, according to our information, by the FSB itself. According to our information the total number of members of the group was over thirty. We know only two of them as managers of the middle-level team: a lieutenant colonel, a Tatar by nationality, with the nickname (pseudonym) of Abubakar; 2) a colonel, a Russian by nationality, with the pseudonym of Abulgafur. We assume that Abulgafur and the wellknown Russian special services agent Max Lazovsky are one and the same person.
4. We have been implicated in a tragedy for the Chechen and Russian peoples. We beg forgiveness from those to whom we brought grief in September 1999. We also beg forgiveness from the Chechen people for being used blindfold by the FSB to begin the second Chechen war. We do not ask leniency for ourselves and we shall dedicate the remainder of our lives to the Chechen people s struggle for independence.
Yusuf Ibragimovich Krymshamkhalov, Karachaevan, born November 16, 1966
[signature]
Timur Amurovich Batchaev, Karachaevan, born June 27, 1978
[signature]
July 28, 2002
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Appendix 16
Yuri Felshtinsky
INTERVIEW WITH INTERNET SITE SOMNENIE.NAROD.RU
19 September 2002
The War to Destroy Witnesses - Yuri Georgievich, none of your articles or interviews are appearing in the press. Are reporters not interested or are you not talking to anyone?
During this whole time since 27 August 2001, when Novaya Gazeta published excerpts from my and Alexander Litvinenko s book, The FSB Blows Up Russia, Russian reporters have contacted me twice. In both instances, I gave exhaustive answers to all their questions. Several reporters from Western radio stations, including Radio Liberty, have called me to request interviews. I ve given interviews to absolutely everyone who s asked.
Naturally, as always, this contact isn t direct but through their intermediaries. I don t even know how to answer this question more precisely. These people, I repeat, are either participants or at least witnesses. They claim that they know everything [& ] - everything about what happened in Moscow in September 1999.
Alexander asked them questions, very many questions, to which they gave extensive answers. And from their answers to these questions (absolutely specific, so to speak, concrete questions, that we asked them) a very clear picture emerges.
224
225
I repeat: this picture is that no Chechens, on any level, not even the hired Khattabs and so on, had anything to do with ordering the bombings in Moscow and Volgodonsk (and in Dagestan, by the way) in 1999, that this whole bombing campaign was organized by the Federal Security Service. I repeat: specific people are named.
Yushenkov: Yuri, when will you send us these materials, this testimony?
Felshtinsky: You know, I d like to say the following. You must understand, and I hope that the reporters will understand this also, that Alexander and I are two private citizens, we don t have ID s in our pockets, we don t have gun holsters on our belts, we don t have Russian or foreign law enforcement behind us. The work we re engaged in, which is actually quite difficult, exhausting, and even dangerous, is directed against a very powerful apparatus, which is called the Federal Security Service, that has tens of thousands of people working for it. While we strive to be as open as possible - going back to the question of openness - and to make public each new bit of evidence in this independent investigation of ours as quickly as possible - we (I hope you ll understand us) must devote a little attention to the safety of our work. And at this stage, right now, I don t want to give you the pieces of information that we already have, simply because, I repeat, these are people with whom - in contrast to Gochiyaev, with whom we re not in active contact at the moment - these are people, Krymshamkhalov and Batchayev, with whom we are in active contact, and from whom we re constantly receiving small installments of new information and new&
Yushenkov: Yura, everything s clear. Since the topic for today is only Gochiyaev, let s
[not] go into the topic of&
Litvinenko: Sergei Nikolayevich, I would also like to say, to point out, that we ourselves are constantly being watched. For example, Russian intelligence agents recently tried to enter my apartment. My wife didn t let them in. It was shown in court that they were not diplomats but Russian intelligence agents. Their documents [are in court], I can show them to you. You see what s going on? My relatives are being pressured. My close relatives, who come to visit me here, are detained and searched in Sheremetyevo, stripsearched, you understand? My 65-year-old mother-in-law was strip-searched in Sheremetyevo-2. There are constant threats. Over there is Mr. Trepashkin, the lawyer.
He ll confirm that they threatened me, that I ll be killed, thrown under a train, if I don t calm down. You see what s happening?
Yushenkov: No, we understand your position&
Litvinenko: These facts I ll also present to your Commission. I ll give you these facts.
Yushenkov: Fine, fine.
Litvinenko: Why are they doing this? Because they re not interested in being objective.
225
226
Yushenkov: Please, next question.
RosBiznesKonsalting Information Agency: I have a question for Tatyana Morozova. If I m not mistaken, earlier you announced your intention to file a lawsuit against Russia in connection with the inadequate investigation of these bombings, [in which] your mother died. Tell us, please, have you acted on your intention, have you brought up charges?
Morozova: Yes, we filed a lawsuit and now the lawyers are handling it. The lawsuit was filed at the Lublin Municipal Court on March 4 of this year, right before the press conference on March 5.
I m very grateful to you, respected reporters and members of the press, for coming to this studio. I hope that my plea, my appeal, will reach all the people who answered those phone calls that Alexander spoke about, at the 03 emergency service, and the 911 emergency service. I hope that these people will respond and get in contact with the Moscow Commission that is investigating this tragedy. I truly hope that people will respond. I think that their hearts have not yet become frozen and that help will definitely come to us. Please, convey my appeal.
Yushenkov: Yes& Thank you. Who has questions? Raise your hand, so we can see.
Lev Moskovkin: I have a more ideological question. At the present time the position of the security services in the public consciousness is remarkably firm, in contrast to [& ] ago. Even if we take your side and accept your arguments - how should we understand them? What are you hoping to accomplish, what are you trying [& ]?
Yushenkov: I think we ve all said that we re investigating facts and want to determine the truth. El País, please.
Lev Moskovkin: That s probably a question for everyone, both for the Commission and for you& Well, you haven t answered& Alexander, the question is to you.
Litvinenko: I want to say the following. These bombings that happened - they affected every Russian family. How? Some people died under the ruins of these buildings. Some people are now fighting in Chechnya - the President of Russia has said explicitly that these bombings were the casus belli. Some people are now fighting in Chechnya, dying, killing. As for the majority of Russia s citizens, they have exchanged their freedom in return for safety. In other words, the people of Russia have given the law enforcement agencies permission, in return for their own safety, to search the trunks of their cars, to enter their apartments. They are forced to patrol the doorways of their buildings, and cannot walk twenty meters away from their apartment without a passport in their pocket, a residence permit, a registration. That s what we re talking about, you see.
And that s why I think that everyone must now define his own civic stance. And every Russian citizen must take an interest in discovering the truth. I want to find this truth, you understand? And to use, among other things, the experience that I have of twenty years in
226
227
law enforcement. I m not the most experienced agent. Nor am I an inexperienced agent. I don t want to say that. I ve simply served for twenty years, and I would like to devote the knowledge that I have to finding the criminals responsible for these bombings. That s my position.
Yushenkov: El País, Spain.
El País: I have a very specific question. Gochiyaev s testimony from April 24 shows that a certain man paid him a visit at his firm, a man whom he knew very well, and from the text it follows that this is the man who set him up. So the question is: why isn t this man named?
Yushenkov: This question has already been asked.
El País: Already been asked? I m sorry. But is this man from the FSB or not? (Audience laughter.) Felshtinsky: The last time Sasha answered, so I ll answer now. You see, what we ve shown you, what we ve received, is, I repeat, the first and so far the only written testimony of Gochiyaev s that we possess. I repeat: the assumption was - for Gochiyaev evidently, and for us of course - that this contact would continue.
On what grounds did Gochiyaev choose not to reveal the man s name (which we were very interested in, and believe me, this question was posed repeatedly, stubbornly and insistently) - I cannot now say. But as Alexander explained, to determine this man s name is a couple of days work for any investigator.
Nezavisimaya Gazeta: I have a question for the members of the Commission. Sergei Adamovich, you said that you re making use of official inquiry requests - sending letters to various agencies, government offices. I d like to know concretely: to what agencies, and how do they react? Are they receptive? Who tries to ignore you, and who [& ]?
Kovalyov: You see, I deliberately said that today there won t be any details about this issue. Probably, there won t be any details for quite a while. Why? I ll tell you. We re not limiting ourselves to isolated inquiry requests. We re engaged in an active correspondence. I have some experience from the 60s-80s, if you like. Not every response& You make a report about the correspondence only once you clearly understand that the correspondence is over, that everyone s position has been established and will not change. Then you can present it before the public.
Yushenkov: Some people have given very detailed answers.
Kovalyov: The most substantive and detailed answer came from the Minister of Education, Mr. Filippov.
Yushenkov: Simply about hexogene. About that research institute.
227
228
As I understand it, there are no more questions. Our thanks to the reporters. Thank you, Alexander, Tatyana, Yuri. Sergei Adamovich, we ll conclude this part of the meeting for today, yes? Do the members of the Commission have any questions? When will we have our next meeting? [& ] Yes, fine. Respected reporters, thank you. Maybe we ll call a break and then meet in here? All right, so we ll call a break for the Commission members. Thank you, Alexander, Tatyana, Yuri. Goodbye.
228
229
Appendix 15 An open letter to the Commission for the Investigation of the Bombings of Apartment Blocks in Moscow and Volgodonsk by Krymshamkhalov and Batchaev Esteemed Commission!
By force of circumstances we have found ourselves accomplices in a crime that took the lives of almost three hundred people. We are referring to the terrorist acts of September 1999 in Moscow and Volgodonsk.
Since then we have been declared wanted criminals at the federal and international levels and been obliged to hide from the law enforcement agencies of the Russian Federation.
Since September 1999 the special services of Russia have undertaken repeated attempts to arrest us or eliminate us. As a result of the statement made recently by Gochiyaev and ourselves in recent times these attempts have become more determined. It seems that in the near future our fate will indeed be arrest or death.
These are the reasons why we wish precisely at this time to address you in an open letter.
1. We confess to being accomplices in the terrorist acts that took place in Moscow and Volgodonsk in September 1999.
We declare that neither Khattab, nor Basaev, nor any of the Chechen field commanders had any connection whatever with the terrorist acts of September 1999.
We met Khattab and certain field commanders for the first time only after we had fled to Chechnya to evade pursuit by the Russian agencies of law enforcement following the terrorist acts.
2. We are accomplices in the terrorist acts at the very lowest level of execution, and we have no involvement at all with the actual explosions. We were only involved in transporting sacks, which we believed to contain explosive, for temporary storage and for subsequent use to blow up administrative buildings of the special services and military buildings, not apartment blocks.
We did not expect that the explosions would take place where the sacks were stored, in the basements of apartment blocks. We did not know the time when the terrorist acts were to be carried out.
Having learned of the explosions we fled to Chechnya.
3. Not being Chechens by nationality, we were sincere supporters of the Chechen people s struggle for independence. It is precisely these views of ours which allowed the
229
230
people who were really behind the organization and execution of the terrorist acts in Moscow and Volgodonsk in September 1999 to recruit us to take part in the organization of the terrorist acts. Today we understand that we were used blindfold and that in 1999 we did not understand who our commanders actually were and for whom we were actually working.
Today we understand this and we know. It has taken almost three years to come to terms with what happened, to gather the information and the proof of who actually stood behind us.
Many of those who took part in the September 1999 operations in Moscow, Volgodonsk, Ryazan and Dagestan are no longer alive. As long as we are alive, we want everyone to know what is most important. According to the information we have gathered, received from various participants in the operation at various levels, the instigator of the bombing operation in Russia in September 1999 was the Federal Security Service (FSB) of the Russian Federation. In this connection the name of the director of the FSB, Nikolai Platonovich Patrushev, was mentioned repeatedly.
The curator of the entire bombing program was German Ugriumov, who was subsequently eliminated, according to our information, by the FSB itself. According to our information the total number of members of the group was over thirty. We know only two of them as managers of the middle-level team: a lieutenant colonel, a Tatar by nationality, with the nickname (pseudonym) of Abubakar; 2) a colonel, a Russian by nationality, with the pseudonym of Abulgafur. We assume that Abulgafur and the wellknown Russian special services agent Max Lazovsky are one and the same person.
4. We have been implicated in a tragedy for the Chechen and Russian peoples. We beg forgiveness from those to whom we brought grief in September 1999. We also beg forgiveness from the Chechen people for being used blindfold by the FSB to begin the second Chechen war. We do not ask leniency for ourselves and we shall dedicate the remainder of our lives to the Chechen people s struggle for independence.
Yusuf Ibragimovich Krymshamkhalov, Karachaevan, born November 16, 1966
[signature]
Timur Amurovich Batchaev, Karachaevan, born June 27, 1978
[signature]
July 28, 2002
230
231
Appendix 16
Yuri Felshtinsky
INTERVIEW WITH INTERNET SITE SOMNENIE.NAROD.RU
19 September 2002
The War to Destroy Witnesses - Yuri Georgievich, none of your articles or interviews are appearing in the press. Are reporters not interested or are you not talking to anyone?
During this whole time since 27 August 2001, when Novaya Gazeta published excerpts from my and Alexander Litvinenko s book, The FSB Blows Up Russia, Russian reporters have contacted me twice. In both instances, I gave exhaustive answers to all their questions. Several reporters from Western radio stations, including Radio Liberty, have called me to request interviews. I ve given interviews to absolutely everyone who s asked.
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