Blowing Up Russia (40 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
But again, what is it I want to tell you? I turn to the law enforcement agents, to the people with whom I spent twenty years side by side on the force. I d like to ask these people to help you. Because it will be extremely difficult for lawyers to do this on their own. At least, not to interfere, you understand?
Latsis: You know, if the Commission has no objections, we will give the floor to the reporters? I m afraid that we re not leaving them much time.
Kovalyov: You anticipated my suggestion. And I would like to say that the Commission will prepare its questions and subsequently - but soon - will try to submit them to you.
There are many such questions. But now, we should probably give the press an opportunity to ask questions.
But I would like to make one brief comment. Your words, respected London colleagues, have one recurring theme: All the steps in the investigation must be transparent from the very beginning. Allow me to disagree with you. I will explain what I mean.
The Commission will undoubtedly publish a vast and detailed report about its work - when it considers it feasible and useful to do so, when this work will be nearing its end.
To make all the intermediate steps public? You know, I m somewhat surprised. After all, Mr. Litvinenko has participated in investigations. And I don t have to be a mind-reader to see that you re firmly committed to one specific account of the events (by the way, I note again that the Commission has no single account and is not examining any single account
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it s examining different accounts, as an investigative commission ought to do). You re committed to one, quite specific account. That is your right. But by making all the steps transparent from the very beginning - all the intermediate, technical steps - you give the people whom you suspect the opportunity to see your next step.
You often cite your professionalism in investigative work. Personally, I find this rigid insistence on the absolute transparency of all technical and intermediate steps very surprising. We in the Commission have an opportunity to discuss our working principles.
My colleagues can correct me, but I believe that most of the members of the Commission are inclined to hold many working sessions in private, and consider this expedient, and that the only thing that can be open, absolutely transparent and absolutely detailed, concealing no details, is the final conclusion.
I considered it necessary to make this remark specifically because you, Alexander, and you, Yuri, are constantly insisting on the opposite. I urge you to give this some thought.
Ashot Nasibov: In the press release for reporters that we have received here it says that Gochiyaev was given a video camera, through the intermediary, for recording his answers, and that he sent back a video recording and several photographs. We ve been shown the photographs. Why not show the video to the reporters?
Felshtinsky: You know, due to purely technical reasons, we don t quite understand how to do this. Yes, we are certainly ready to place the videotape at the disposal of the reporters. Let s say that this is a very short-term issue, connected with the technical transfer of this information, with the practical transfer of this information into the hands of the reporters.
Litvinenko: You can visit us yourselves, we ll be glad to give you a copy. You, personally.
Felshtinsky: Unfortunately, we cannot now come to Moscow.
Zoya Oryakhova (Prima news agency): I have two questions. Yesterday in Paris the Spokesman of the Chechen Democratic Association Borzali Ismailov held a press conference. He stated that Gochiyaev s declaration was in the hands of the Chechen public commission for the investigation of the bombings. He made this document public and said that, in his opinion, you obtained it through an American reporter. How can you comment on this statement?
Second question. In his declaration Gochiyaev states that he is prepared to make a public declaration before the press, but he thinks the guarantees for his safety in a third country will not be any better than [& ]. Could you help Gochiyaev make a public appearance in a third country [& ]?
Litvinenko: About the possibility of Gochiyaev meeting with reporters and making a statement before the press: we will definitely ask this question, only I don t know how he
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will arrange it. Frankly, that s his problem - how to organize it. I have no opportunity to travel to a third country. I m not a law enforcement agent and cannot - neither I nor Felshtinsky - undertake some secret operation, you understand. The transfer of a person to another country is a secret operation that we have no means or authority to organize.
Felshtinsky: About the publication of Gochiyaev s materials in the Chechen media (on the internet, as I understand it): this is just another indication of their authenticity, proving that their authenticity is accepted by the Chechen side also. We received these materials directly, without any tricky maneuvering. I don t know what they mean when they say that we obtained them through some American reporter.
Yushenkov: These materials are authentic - Prima news agency?
Litvinenko: We now have an opportunity to check: we can look at Gochiyaev s handwriting. I think the passport office will have a sample. We can ask his wife, his sister. She will bring us his letters, notebooks, records, and we can check: is the handwriting his or not his? That s not a problem. It s easily done.
Ezhenedelny Zhurnal: From what it says in the press release that we received, your contacts with Gochiyaev s representative took place in March-April. Why is this information being made public only now, four months later? What were you doing these four months?
Litvinenko: First, we were verifying the materials here, verifying whatever we could.
Second, we were getting in touch with members of the Commission and asking them to make these materials public. We made our request to make these materials public, I think, about one or one-and-a-half months ago, after additionally verifying them, and the 25th was set as a date. We saw no need, when we received the materials, to run somewhere with them that very day. They had to be verified. We also had to establish a contact - to say that we were going to publish them, that we were going to make them public - and to obtain an answer. So that, for instance, the contact shouldn t disappear in case there were any additional questions. There s a certain question of correctness here.
Felshtinsky: Also, two other considerations. First of all, it took some time before the reception of the information from Gochiyaev produced concrete results. And also, as has already been said, we were getting expert opinions about the photographs.
Kommersant newspaper: Could you give us the name of the lab of the expert who considers the photo of Khattab with Gochiyaev a fake?
Litvinenko: This is his business card, his name - Kommersant newspaper: That s all in the press release. Name the lab where he works.
Litvinenko:& This person is an official expert. He gives testimony in British and international courts. I know that yesterday he got phone calls from reporters. He was
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giving expert testimony in a British court. He has a license. Here, for example, is a notarized confirmation of his findings.
Kommersant newspaper: Why don t you show the videotape you received?
Felshtinsky: That s a question for those who arranged the technical transfer of the documents. I don t know much about this side of things. But I know that the photographs were delivered, but& You yourself can come or ask someone - we ll give it to you.
We ll make multiple copies. There s no question here. Currently, there are only two or three copies of the tape, to be honest. Also, we didn t fully understand until the last moment in what format the photographs and texts themselves were going to be delivered& The texts and photographs were sent to us only, I think, either today, or late yesterday. That s basically it. I repeat, this is just a question of time.
Kommersant newspaper: A question for Mr. Felshtinsky. You mentioned some additional testimony from a certain Batchayev, who claims that Khattab has no relation to the bombings in Moscow, and that Gochiyaev doesn t either. Who are the people making these claims?
Felshtinsky: These are very well-known people. These are the people who are accused by the Federal Security Service of organizing the bombings in Moscow and Volgodonsk.
These are the people who are currently being rather actively pursued by the FSB in Georgia. These are the people about whom the FSB declares (such a declaration was made, I believe, two days ago to one of the wire news services) that the question of their arrest is only a matter of time, a short period of time. I readily believe that the question of their arrest may indeed be only a matter of a short period of time.
Precisely because experience shows that people who wind up in the FSB s interrogation rooms for some reason give testimony that is advantageous exclusively for the FSB, and moreover that even this testimony, in contrast to the testimony that we receive in written form and that we make public, is not shown to the public& In order to prevent the same thing from happening - when these people end up in the FSB s hands and then start testifying that they got the order to blow up the buildings from Khattab or from some Chechen field commanders - I wanted to make use of this opportunity and to get it down on record that we already have written testimony from Batchayev and from Krymshamkhalov.
And this written testimony, I repeat, does not confirm the FSB s account. Rather, it indicates that neither Khattab, nor any of the Chechen field commanders, nor anyone from the Chechen leadership, was behind the September 1999 bombings or paid money for the organization of the September 1999 bombings, and that completely different people are behind these bombings, namely, I repeat, the Federal Security Service, under the leadership of concretely named individuals - Patrushev and German Ugriumov.
Kommersant newspaper: What is the basis of&
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Litvinenko: I want to add to what Felshtinsky has said. When the FSB gives us, for example, Dekkushev s testimony, they give us nothing except the testimony. You know: Dekkushev said& - and that s it. But [& ] Gochiyaev has made this declaration, but if Gochiyaev gets caught by the FSB, the FSB will say: Gochiyaev said this& In other words, besides the testimony, there s nothing else. That s the first thing.
And second, you understand that the FSB is an interested party. In Ryazan, there s direct evidence of an attempt to blow up an apartment building. For two-three years now, Patrushev is being directly accused of terrorism. This is not just something I say. This is something said by the media. They state openly that Patrushev organized these bombings.
And there hasn t been a single coherent response! You see what s going on? Not a single FSB agent came to this meeting& [They went to] the British security services. Why the security services? Because these services are secret. That s why they go to them. They re hoping that I ll pass these materials to the British security services, and that from these security services these materials will secretly pass to Mr. Patrushev, and that we ll never hear anything about them.
That s why I say one more time: I m prepared to answer the questions of any security services only publicly.
Felshtinsky: Still, I have the impression that we cut you off and you didn t finish your question - from Russia.
Question: Question from Russia - here, please! Question from Russia! (Audience noise.) Question: Mr. Felshtinsky, tell us, please, what is these people s testimony based on?
What does Patrushev have to do with it, what does Khattab have to do with it? Nothing is clear.
Felshtinsky: The point is that these people are, according the FSB and in our opinion, the main witnesses in the case of the September 1999 bombings. An official warrant for their arrest has been issued by the General Prosecutor of the Russian Federation. I repeat: according to the FSB and in our opinion, they are at the very least the principal witnesses (together with Dekkushev, perhaps) in the September 1999 bombings. These are vary valuable, very important witnesses. And tomorrow something is going happen to them. If tomorrow, for example, they re accidentally killed while being taken into custody in Georgia, we risk never knowing what they know about the September 1999 bombings in Moscow.
I have the written testimony of both participants (or suspected participants) of these events, stating that they know everything about the events of September 1999 and are ready to tell it.
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Sergei Kuznetsov: I have a question from Russia. Sergei Kuznetsov, Radio Liberty, Ekaterinburg edition. A question for Alexander Felshtinsky. Exactly what you were just&
Excuse me, for Alexander Litvinenko.
September 2 (going back to the book) is the anniversary of the possible signing of the decree that s published in your book: to dissolve the FSB. Don t you think that such a decree would be remarkably appropriate right now? This would give the Commission the best opportunity to work effectively. Has your attitude to this decree changed at all? And, at the very least, would you not recommend that our president immediately remove Mr.
Patrushev - at least for the duration of this Commission s investigation?
Litvinenko: Recommend to Putin to remove someone from their post? I consider this inappropriate. He is a grown man, occupies a high position, and must decide for himself whom to appoint and whom to remove. He is personally responsible for his subordinates.
Regarding the decree. There is a law about terrorism, about the fight against terrorism in the Russian Federation. The law clearly states that an organization which contains elements that are engaged in terrorism and that the leadership knows about must be declared a terrorist organization and dissolved.
But we already have instances when agents of the Federal Security Service committed terrorist attacks: Captain Schelenkov, 1994, the bombing of the railroad; Lieutenant Colonel Vorobyov, the bombing of the bus, before the start of the first war in Chechnya.
Based on these facts alone we can already pose a question in terms of the law about fighting terrorism: in general, does the FSB of the Russian Federation - under the current conditions in Russia, within the framework of the current laws and Constitution - does it operate within the bounds of what is acceptable in the country, or doesn t it? If we bring up these facts& (Audience noise.) Yushenkov: Alexander, I understand. Yuri and Alexander, you still haven t answered the question from Kommersant: where did you get the testimony of these new parties about this matter? And on what basis, in general, did they supply you with this evidence, and so on? And what support is there - does the testimony that you have have any objective support?
Latsis: You know, if the Commission has no objections, we will give the floor to the reporters? I m afraid that we re not leaving them much time.
Kovalyov: You anticipated my suggestion. And I would like to say that the Commission will prepare its questions and subsequently - but soon - will try to submit them to you.
There are many such questions. But now, we should probably give the press an opportunity to ask questions.
But I would like to make one brief comment. Your words, respected London colleagues, have one recurring theme: All the steps in the investigation must be transparent from the very beginning. Allow me to disagree with you. I will explain what I mean.
The Commission will undoubtedly publish a vast and detailed report about its work - when it considers it feasible and useful to do so, when this work will be nearing its end.
To make all the intermediate steps public? You know, I m somewhat surprised. After all, Mr. Litvinenko has participated in investigations. And I don t have to be a mind-reader to see that you re firmly committed to one specific account of the events (by the way, I note again that the Commission has no single account and is not examining any single account
219
220
it s examining different accounts, as an investigative commission ought to do). You re committed to one, quite specific account. That is your right. But by making all the steps transparent from the very beginning - all the intermediate, technical steps - you give the people whom you suspect the opportunity to see your next step.
You often cite your professionalism in investigative work. Personally, I find this rigid insistence on the absolute transparency of all technical and intermediate steps very surprising. We in the Commission have an opportunity to discuss our working principles.
My colleagues can correct me, but I believe that most of the members of the Commission are inclined to hold many working sessions in private, and consider this expedient, and that the only thing that can be open, absolutely transparent and absolutely detailed, concealing no details, is the final conclusion.
I considered it necessary to make this remark specifically because you, Alexander, and you, Yuri, are constantly insisting on the opposite. I urge you to give this some thought.
Ashot Nasibov: In the press release for reporters that we have received here it says that Gochiyaev was given a video camera, through the intermediary, for recording his answers, and that he sent back a video recording and several photographs. We ve been shown the photographs. Why not show the video to the reporters?
Felshtinsky: You know, due to purely technical reasons, we don t quite understand how to do this. Yes, we are certainly ready to place the videotape at the disposal of the reporters. Let s say that this is a very short-term issue, connected with the technical transfer of this information, with the practical transfer of this information into the hands of the reporters.
Litvinenko: You can visit us yourselves, we ll be glad to give you a copy. You, personally.
Felshtinsky: Unfortunately, we cannot now come to Moscow.
Zoya Oryakhova (Prima news agency): I have two questions. Yesterday in Paris the Spokesman of the Chechen Democratic Association Borzali Ismailov held a press conference. He stated that Gochiyaev s declaration was in the hands of the Chechen public commission for the investigation of the bombings. He made this document public and said that, in his opinion, you obtained it through an American reporter. How can you comment on this statement?
Second question. In his declaration Gochiyaev states that he is prepared to make a public declaration before the press, but he thinks the guarantees for his safety in a third country will not be any better than [& ]. Could you help Gochiyaev make a public appearance in a third country [& ]?
Litvinenko: About the possibility of Gochiyaev meeting with reporters and making a statement before the press: we will definitely ask this question, only I don t know how he
220
221
will arrange it. Frankly, that s his problem - how to organize it. I have no opportunity to travel to a third country. I m not a law enforcement agent and cannot - neither I nor Felshtinsky - undertake some secret operation, you understand. The transfer of a person to another country is a secret operation that we have no means or authority to organize.
Felshtinsky: About the publication of Gochiyaev s materials in the Chechen media (on the internet, as I understand it): this is just another indication of their authenticity, proving that their authenticity is accepted by the Chechen side also. We received these materials directly, without any tricky maneuvering. I don t know what they mean when they say that we obtained them through some American reporter.
Yushenkov: These materials are authentic - Prima news agency?
Litvinenko: We now have an opportunity to check: we can look at Gochiyaev s handwriting. I think the passport office will have a sample. We can ask his wife, his sister. She will bring us his letters, notebooks, records, and we can check: is the handwriting his or not his? That s not a problem. It s easily done.
Ezhenedelny Zhurnal: From what it says in the press release that we received, your contacts with Gochiyaev s representative took place in March-April. Why is this information being made public only now, four months later? What were you doing these four months?
Litvinenko: First, we were verifying the materials here, verifying whatever we could.
Second, we were getting in touch with members of the Commission and asking them to make these materials public. We made our request to make these materials public, I think, about one or one-and-a-half months ago, after additionally verifying them, and the 25th was set as a date. We saw no need, when we received the materials, to run somewhere with them that very day. They had to be verified. We also had to establish a contact - to say that we were going to publish them, that we were going to make them public - and to obtain an answer. So that, for instance, the contact shouldn t disappear in case there were any additional questions. There s a certain question of correctness here.
Felshtinsky: Also, two other considerations. First of all, it took some time before the reception of the information from Gochiyaev produced concrete results. And also, as has already been said, we were getting expert opinions about the photographs.
Kommersant newspaper: Could you give us the name of the lab of the expert who considers the photo of Khattab with Gochiyaev a fake?
Litvinenko: This is his business card, his name - Kommersant newspaper: That s all in the press release. Name the lab where he works.
Litvinenko:& This person is an official expert. He gives testimony in British and international courts. I know that yesterday he got phone calls from reporters. He was
221
222
giving expert testimony in a British court. He has a license. Here, for example, is a notarized confirmation of his findings.
Kommersant newspaper: Why don t you show the videotape you received?
Felshtinsky: That s a question for those who arranged the technical transfer of the documents. I don t know much about this side of things. But I know that the photographs were delivered, but& You yourself can come or ask someone - we ll give it to you.
We ll make multiple copies. There s no question here. Currently, there are only two or three copies of the tape, to be honest. Also, we didn t fully understand until the last moment in what format the photographs and texts themselves were going to be delivered& The texts and photographs were sent to us only, I think, either today, or late yesterday. That s basically it. I repeat, this is just a question of time.
Kommersant newspaper: A question for Mr. Felshtinsky. You mentioned some additional testimony from a certain Batchayev, who claims that Khattab has no relation to the bombings in Moscow, and that Gochiyaev doesn t either. Who are the people making these claims?
Felshtinsky: These are very well-known people. These are the people who are accused by the Federal Security Service of organizing the bombings in Moscow and Volgodonsk.
These are the people who are currently being rather actively pursued by the FSB in Georgia. These are the people about whom the FSB declares (such a declaration was made, I believe, two days ago to one of the wire news services) that the question of their arrest is only a matter of time, a short period of time. I readily believe that the question of their arrest may indeed be only a matter of a short period of time.
Precisely because experience shows that people who wind up in the FSB s interrogation rooms for some reason give testimony that is advantageous exclusively for the FSB, and moreover that even this testimony, in contrast to the testimony that we receive in written form and that we make public, is not shown to the public& In order to prevent the same thing from happening - when these people end up in the FSB s hands and then start testifying that they got the order to blow up the buildings from Khattab or from some Chechen field commanders - I wanted to make use of this opportunity and to get it down on record that we already have written testimony from Batchayev and from Krymshamkhalov.
And this written testimony, I repeat, does not confirm the FSB s account. Rather, it indicates that neither Khattab, nor any of the Chechen field commanders, nor anyone from the Chechen leadership, was behind the September 1999 bombings or paid money for the organization of the September 1999 bombings, and that completely different people are behind these bombings, namely, I repeat, the Federal Security Service, under the leadership of concretely named individuals - Patrushev and German Ugriumov.
Kommersant newspaper: What is the basis of&
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223
Litvinenko: I want to add to what Felshtinsky has said. When the FSB gives us, for example, Dekkushev s testimony, they give us nothing except the testimony. You know: Dekkushev said& - and that s it. But [& ] Gochiyaev has made this declaration, but if Gochiyaev gets caught by the FSB, the FSB will say: Gochiyaev said this& In other words, besides the testimony, there s nothing else. That s the first thing.
And second, you understand that the FSB is an interested party. In Ryazan, there s direct evidence of an attempt to blow up an apartment building. For two-three years now, Patrushev is being directly accused of terrorism. This is not just something I say. This is something said by the media. They state openly that Patrushev organized these bombings.
And there hasn t been a single coherent response! You see what s going on? Not a single FSB agent came to this meeting& [They went to] the British security services. Why the security services? Because these services are secret. That s why they go to them. They re hoping that I ll pass these materials to the British security services, and that from these security services these materials will secretly pass to Mr. Patrushev, and that we ll never hear anything about them.
That s why I say one more time: I m prepared to answer the questions of any security services only publicly.
Felshtinsky: Still, I have the impression that we cut you off and you didn t finish your question - from Russia.
Question: Question from Russia - here, please! Question from Russia! (Audience noise.) Question: Mr. Felshtinsky, tell us, please, what is these people s testimony based on?
What does Patrushev have to do with it, what does Khattab have to do with it? Nothing is clear.
Felshtinsky: The point is that these people are, according the FSB and in our opinion, the main witnesses in the case of the September 1999 bombings. An official warrant for their arrest has been issued by the General Prosecutor of the Russian Federation. I repeat: according to the FSB and in our opinion, they are at the very least the principal witnesses (together with Dekkushev, perhaps) in the September 1999 bombings. These are vary valuable, very important witnesses. And tomorrow something is going happen to them. If tomorrow, for example, they re accidentally killed while being taken into custody in Georgia, we risk never knowing what they know about the September 1999 bombings in Moscow.
I have the written testimony of both participants (or suspected participants) of these events, stating that they know everything about the events of September 1999 and are ready to tell it.
223
224
Sergei Kuznetsov: I have a question from Russia. Sergei Kuznetsov, Radio Liberty, Ekaterinburg edition. A question for Alexander Felshtinsky. Exactly what you were just&
Excuse me, for Alexander Litvinenko.
September 2 (going back to the book) is the anniversary of the possible signing of the decree that s published in your book: to dissolve the FSB. Don t you think that such a decree would be remarkably appropriate right now? This would give the Commission the best opportunity to work effectively. Has your attitude to this decree changed at all? And, at the very least, would you not recommend that our president immediately remove Mr.
Patrushev - at least for the duration of this Commission s investigation?
Litvinenko: Recommend to Putin to remove someone from their post? I consider this inappropriate. He is a grown man, occupies a high position, and must decide for himself whom to appoint and whom to remove. He is personally responsible for his subordinates.
Regarding the decree. There is a law about terrorism, about the fight against terrorism in the Russian Federation. The law clearly states that an organization which contains elements that are engaged in terrorism and that the leadership knows about must be declared a terrorist organization and dissolved.
But we already have instances when agents of the Federal Security Service committed terrorist attacks: Captain Schelenkov, 1994, the bombing of the railroad; Lieutenant Colonel Vorobyov, the bombing of the bus, before the start of the first war in Chechnya.
Based on these facts alone we can already pose a question in terms of the law about fighting terrorism: in general, does the FSB of the Russian Federation - under the current conditions in Russia, within the framework of the current laws and Constitution - does it operate within the bounds of what is acceptable in the country, or doesn t it? If we bring up these facts& (Audience noise.) Yushenkov: Alexander, I understand. Yuri and Alexander, you still haven t answered the question from Kommersant: where did you get the testimony of these new parties about this matter? And on what basis, in general, did they supply you with this evidence, and so on? And what support is there - does the testimony that you have have any objective support?
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