This issue of Free Word from May 2004 investigates the motives behind the legal persecution of Mikhail Trepashkin, a former FSB officer and lawyer. It suggests that Trepashkin's arrest on October 22, 2003, was strategically timed to prevent his participation as a legal representative in the 1999 apartment bombing trials. Trepashkin had alleged that an FSB colleague, Vladimir Romanovich, matched a suspect sketch for the bombings and was embedded in a Chechen gang before dying in Cyprus. The document also highlights testimony from witness Mario Blumenfeld, who claimed the official suspect, Achimez Gochiyayev, was not the person who rented the bombing sites. Additionally, it explores a complex incident in London involving Alexander Litvinenko and Andrei Ponkin regarding a supposed assassination attempt on Vladimir Putin, which the author implies may have served as a pretext or distraction for Trepashkin's detention.