Lawyer Mikhail Trepashkin Cooperates with British Intelligence

Lawyer Mikhail Trepashkin agreed to cooperate with British intelligence, so claims the Federal Security Service.

[SP]Y?

...[Ma]karov, two cartridges for a Colt pistol, one cartridge for a Kalashnikov assault rifle, one hunting cartridge, and one for shooting from a sporting weapon.

MI-5 ON THE LINE

In a note sent from prison, Trepashkin reports: the basis of his criminal case was a letter from the FSB's Internal Security Directorate (USB). In the letter, the head of the USB reports: it became known to him that in London, representatives of the secret service MI-5 met with Alexander Litvinenko and Boris Berezovsky. During this meeting, Litvinenko allegedly provided the British intelligence representative with secret information about:

• The activities of the FSB.
• The organizational and staff structure of some of its units.
• The functional purposes of the FSB's structural units.
• The procedure for forming and making management decisions.
• The personnel of the FSB.

At this meeting, a large-scale action "on disinformation concerning the activities of the FSB of the Russian Federation and the apartment bombings in Moscow" was allegedly planned. Trepashkin was assigned the role in this matter of collecting compromising material on the Federal Security Service, since he, as a lawyer for one of the victims, had access to the materials of the criminal case on the apartment bombings.

According to the USB, Trepashkin allegedly expressed readiness to supply such information. In particular, he promised to obtain documents and a videotape of the detention during a controlled purchase of a batch of hexogen of a person who turned out to be an FSB agent.

We contacted both "London" figures of the letter by phone. Boris Berezovsky stated: "I never had any meetings with MI-5 officers." "I never had contacts with British special services," said Litvinenko.

The same letter says that back in 2000, documents compromising one of the FSB units appeared on one of the Internet sites. According to available information, the USB claims, these compromising documents were posted on the site by the same Trepashkin.

"undesirable for the FSB leadership."

And now — attention! The "management" letter ends, according to the defendant, with a demand to stop Trepashkin's criminal activities: not to allow him access to the materials of the criminal case on the apartment bombings, to seize secret documents stored in his apartment, to initiate a criminal case and arrest him.

WHAT IS THE FSB AFRAID OF?

The court will assess how convincing the prosecution's evidence is: whether the information disclosed by Trepashkin constitutes a state secret. Experts, whose conclusion is filed in the case, unequivocally state: this information contains a state secret.

Nevertheless, for a more correct assessment of such a situation, we, the laypeople, should not forget about the established practice in domestic justice. A person is convicted on formal grounds, although the true motives for his punishment may lie in a completely different plane.

If Mikhail Trepashkin correctly outlined the essence of the letter, it can be assumed that we are facing exactly such a case. The letter reveals the true motives for the criminal prosecution of the former FSB lieutenant colonel. Indeed, if Trepashkin is trying to collect compromising material on the state security service, and such compromising material does not exist in nature, why should the authorities fear the efforts of their former officer?

But, judging by the subsequent actions of the Chekists, such compromising material exists. And making it public is extremely undesirable for the leadership of the Federal Security Service.

At the same time, judging by the notes sent from the SIZO by Trepashkin, not everything in court is going as the prosecution planned. For example, witness Anatoly Zhukov, deputy head of the department in which the Chekist Trepashkin served, suddenly stated that the illegal actions of disclosing state secrets imputed to his former subordinate are a far-fetched pretext that has no legal basis.

Another former deputy head of the department in which Trepashkin served, retired Colonel of Justice Valentin Agibalov, actually turned from a prosecution witness into a defense witness in the courtroom. He stated, as the author of the note claims, that Trepashkin did not have access to many secret documents, the contents of which he allegedly disclosed.

I tried to double-check the information received from the prisoner, but Zhukov and Agibalov categorically refused to meet. However, the process continues. And many more surprises will likely appear in its course.

Igor KOROLKOV