Mikhail Trepashkin: Profile of a Political Prisoner

Mikhail Trepashkin - the man who uncovered the secret of the 1999 Moscow bombings
Prepared by the Foundation for Civil Liberties

Mikhail Trepashkin is a Moscow lawyer arrested on a fabricated charge on the eve of a trial where he planned to present sensational evidence of the involvement of Russian special services in organizing the apartment building bombings in September 1999.

Circumstances of the arrest

1. Mikhail Trepashkin, a lawyer from Moscow, was arrested on October 22, 2003, on charges of illegal possession of a weapon after a pistol was found in his car. He himself claims that the pistol was planted. When Trepashkin's car was stopped by the GAI, a capture group was already waiting on the roadside. They openly threw a bundle into the car. It turned out to contain a pistol that had disappeared several years ago during a militant raid on a federal facility in Chechnya.
2. Trepashkin had long been in conflict with the Russian special services. In the past, he himself worked as an investigator, but in 1996 he was dismissed from the agencies after he refused to cover up a case of corruption among high-ranking FSB officials. In 1998, he took part in the famous press conference at which accusations were made against the FSB of rampant corruption and the organization of extrajudicial executions. At the time of his arrest, Trepashkin was already under investigation on another charge through the FSB - for disclosing state secrets. It is extremely unlikely that a lawyer who knows that the FSB is conducting