EVENTS

Main Suspects

(Conclusion. Beginning on page 1)

In an official commentary, the Chekists explained their position simply: "We do not intend to participate in a publicity stunt by dubious people, let alone enter into a polemic with them." The logic of the statement is strange, to say the least, considering that a week ago Lubyanka itself asked colleagues from London for help in contacting and obtaining information from those same "dubious people."

During the teleconference, deputy Sergei Yushenkov, who is a member of the public commission, specifically addressed those gathered in the hall: "Gentlemen, are there any FSB officers present here? If so, please ask your questions to Mr. Litvinenko." Those present looked around cheerfully, but no one dared to declare that they were from the Cheka. Thus, Litvinenko again avoided contact with his former colleagues and was forced to answer only questions from commission members and journalists.

Former FSB Lieutenant Colonel and his current partner in the investigation of the Russian bombings, Yuri Felshtinsky, spoke in detail about how they "established contact" with Gochiyayev and what documents they possess.

According to them, a person on behalf of Achimez Gochiyayev first made contact at the end of March. He agreed to pass written questions and a video camera to Gochiyayev on behalf of Felshtinsky. Some time later, the intermediary reappeared and handed over a video interview with Gochiyayev, his photographs, and a handwritten version of events. Thus, Litvinenko and Felshtinsky had the opportunity to compare the photographs posted on the FSB website on the Internet—Gochiyayev's wanted poster and his photo in the company of Khattab—with the photos received from the suspect himself. Both sets of photos were submitted for independent professional expertise. According to the expert's conclusion, the wanted photo and the photos sent by Gochiyayev indeed depict the same person. As for the photographs with Khattab, according to the expert's conclusion, they "are not forensically reliable and cannot be used as evidence." Simply put, these photos from the official, I emphasize, FSB website may be a fake.

Gochiyayev's written testimony is also quite curious, in which he confirmed for the first time that he did indeed rent basements in Moscow buildings. In order not to retell this testimony and not to distort the author's style of presentation, we publish the main part of this document, omitting only insignificant details:

"... As I wrote earlier, I lived and worked in Moscow; in June 1999, a man came to my company whom I knew very well, since my school days. He suggested that we engage in a business together; he said that he had good opportunities for the sale of food products. First, he ordered mineral water from me; I brought it to him, he sold it and settled accounts with me on time. Then he told me that he needed premises in the southeast of Moscow where he supposedly had sales points.

I helped him arrange these premises on Guryanova, on Kashirka, Borisovskiye Ponds, and Kapotnya. On September 9, I was visiting friends, and at about 5 a.m. this person called my mobile and said that there was a large fire at the warehouse on Guryanova and I needed to go there; I said I would come and began to get ready, turned on the TV and saw what had actually happened, and I decided not to go anywhere and to [report it]. On September 13, when the explosion on Kashirskoye Highway occurred, I finally realized that I had been set up. I immediately called the police, the ambulance, even the 911 rescue service and reported the warehouses on Borisovskiye Ponds and Kapotnya, where after this the explosions were successfully prevented. I was declared a suspect, then an organizer, and since then I have had to hide. Analyzing these events, I come to the conclusion that this entire monstrous plan was developed and implemented by those people for whom it was beneficial. But there was one glitch in their plan: the fact that I managed to get away from them; I think the fact that on September 9 I was not at home but visiting friends played its role. Now I am almost certain that this person with whom I worked (I will provide all data on him later) is an FSB agent.

Internal affairs officers in the city of Karachayevsk, when preparing documents for Moscow upon request, indicated in them that I am a native of Chechnya, in order to somehow link me with Chechnya, when in fact I have never lived in Chechnya.

From my brother Boris Gochiyayev, who works in the regional police department, I learned that they have an order not to take me alive. Then I realized that the publicity the FSB gave me by declaring me a terrorist, an organizer of bombings, a villain, etc., that all this was done on purpose; they hoped that by liquidating me, they could trumpet to the whole country and the whole world that such a 'super-terrorist' who blew up houses in Moscow had been destroyed, and thereby close this terrible topic..."

The special value of this testimony lies not only in the fact that it was given by a person whom our special services call the main organizer of the Moscow bombings and who has been unsuccessfully sought for almost three years. The value is in the details, which are easily verifiable. If, of course, the official investigation has the desire to actually check anything that differs from the FSB version. The public commission, which does not limit itself to versions and events, has such a desire. Therefore, the commission intends to do what investigators should have done long ago, namely: to find out whether on September 13, 1999, Achimez Gochiyayev indeed called the city's operational services and named the addresses of two more houses with hexogen warehouses. This can be checked both by archival records and by printouts from...

[Photo caption]: During the commission meeting.