Appendix 1

July 26, 2002, "Vedomosti"

Gochiyayev Denies Guilt

Oleg Chertkov, Ekaterina Kudashkina

Achimez Gochiyayev, a suspect in organizing the apartment bombings in Moscow and Volgodonsk, denies his guilt. A copy of his letter, instead of the video recording promised several days earlier, was delivered yesterday to Moscow from London by former FSB Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Litvinenko.

The public commission for the investigation of the apartment bombings, organized by representatives of the "Liberal Russia" party, held a teleconference with London yesterday. Alexander Litvinenko handed over a copy of Gochiyayev's letter and an accompanying note to the commission members. According to Litvinenko, the video recording could not be delivered for technical reasons.

As Gochiyayev claims in the letter, he did not blow up the houses in Moscow, but only rented several basements at the request of a friend. The suspect claims that on September 13, after hearing about the explosions, he called the police, the "ambulance" service, and the Rescue Service, reporting warehouses in the buildings on Borisovskie Prudy and in Kapotnya.

In the accompanying note, Litvinenko and historian Yuri Felshtinsky (co-author with the lieutenant colonel of the book "Blowing Up Russia") suggested that the public commission check the databases of the police, "ambulance," and Rescue Service for September 13.

One of the commission members, deputy Sergei Yushenkov, told Vedomosti that the relevant requests to the Rescue Service, FSB, MVD, and Prosecutor General's Office are currently only being prepared.

An employee of the Moscow Rescue Service, Andrei Gusev, told Vedomosti that this kind of information can be obtained in three hours. Another employee of this service, Maksim Simakov, told Vedomosti that so far, neither commission members nor law enforcement agencies have contacted them regarding the date of September 13, 1999.

"There are dozens of such calls every day. But there have been no requests for this date," Simakov said. (Emphasis added by me for convenience. — L.E.)

In addition, yesterday Litvinenko and Felshtinsky questioned the authenticity of photos of Gochiyayev posted on the FSB website (in which the suspect is captured in the company of the now-deceased field commander Khattab). They said the expert analysis was conducted by Geoffrey John Oxlee from the London company Kalagate. "This is a photo montage," the London whistleblowers claim. They are supported by one of the commission members, co-chairman of the "Liberal Russia" party Sergei Yushenkov. "And from this it follows that the FSB is lying," Yushenkov told Vedomosti.

In a conversation with Vedomosti, Geoffrey John Oxlee confirmed the fact that an expert analysis was conducted, but stated: "There is no confirmation that the photographs [posted on the FSB website] were montaged. From a legal point of view, it would be incautious to make such conclusions."

At the FSB Public Relations Center, a Vedomosti correspondent was told that they "do not intend to participate in a promotional campaign for dubious people, let alone enter into a polemic with them." They also reminded that they had already approached the British intelligence services with a request to interview Alexander Litvinenko.

To the Public Commission for the Investigation of the Apartment Bombings

On Gochiyayev's calls to emergency services

Dear Sergei Adamovich, Lev Semyonovich, and Valentin Mikhailovich!

1. Congratulations! You managed to obtain what others did not.
   We tried to find out about the calls through 'Novaya Gazeta' employee Galya Mursalieva. But her friends from the Moscow Rescue Service cited the insurmountable difficulty of retrieving archives.
   Mikhail Trepashkin said that he also failed to find out anything.
   See also Appendix 1 – an article from 'Vedomosti'.

2. We agree with your conclusion that Gochiyayev indeed reported two placements [of explosives].
   Versions that the finds were made based on signals from residents or a truck driver contradict the chronology of media reports and the results of the crime scene investigation.

2.1. The appeal to the driver was issued only after the discovery of explosives on Krasnodarskaya:

• Polit.ru, 15.09.1999, 13:49. MUR [Moscow Criminal Investigation Department] officers ask the driver of a ZIL-'Bychok' vehicle, which transported bags of sugar from house number 70 on Krasnodarskaya Street from September 7 to 12, to immediately contact Petrovka, 38, or the nearest police station, or a road inspection post.
  • Misunderstanding with the address. Note from the Polit.ru agency to this report: Judging by the 'Streets of Moscow' Road Atlas (published by the 'National Road Atlases' company, 1999), Krasnodarskaya Street is located in the Lyublino district, which is in the southeast of Moscow near Pechatniki. However, on the map (p. 54), the even side of the street ends at house number 58. It is unclear whom to believe - the atlas or MUR.
• A couple of hours later, the same Polit.ru reported: 16:15. NTV clarifies previously heard information about the truck on which hexogen was transported: the explosives under the guise of sugar were transported not from house No. 70, but from house No. 7 on Krasnodarskaya Street. There is no house numbered 70 on this street.
  • This is a mistake: 'house 70' already existed (the company 'Transservice', which, according to the official version, rented the premises to the terrorists, is still listed at this address - see euroadress.ru).
  • House 7 on Krasnodarskaya Street does not fit a number of published characteristics of the crime scene: there are no garage cooperatives near it; the basement of the house itself, dry and quite spacious, gives the impression that it was never used for commercial purposes; this end of the street is far from Kapotnya (even closer to Pechatniki), it can only be attributed to the Lyublino district.
• In the vicinity of the territory designated 'Krasnodarskaya St., 70', on one of the fences one can read the inscription 'Proyektiruemyy Proyezd' [Projected Driveway] — a name also heard in several media reports.
• We did not find similar appeals indicating other addresses (or no address at all, which would have been pointless) in the news summaries.
• The published composite sketches have nothing in common with the people who were later declared suspects, and therefore could not serve as a basis for singling out this particular freight shipment from thousands of others.

2.

2.2.

There could not have been "vigilant residents" at 70 Krasnodarskaya Street: there are no residents there at all (see the site plan). The nearest residential buildings (Tsimlyanskaya St., 2-32) are out of sight of the incident site. In September 1999, these new buildings were only just being occupied; it was in them that many victims from Guryanova St. received apartments.

2.3.

Both caches (at Borisovskie Prudy and Krasnodarskaya Street) could not have been discovered within two days through a general inspection of non-residential premises.

• On September 23, the GUVD press service reported that 536 thousand inspections had been carried out, including 110 thousand attics and 115 thousand basements.
• On September 14, the same service reported that 7,908 non-residential premises on first floors, basements, and semi-basements had been inspected.

Even by the most rigorous estimate, it turns out that by the time of the discovery at Borisovskie Prudy (by the evening of Sept. 13; press briefings at the GUVD take place in the morning), about 1/30 of the premises in these categories had been inspected.

But 1/30 of the city's area adjacent to the two explosion sites does not in any way cover either Bor. Prudy or Krasnodarskaya (even if we assume—the least favorable assumption for my conclusion and not a very realistic one—that all inspection forces were deployed only to this district). Even if we assume that the inspections only began on Sept. 13, and therefore another 1/30 was inspected during the second 24-hour period, the explosion sites and both caches still would not fit into 1/15 of the city's area.

On the other hand, another reason why the second cache was found more than a day after the first looks quite realistic. The address "Krasnodarskaya, 70" covers a fairly large, disorganized territory (unlike Borisovskie Prudy St., where even with an inaccurate address it was enough to inspect just a few basements). It contains warehouses, sheds, garages, containers... Even now, many of them are difficult to access. The search could have been complicated by confusion with the address (see above).

3. Possible way to clarify information

All circumstantial evidence does not seem sufficient to me for court. Therefore, I suggest trying to clarify the GOChS [Civil Defense and Emergency Situations] information (since they have already admitted that they have these records) using an inquiry:

• "I ask you to reproduce the exact wording of the report from 13.9.1999 regarding the explosive substance planted on Borisovskie Prudy Street. Did this report contain any other address?"

Apparently, you asked them about Kapotnya; but, perhaps, house 7 appeared there, and that is no longer Kapotnya. Or—using an inquiry:

• "I ask you to report whether your service received information on September 13 about an explosive substance planted in house 7 or 70 on Krasnodarskaya Street."

Sincerely,
Lyudmila Evstifeeva, Evgeny Frumkin

Appendices:
1. Article from "Vedomosti".
2. Site plan in Kapotnya (to be handed over in person).