September Terror

Collection of materials on the apartment bombings in Moscow and Volgodonsk
Supplement to issue 7

THE LUBYANKA VECTOR
Report of the Moscow research group

Mark Ulensch

Contents:

• CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION
  • Krasnodarskaya Street. A terrorist's mistake? 2
  • Borisovskie Prudy. Thank you, doctor! 4
  • Guryanova Street. Bird of the seas and ship of the desert (chapter currently missing)
  • Kashirskoye Highway. One's own are those who pay 6
• THE ACCUSED ACCUSE
  • Letters of repentance 7
  • The Perovo lead? 9
• PREDICTIONS
  • The Chechen lead, leading to Lubyanka 11
  • Volunteer Mylnikov 12
  • The Perovo lead again? 13
• VECTOR 14
• MISCELLANEOUS
  • The Uzbek lead 16
  • Something about Ryazan 17
  • They are no longer being sought 19

What has happened over the last two years

• 14.11.2001. A closed court in Stavropol sentenced five Karachays to terms ranging from 9 to 15 years on charges of preparing terrorist acts. The original charge of complicity in organizing the 1999 apartment bombings was dropped for all defendants.
• 24.4.2002. This date marks a letter from Gochiyayev (published 24.7.2002).
• 17.7.2002. One of the accused, Dekkushev, was detained.
• 28.7.2002. This date marks a letter from Krymshamkhalov and Batchaev (published in December 2002, received by the media before 7.12.2002).
• 20.8.2002. This date marks a video interview with Gochiyayev (its text was handed over by Felshtinsky and Litvinenko to journalists and the Kovalev Commission in February 2003).
• 7.12.2002. The accused Krymshamkhalov was detained. The accused Timur Batchaev died during an arrest attempt.
• 14.5.2003. Lyubichev, an officer of the Kislovodsk State Traffic Inspectorate, was sentenced to four years in prison for aiding the accused Krymshamkhalov.
• 23.6.2003. Detention of "werewolves in epaulettes" [corrupt police]. One of them, Evgeny Taratorin, had previously told journalists about his active participation in the investigation of the apartment bombings. A few days later, the head of the Moscow Criminal Investigation Department, Viktor Trutnev, was removed from his post. In 1999, Trutnev headed the criminal investigation department of the South-Eastern District of Moscow, which includes Guryanova, Krasnodarskaya, and Borisovskie Prudy streets.
• 31.10.2003. A closed trial of Dekkushev and Krymshamkhalov began in the Moscow City Court.

1

Document Transcription

Gochiyaev's Disappearance and Alternative Theories

• The proceeds from the car and its role in Gochiyaev's release are not known for certain.
• It is also unknown where Gochiyaev disappeared to immediately after his release.
• According to one version, he went to Moscow, towards his terrible fame.
• According to another, he went to St. Petersburg to heal the beatings received in the Cherkessk SIZO.
• According to a third, he went to Chechnya.

Dzhemal's Hypothesis

• In an oral conversation in our presence, the author developed the hypothesis of "not that Gochiyaev": his name could be used to cover for another person who resembles him in some way.
• Dzhemal's hypothesis is based on the recorded testimony of other suspects:
  • Gochiyaev's son-in-law Frantsuzov, who was detained and later convicted, as well as Murat and Aslan Bostanov (more on them later), were in Urus-Martan during the September bombings in Moscow.
  • During interrogations, they testified that they learned about the Moscow bombings from television news, and Gochiyaev, who was with them at that moment, dropped the phrase: "They think I'm involved in this."
  • Their testimony runs counter to Gochiyaev's own confessions.

Witness Statements

• On 11.11.2003, an article by Igor Korolkov titled "Photorobot not of the first freshness" was published in Moskovskiye Novosti.
• These are two witness statements:
  • Mikhail Trepashkin, who visited the editorial office the day before his arrest.
  • Mark Blumenfeld — the former owner of the warehouse on Guryanova Street, from whose words the first photorobot was compiled on the night of September 8 to 9.

Blumenfeld's Testimony

• "In Lefortovo, they showed me a photograph of some person," says Blumenfeld, "they said it was Gochiyaev and that I supposedly rented the basement to him. I replied that I had never seen this person. But they strongly recommended that I recognize Gochiyaev. I understood everything and didn't argue anymore, I signed the testimony."
• "The photo depicted a person with a simple face, but the one who came and to whom I rented the premises looked like an intellectual. I got the impression that he was Jewish. Moreover, a Jew with Caucasian roots. I repeatedly stated this to the investigation."
  • (For accuracy: Blumenfeld's name is Mario, and he rented out not a basement, but a room on the first floor).

Investigation into the Episode at Borisovskie Prudy

An investigation into the episode at Borisovskie Prudy could answer the question: did Gochiyayev himself really call the city's emergency services and warn about the planted explosives here and on Krasnodarskaya? Unfortunately, it has not yet been possible to make a definitive conclusion.

Resident Accounts

• Almost all the residents of the house we interviewed (four out of five) confidently asserted that they were evacuated on the 13th, the day of the second explosion, in the first half of the day (the range was from noon to 14:00).
• Police officers rang apartment doorbells, and a vehicle with loudspeakers stood opposite the house.
• Neighboring houses were also evacuated, and traffic on the street was blocked several hundred meters from house 16.
• According to neighbors, one of the residents reported the explosives to the police by phone: she saw bags of sugar being brought into the premises and thought it strange that they were not picked up for several days.

Official Inquiries and Responses

• The Chairman of the Public Commission for the Investigation of House Bombings (hereinafter the Commission), S.A. Kovalev, sent a parliamentary inquiry to the services mentioned in the terrorist's "repentance letter": the police, the "ambulance" service, and the rescue service.
• The inquiry contained a request to answer: were warnings received about explosives being planted at Borisovskie Prudy and in Kapotnya (which is how the terrorist named these places)?
• A substantive response was sent only by the city's civil defense and emergency situations service.
• As the rescuers write, they received a report about explosives planted at Borisovskie Prudy from the "ambulance" service on September 13 at 14:08.

Analysis of Timelines

• This does not contradict witness testimony regarding the time of discovery.
• In principle, it also does not contradict Gochiyayev's words that he called "immediately" as soon as he learned about the second explosion, although even the earliest moment—before noon—is, of course, not "immediately."
• One could assume that a vigilant woman had the strange idea to report the bags not to the police, but to doctors: perhaps she did this during a doctor's visit to her home or while undergoing some procedure.
• But Gochiyayev could not have known about this (in any case, we have not been able to find a single publication that could have suggested this to him).
• And we consider the probability that he simply guessed the channel through which the warning about the explosives was received to be quite small.
• Of course, in his repentance, he listed three emergency services, but "ambulance" looks quite unusual in this list.

Clarifications on Locations and Discoveries

• The rescuers deny that there was a simultaneous warning about Kapotnya.
• The Commission, as far as we know, was unable to contact them further to clarify the inquiry.
• After all, Krasnodarskaya Street is, strictly speaking, not Kapotnya, although it is close to it. It is more like Lyublino.
• The discovery of the warehouse on Krasnodarskaya purely by chance just a day after the start of mass checks is very unlikely.
• This warehouse was found, according to a police report, on September 14 (although its contents were removed for some reason on September 16; one might assume that an ambush for terrorists was being held here; but already on September 15, the GUVD published its request for drivers of light trucks who had transported cargo from house 70 on Krasnodarskaya in early September to come forward; on the same day, it was announced that a Mercedes trailer that brought explosives from Stavropol Krai was found at the 51st kilometer of the Moscow Ring Road).

Inspection Statistics

• On September 14, the Moscow GUVD reported: 7,908 premises on the ground floors of buildings, basements, and semi-basements were inspected in 24 hours.
• Ten days later, they reported the final figure: a total of over 110,000 attics and about 115,000 basements were inspected.
• Thus, the probability of finding both remaining warehouses in the first 24 hours is about three percent.
• It does not increase much even if we assume that in the first 24 hours, only premises in the South-Eastern District were inspected, but that is not the case.

Conclusion on Location

• This is also Krasnodarskaya, 70
• The address "Krasnodarskaya, 70" itself then covered a huge territory on three sides of the intersection near the "Moskva" shopping center.
• On this territory, there is also a large warehouse building

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...

But this devalued a huge part of their labor and risk, so such an option seems less likely.

For Gochiyayev, premature explosions were especially dangerous: the explosives had not yet been completely removed from the warehouse on Krasnodarskaya, which was rented in his real name.

But the claim that "having learned about the explosions, we fled to Chechnya" does not look like the truth at all. The bombing of the house in Volgodonsk on September 16, by all indications, was investigated by local detectives quite thoroughly. The suspects themselves admit some involvement in this event in a letter. This does not look like a panic flight to Chechnya at all.

The Perovsky Trace?

The accused write about the participation of a "well-known special services agent" Max Lazovsky in organizing the bombings. According to Yuri Felshtinsky, after receiving the written testimony of Krymshamkhalov and Batchaev, he sent them a photograph of Maxim Lazovsky for identification — one of the characters in Felshtinsky and Litvinenko's documentary book "FSB Blows Up Russia". The accused replied that they could not say for sure: other photographs were needed. Unfortunately, no other photographs could be found.

Regardless of where the accused learned Lazovsky's surname (even if only from the book), let's try to answer two questions. How likely is the participation of Lazovsky's people in the events under consideration? And how might Lazovsky be connected to the special services?

Maxim Yuryevich Lazovsky was the head of a group that, based on court decisions, can boldly be called a gang. Its legal cover was the oil trading firm "Lanako". The scale of its trading activity is indicated by the subject of a bloody dispute between "Lanako" and the firm "Viktor" in early 1994: it concerned the sale of an airplane. The firm also provided "security" services, or more precisely, services for extortion and intimidation of debtors: for example, during the provision of such a service to the firm "Rosmyasomoltorg", three guards of a debtor bank were killed. ("Rosmyasomoltorg" became famous several years later when the recent prime minister of Kadyrov's Chechnya, Mikhail Babich, served as deputy head of this firm). The last trial of Lazovsky's people ended in the summer of 2002, and the number of people killed during "Lanako's" activities, both their own and others, mentioned at this trial, exceeded two dozen.

The group was based at house 2 on Perevedenovsky Lane, near the "Baumanskaya" metro station. Since the name "Izmailovskaya criminal group" refers to another group, Lazovsky's people can be called the Perovskaya group — after the leader's place of residence. In criminological literature, it is called the Lazanskaya group — after the "Lazania" restaurant on Pyatnitskaya; since 1997, the building of the former restaurant has belonged to Alfa-Bank.

In addition to commercial activity, both legal and criminal, "Lanako" employees became famous for another occupation: bombings on transport.

Gang members (from left to right): Lazovsky (killed 2000), Polonsky (killed 1994), Shchelenkov (killed 1994), Nataev (killed 1994), Vorobyov (alive)
Railway bridge near "Botanichesky Sad" metro station

There were two bombings involving Lazovsky's people confirmed by courts (in 1997 and 2002): the bombing of a bridge over the Yauza (11/18/1994, the miner died in the explosion) and the bombing of bus No. 33 (12/27/1994, the driver survived, there was no one else on the bus; for this bombing, "Lanako" employee retired colonel Vladimir Vorobyov served three years). As "Lanako" driver Akimov claimed, Vorobyov blew up the bus at the request of "a certain Chechen".

But the only Chechen whose name appears in the press and the court verdict alongside Lazovsky's people is "Lanako" co-founder Atlan Nataev, who in the summer of 1994 was brutally

From Abrosimov's testimony

Judge Olga Kudeshkina writes in the verdict that from Abrosimov's testimony it also follows that he knew Polonsky as an FSB officer who acted as a kind of guarantor during commercial transactions, saw his service ID and weapon. The FSB is not mentioned again in the verdict. But at the trial itself, this word was heard many times.

We heard how witness T., a close friend of the late Lazovsky, proved to the judge that Lazovsky was an FSB officer and acted on the instructions of this service. The witness explains the reason for the murder of Atlan Nataev as follows:
* Friends from Lubyanka brought Lazovsky a tape of a "wiretap" where Nataev promises to deal with not only Lazovsky himself, but also his wife and child for something.
* According to other testimonies, FSB officers drove Nataev to his execution.
* T. told the court how people from the FSB intimidated him in order to prevent his participation in the trial as a witness.
* T. also spoke about the participation in the group's affairs of former foreign intelligence colonel Petr Suslov, whom he had met more than once at Maxim's. (By the way, Suslov later collaborated in the "Eurasia" movement with Nukhaev).

Another witness (journalist Georgy Rozhnov heard this) said that before the bridge explosion, the explosives expert Shchelenkov consulted by phone with some "Volodya from the FSB."

PREDICTIONS

The Chechen trail leading to Lubyanka

On September 11, 1999, the newspaper "Moskovsky Komsomolets" reported: Caucasians are going to blow up three houses in Moscow. One house had already been blown up by that day, but, if the note in "MK" is to be believed, this information reached them even before the first explosion. Then a second house was blown up and the mining of another was discovered (in Kapotnya there were no residential buildings in the immediate vicinity of the warehouse). Both occurred after the publication in "MK".

Anonymous terrorist bombings had happened before. But, firstly, it was far away — mainly in the markets of the Caucasus; there, in the Caucasus, the first house explosion also occurred — in the military town of Buynaksk. Secondly, explosions with many human casualties occurred quite rarely, about once a year, almost every time the special services soon reported the capture of terrorists, and everything went quiet for a long time. It was hard to believe immediately that a house in Moscow had been blown up, and as for the fact that this would be repeated in the coming days, and more than once, probably no one truly believed.

How did this prediction get into the most popular newspaper?

Here is what the newspaper wrote:
"Unique details about the events preceding the explosion on Guryanov Street became known to 'MK' from sources in the Federal Security Service of Russia. It turns out that counterintelligence officers received information about a terrorist act being prepared in Moscow several days in advance.

According to information available to 'MK', on Monday morning a phone call was received at the editorial office of one of the German radio stations (broadcasting in Russian). A voice with a Caucasian accent reported that in a few days three residential buildings in residential areas would be blown up in Moscow. German journalists recorded this call on a tape recorder.

Having contacted the FSB of Russia via international telephone, the Germans played the tape for the counterintelligence officers. (...) As FSB operatives assured 'MK', the 'telephone' version will be checked in detail."

Anatoly Datsenko, an employee of "Deutsche Welle," claims: everything was not like that at all. There was no call to the studio, and no one made a tape recording.

• — I was taking a report for "Deutsche Welle" from our freelance correspondent in the Caucasus. His name is Alvi, I don't know his last name; it seems he published something in "MK" as well. This was in the first days of September. Alvi was talking about the battles in Dagestan. Suddenly, an outside voice with an accent appeared in the receiver. He said something like: "Hey, journalist, we'll soon arrange something like that for you in Moscow!.." Immediately after that, the connection with Alvi was cut off. I never make tape recordings. On September 9, after the terrorist attack, I went to the FSB reception room and told them the same thing I'm telling you now. Who gave the note to "MK" — I don't know.
• — Did you send a refutation to the newspaper?
• — I consulted with my management, and we decided not to do it.

In those days, battles were going on in Dagestan: Russian tanks and aviation for almost the entire month of August were expelling Shamil Basaev's detachment from the small republic. One of the first terrorist threats came from Dagestan. It was on September 3, immediately after the explosion in the gaming complex on Manezhnaya: "France Press distributed a sensational report. Alvi Zakriev, the correspondent of this agency in Grozny, was called by..."

11

Appeal

Investigative and judicial authorities have turned to arbitrariness in their actions. We, volunteers, are forced to take measures against the power of the rulers and their henchmen. Thus, in the Ostankino court, Judge Matveev arrested a citizen of Russia, Natalya Viktorovna Zander, in the courtroom; she is the mother of two minor children and also supports two elderly parents, disabled of the II group. We demand the release of Natalya Viktorovna Zander by September 1, 1999. Otherwise, every 7 days, communications, buildings, etc., will be blown up. Volunteers of Russia.

The Prosecutor General's Office received this letter on August 21. "Novaya Gazeta," according to the author of the indictment, FSB Captain Innokenty Asochakov, received it on September 7; however, at "Novaya Gazeta" we were told that this letter arrived much later — after all the Moscow bombings.

Mylnikov himself claimed (during the investigation, at the trial, in conversations with his lawyer Evgeny Chernousov and with human rights activists) that at the end of August he also went to the MVD building on Zhitnaya. There, an acquaintance of his, a police colonel, and a senior FSB officer invited by the colonel spoke with him. Mylnikov did not demand anything from them; he only told them about the warnings he had received.

Therefore, identifying the author of the threatening letters was not difficult, especially since Anatoly lived in Natalya Zander's apartment at that time. According to him, he was indeed detained and interrogated several times in the fall, but he denied authorship of the letters even at the trial. The main prosecution witness was 17-year-old Anzhelika, whom Anatoly had helped get a job at the same "Golden Pages" where he and Natalya Zander worked. In the summer of 1999, at the request of Anatoly (with whom she was in love), Anzhelika made computer printouts from a handwritten draft of the "Appeal." Anatoly asked her to destroy the manuscript and delete the file on the computer, but for some reason, the girl in love kept the sheet and in May 2000 handed it over to FSB investigators.

Moscow City Court Judge Marina Komarova (she is currently presiding over the closed trial in the case of the apartment bombings) in August 2002 sentenced Mylnikov to 6 years and 8 months of imprisonment under Article 205 of the Criminal Code. According to the judge, Mylnikov "committed terrorism" in the form of threats for mercenary purposes. The origin of these threats and their coincidence with real events did not interest the judge. Journalists from "Komsomolka" and "Novaya Gazeta" were summoned to court but did not appear, and the court refused to hear the police colonel from Zhitnaya who came at the request of the lawyer.

Again the Perovsky trail?

Here we must tell about the events that took place three years earlier.
But first — an even earlier quote, and with a quote inside:

"Naturally, no one will work well and hard for 'Uncle Bourgeois,' even if he is in a worker's jumpsuit, and disagreements arise, to put it mildly, among the labor collective at the enterprise. This is how it happened at the Moscow Fan Plant, which became the joint-stock company 'Moven' in 1990. 'Izvestia' correspondent M. Krushinsky describes this situation as follows:
— I asked the chairman of the board of shareholders, assembler Mikhail Proshin, whether contradictions arise between those who acquired more or fewer shares or those who did not buy them at all.
— It cannot be said that they did not arise. But the prevailing mood is different: leveling will not pass! If someone invested more funds, his money makes a larger turnover and brings more profit to the enterprise, then he will receive more. In my opinion, this is both legal and fair..." ("Izvestia," March 13, 1991).

Disagreements force people to quit, the number of shareholders decreases, and the number of hired workers increases, and so shares of the collective enterprise concentrate in the hands of people like the chairman of the board of shareholders Proshin, the director, the chief accountant. He, of course, will eventually quit his working specialty and become some kind of 'driver' [pogonyala] in the management apparatus, as it is immediately obvious — he will not give his piece to anyone. Although, I think, his bosses will surround him and strip him like a linden tree; such wolves sit in the factory administrations..." — wrote an anonymous leftist commentator (october17.narod.ru).

Mikhail Proshin indeed became a "driver": he took the position of personnel manager. And in the summer of 1999, he was sentenced to 25 years of strict regime for the murder of two directors of his home plant.

Proshin shot the first director himself with a pistol. There were almost direct witnesses to this: a minute before the death of Director Mironov, his guard Izmailov and driver Ryazantsev saw Proshin with a pistol in his hand near the director's office. But they were afraid to tell about what they saw during the investigation.

Proshin ordered the murder of the next director from two mechanics of the factory garage — Alexander Zander and Vladimir Gorelkin. (In one publication, three figures appear: a factory mechanic, an unemployed person, and a driver for the Federal Tax Police Service. Later, the tax police are not mentioned anywhere). For this crime, Zander, Natalya's husband, received 15 years at the same trial. Gorelkin "cooperated with the investigation" and received eight; according to our information, he has already been released.

What kind of people could have called Mylnikov, demanded Natalya's release, and threatened bombings?

The search for the Zanders' connections proved unsuccessful. Nothing new could be learned from Natalya Zander: she spoke for two hours with one of the members of the Kovalev Commission, but the conversation was not about Zander and his circle, but about the personal qualities of Anatoly Mylnikov. Anatoly's daughter (Trepashkin also found her) claims that her father simply had the gift of foresight: once he even predicted the imminent death of one of his

Firm Information

• Kosna G.N. is the head of the firm MAM-1.
• The address for this firm is 17 Shokalsky Passage, and the phone number is 928-81-72.

Firms on Shokalsky Passage

• The phone numbers of both firms on Shokalsky Passage (one connected voluntarily or involuntarily with Gochiyayev, the other clearly connected with Lazovsky) are listed at the same address: 3 Furkasovsky Lane — opposite the main FSB building.
• Both phone numbers belong to the same NPO "Priroda".
• The founder of this NPO is AOOT "Nekson", whose founder is listed as Ekaterina Markovna Bykhovskaya, who actually lives or lived in the same house as Maxim Lazovsky's wife.

[Map of the Lubyanka area]

From the advertisement of NPO "Priroda":
* Large building No. 2 is the main FSB building (entrance from the lane).

Legal Addresses and Phone Numbers

• The legal address of a firm can be anything (it is assumed that any businessman can, like Tatyana Koroleva, squeeze several of his firms into the FSB building complex).
• However, the phone number remains a real connection with the firm—at least for tax and other inspections.
• Calling "Priroda" might result in the response: "Max is having lunch, Achemez has gone to the site, call back in an hour."

Resolving Doubts about Tatyana Koroleva

• The doubts of the "Novaya Gazeta" editorial board regarding Koroleva's identity are resolved simply.
• Syun in "Kommersant" wrote about 26-year-old Tatyana Koroleva, who came from Volgograd.
• Inquiries about the firms listed by Felshtinsky reveal:
  • The Tatyana Koroleva who founded them is registered in the Volgograd region.
  • She received her passport in January 1989.
• In Soviet times, passports were issued at age 16. If this is the "full namesake" of the Tatyana sought, she is also the same age and from the same area.

Checking Business Registrations

• Anyone with 300 rubles can check the Moscow Registration Chamber database via the internet or on the street.
• Some of these disks may have been produced without a license, but if all unlicensed software (including Windows) were erased throughout Russia, the country would soon resemble North Korea, and the next US anti-terrorist action would be Operation "Storm in the Taiga."
• Last year, after a leak of the Moscow Registration Chamber database, the function of accounting for registered firms was transferred from the chamber to the tax service.
• Consequently, only information up to 2002 inclusive is available, making any control over this sphere, similar to the one conducted, impossible.

Koroleva's Firm Founding

• In December 1999 and January 2000, Koroleva founded 18 firms in her own and other names.
• The latest firm, "Remservismontazh," was founded in June 2000.

Business Registration Practices

• This type of business is familiar from women near the metro with signs depicting a crosshair, offering quick liquidation of firms and the sale of new ones: "Upon request, re-registration to your founders can be performed...".
• If there is no such desire, the firm remains registered in someone else's name.
• A "Novaya Gazeta" correspondent recently described how difficult it is to register an enterprise for real. Young businessmen who tried were refused after long ordeals and monetary expenses because a firm's address cannot be a home address.
• Wandering through the lists of firms reveals:
  • Many are listed at the same address.
  • For example, in a small house number 23 on Vorontsovskaya Street last year, more than three thousand firms were listed, although there are only two signs above the door.
  • At building 17 on Shokalsky Passage, 670 firms are listed.
• Another discovery was made:

Denis Saitakov and Gochiyayev

Denis Saitakov appeared together with Gochiyayev in four hotels, according to publications. The reasons for this are unclear:

• In addition to the apartment in Strogino, where he was registered with his wife Khalimat (according to a neighbor, this was a sham marriage), Gochiyayev's own sister had lived in Moscow for many years. She lived alone in a dilapidated, sparsely populated house in a secluded location.
• His mistress, Tatyana, also lived in Moscow.
• An investigator told Mikhail Trepashkin that Gochiyayev lived on Shosseinaya Street—the very center of the events under consideration.

The question remains: why would the two comrades show themselves in hotels? Denis's participation in the activities is also strange: why would several Karachays, who could discuss all their business in their own language (exotic for Moscow), attract a Russian-speaker to themselves? So, Denis arrived from Naberezhnye Chelny, but grew up in the Uzbek town of Karshi.

"Uzbek Trace"

What is presented is an "Uzbek trace," to use Litvinenko's words (this is the title of one of the chapters in his book). Litvinenko refers to something else—the origin of his former boss, FSB General Evgeny Khokholkov, about whom both he and other authors have repeatedly written as an outstanding saboteur. Before the collapse of the USSR, Khokholkov served in Tashkent.

"Uzbek traces" also appear, strangely enough, in the official version. General Ivan Kuzmich Mironov, head of the FSB's operational-investigative department, has voiced this several times in recent months. Here, he speaks about the composition of the explosives used to blow up the houses: according to his information, terrorists first used such a composition back in Soviet times in Tashkent. The general also says that the explosives were prepared in Chechnya by "militants of Uzbek nationality."

Considerations Regarding Ryazan

To the Ryazan direction, we can add only two considerations.

First Consideration: License Plate Evidence

This concerns the most obvious of the lies contained in the stories of the Chekists (for example, in Rustam Arifdzhanov's article "And the city did not know that exercises were underway" in the newspaper "Versiya").

• The Chekists continue to insist that they only taped over the front license plate of their car.
• Yuri Felshtinsky, in his film, shows footage from an NTV broadcast where witness Kartofelnikov says: "I specifically looked at the back of the car—the same thing: taped over, '62'."
• We also advise paying attention to the different reflectivity of car license plates in daylight and under night streetlights. If during the day the pasted paper might be unnoticeable—it looks just as matte-white as the surface of the plate—then with the onset of darkness, it begins to differ sharply from the plate: the latter looks shiny (it does not scatter light isotropically), while the paper remains matte.

Second Consideration: Explosive Device Manufacturing Method

This concerns the method of manufacturing the explosive device shown in the video footage taken in Ryazan on September 23, 1999.

[Fig. 1]
13:13 23. 9. 1999
13:14 23. 9. 1999

1. Multi-strand electrical wire in PVC insulation was used in the assembly. This follows from the shape of its bends: a single-strand wire would have retained much more angular bends.
   • A possible exception is the conductors connecting the batteries in the power supply unit (Fig. 2), but this does not affect further reasoning.
2. The assembly of the power supply unit was performed without the use of a soldering iron. This follows from the abundance of electrical tape wrapped around the batteries: the tape presses the wire ends, wound without soldering, to the battery terminals.
   • Making a battery assembly in this way takes about 10 minutes, whereas with a soldering iron, it takes a matter of seconds.
   • However, if reliable operation was not required from the power supply unit, and it was only required to create the appearance of functionality, the manufacturer would not have reinforced the contact with electrical tape: without it, the assembly would look even more convincing and would remain functional, although less reliable.

17

Article Summary

• She decided not to look for this address. In this decision, she was supported by the author of the article "We know who...", Major Izmailov. In the newspaper, after two of his articles presenting Kapanadze's version, there was not another word about the warrant officer.

Cases and Deaths

• Stanislav Lyubichev, a GIBDD inspector, was sentenced in 2003 in Kislovodsk to 4 years for aiding terrorists: in August 1999, he allowed a truck with explosives into Kislovodsk, despite the visible malfunction of the vehicle and the driver's lack of a license.
• Two witnesses—Krymshamkhalov's uncle, who managed a food warehouse in Kislovodsk, and the guard of that warehouse—could not appear in court: over the past four years, they had managed to die.
• Most of the accused also did not live to see the present day: Denis Saitakov, Timur and Zaur Batchaev, Hakim Abaev, Ravil Akhmyarov.
• Khattab (with whom Gochiyayev apparently hid for a long time—as a valuable witness or in some other capacity) was killed in 2002.
• Lazovsky died in 2000.
• Admiral Ugryumov, whose involvement in the events was written about by Krymshamkhalov and Batchaev, died in 2001.
• A janitor from Kashirskoye Highway was killed shortly after she expressed suspicion about the involvement of one of the surviving residents in the events.
• Radio Liberty employee Alexander Batchan died a few days after he began working on the topic of the Ryazan exercises.
• During the year of the Kovalev Commission's existence, two of its 20 members—Yushenkov and Shchekochikhin—passed away.
• On October 22, Mikhail Trepashkin was arrested on another charge of weapons possession.

Acknowledgements

• November 11, 2003.
• The authors thank V.M. Gefter, S.A. Kovalev, L.S. Levinson, and Yu.G. Felshtinsky for their cooperation.
• Part of the work was carried out with the financial support of the Foundation for Civil Liberties.

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