THE ACCUSED ACCUSE

Penitential letters

The news began with the appearance on March 5, 2002, of Yuri Felshtinsky's film 'Assassination of Russia' — about the lies surrounding the Ryazan 'exercises.' Despite all its vividness and persuasiveness, the film did not prove fatal for the Chekists, but for some reason, it was from that moment that events began to develop.

• At the end of March, Khattab was poisoned (as the FSB wrote on its website, 'as a result of a successfully conducted operation').
• Around the same days, the same service published photographs 'found on a Chechen militant,' where Khattab is allegedly filmed together with Achimez Gochiyayev.
• And around the same time, Gochiyayev's letter was written (it is dated April 24, but was only made public on July 24).

On July 17, Adam Dekkushev, who was put on the wanted list in 1999 as a member of Gochiyayev's group, was detained in Georgia and extradited to Russia. In the very first days after his placement in Lefortovo, it was announced that he was 'already giving testimony.' The only substantive report that has appeared since then was a press release from Dekkushev's first lawyer, Evgeny Nechaev. The lawyer reported that the detainee regretted what he had done, but the overwhelming part of the press release was devoted to exposing the role of Berezovsky and other oligarchs, which was ruinous for Russia. Dekkushev's lawyer was replaced.

A week later, on July 24, a new sensation: the publication of Gochiyayev's letter. A day before the previously announced July 25 teleconference — a joint open meeting of the London Group and the Kovalev Commission, at which Litvinenko and Felshtinsky promised to hand over important documents to Muscovites (referring to this letter and expert conclusions) — the letter was made public by Borzali Ismailov, a member of the Chechen Democratic Association, who held a press conference on this occasion in Paris and handed the letter to the Moscow human rights agency 'Prima.'

On six notebook pages, the main suspect sets out his version of events: yes, he rented basements, but he did so at the request of an old acquaintance who later turned out to be an FSB officer, and he did not know that explosives would be placed there. He emphasizes in a separate line: 'I never had anything to do with the FSB and other similar structures.'

Achimez Gochiyayev in different years

In Moscow in June 1999, Gochiyayev reports, 'a man came to my company whom I knew very well, since my school days.' He suggested jointly engaging in the sale of food products. First, he asked Gochiyayev to purchase mineral water and paid for it on time. Then he asked to rent 'premises in the southeast of Moscow, where he allegedly had sales points. When in two of...