YUSHENKOV MINUS BEREZOVSKY

On the eve of the trial of the deputy's alleged killers, the number of dubious myths associated with his name has risen sharply. By a strange coincidence, they all originate from Boris Berezovsky and his circle.

TESTIMONY

Last week it became known about the death in a car accident of Khamzat [Tandiev?]. [With obvious]ness, it is not difficult to guess who is behind the action. Neither the secretary of the public "commission on the bombings" Lev Levinson, nor Yushenkov's employees...

Mikhail Gokhman
Sergei Yushenkov. One of his last photographs.

"TO LONDON, TO BEREZOVSKY"

After Yushenkov's murder, it became known that three weeks before his death he met with Boris Abramovich.

Yushenkov went to London for the weekend without telling anyone, even close friends. On Monday, after his return, he walked around looking dejected, thoughtful, and answered questions haphazardly. He told Elena Sokolova about his trip only two days later. It was clear that he could not be alone with this information, but he could not share it with his colleagues in "Liberal Russia"—they had jointly decided that there would be no more contacts with Berezovsky.

Elena told the "Moscow News" correspondent about this conversation:
* "I was sitting at the computer, and he came out of the office and walked back and forth on the second floor. Alone. I knew that Berezovsky was constantly inviting him to London. Through Rybkin, pacing back and forth, he spoke. He just needed to tell someone about it."

ELENA SOKOLOVA'S STORY

Yushenkov flew to London to discuss the conditions for the "This is My Candidate" campaign ("preliminary elections" to the State Duma; see "MN" No. 25, 2003). Berezovsky had offered several times to finance "Liberal Russia," but each time received a firm refusal. However, even after arriving, Sergei Nikolayevich did not agree to meet with Berezovsky face-to-face. Only with a witness. There was no other witness besides Ivan Rybkin, but there was no choice. The first meeting was held by the three of them in the businessman's office. Berezovsky was the soul of courtesy, saying how much he liked the idea of primaries; there was no talk of the party at all. They agreed to meet in the same group the next day. Shortly before the meeting, Berezovsky called and said: "I've stopped at a residential building." Sergei asked again where Rybkin was.

• "Ivan Petrovich will be here in about fifteen minutes," Berezovsky replied. Then he dialed a number on his mobile and asked an unknown recipient: "Ivan Petrovich, are you on your way?"

Sergei Nikolayevich, according to him, realized he was in trouble. But it was too late to retreat, and they entered the entrance. Berezovsky opened one of the apartments, explaining that he had bought it once for his daughter, who didn't want to live there and hadn't even moved in once.

• "Where is Rybkin?"
• "I told you, he'll be here later."
• "Then we'll talk later too."

And then, the assistant recounted, the deputy said the oligarch changed completely. He even started speaking in a different tone:

• "You're not a child anymore, Seryozha. We need to talk alone. Why do we need Rybkin? You've lost the party; I'm going to take it from you anyway. All the regional organizations are mine anyway. Hand over the documents; we'll hold a new congress."

Yushenkov was furious. He yelled at Berezovsky and said that...

"Sergei Nikolayevich, according to him, realized he was in trouble. But it was too late to retreat, and they entered the entrance."

Resonance

Lawyers of the former FSB lieutenant colonel do not believe in the objectivity of the Russian court

In the Moscow District Military Court, the hearing of the case of former FSB Lieutenant Colonel Mikhail Trepashkin, which we recently wrote about ("MN" No. 44), has begun. He is accused of disclosing state secrets, abuse of office, and illegal possession of ammunition.

The trial has been declared closed, and journalists are not allowed to attend. It is impossible to obtain any information about the progress of the court session even from Trepashkin's lawyers — they were all required to sign a non-disclosure agreement regarding the investigation materials. The only thing they were able to report was that the prosecution filed a motion to summon 25 witnesses to court. In the first session, the court heard two of them. The lawyers stated: despite the fact that Trepashkin's health has significantly declined in the harsh conditions of the pre-trial detention center, he is actively participating in the process, in particular, asking questions to witnesses. A former FSB officer and now a lawyer, Trepashkin believes that the charge of disclosing state secrets is devoid of any grounds and refused to sign a non-disclosure agreement for the investigation materials.

A few days before his arrest, Trepashkin told the "MN" editorial office that the category of secret materials he is accused of disclosing included notes on the works of Marx, Engels, and Lenin, which he made once during his studies at the KGB higher school. In view of the absurdity of the charges, these works were then apparently removed from the indictment, but others remained, no less ridiculous in Trepashkin's view.

The European Court will react urgently

The first attempt to send Trepashkin behind bars for disclosing state secrets failed — the case was closed; now they have taken it up with renewed energy.

The lawyer is convinced: domestic special services are trying to deal with him solely because he is actively participating in the investigation of the circumstances related to the bombings of residential buildings in Moscow in the autumn of 1999. Recall: Trepashkin led "MN" to Mark Blomgrenfeld — the owner of the basement who rented it to the main defendant in the bombing case — Achimez Gochiyayev. As Mr. Blomgrenfeld told the editorial office, Gochiyayev had nothing to do with the rental of the premises. The basement was rented to a completely different person. In the composite sketch originally drawn from Mr. Blomgrenfeld's words, Trepashkin recognized a certain Vladimir Romanov, a member of a criminal Chechen group that robbed Moscow banks and was suspected of ties to the FSB. After Trepashkin reported this to the Federal Security Service and handed over a photograph of Romanov he had preserved, the composite sketch published in the media was changed, and Romanov himself was allegedly killed by a car in Cyprus.

It is clear that such activity by the lawyer did not suit those who formed the official version of the investigation into the residential building bombings. Perhaps this was the real reason for Trepashkin's arrest two months ago, although the formal pretext was a pistol found in the lawyer's car. The detainee claims that the pistol was planted on him by traffic police officers during a search of the car.

Trepashkin's lawyer, Elena Liptser, filed a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights. She is convinced that Trepashkin's right not to be subjected to torture and other inhuman or degrading treatment, the right to liberty and security of person under the European Convention on Human Rights, has been violated. As it became known, the court accepted the complaint, and an "urgent response" procedure will be applied to it.

Igor KOROLKOV

[Fragment of article on the right]

FORGERIES AND SWINDLERS
At the same time — as if on cue — two statements appeared on the Russian Internet, written as if from a carbon copy. Shamil Basaev on one of the Chechen separatist websites and former Chekist Alexander Litvinenko in the online publication "Grani.Ru" reported that they had passed "identifying data" on Terkibaev to Sergei Yushenkov. Considering that the separatist site often broadcasts Berezovsky's initiatives, and "Grani.Ru" is simply his property...

[Fragment at bottom right]

...Time has passed. Terkibaev's death coincided with the start of the trial in the case of Yushenkov's murder: the first hearings will take place on December 26. Myths surrounding the life and death of Sergei Yushenkov continue to multiply.
Mikhail GOKHMAN

THE INVESTIGATION IS NOT FINISHED

HEXOGEN-RELATED

Yuri LIZUNOV

The captured terrorist Yusuf Krymshamkhalov, involved in the bombings of residential buildings in Moscow and Volgodonsk, is finally being tried. However, it seems we will never truly know how the proceedings are going and what has become known about the real causes of the tragedy. The high-profile trial has been muffled, made quiet. Moreover, the trouble is also that our society is deeply indifferent to all this. That's just how it's built. Any other society in its place would have demanded an open trial, insisted at least on an explanation for the reasons for secrecy and, if it is so inevitable, on the creation of a special parliamentary commission in which people with appropriate clearance to classified materials could observe the progress of the trial... But what are we talking about? Society has already decided on the parliament...

Since 1999, "Novaya Gazeta" has been observing how the perpetrators and masterminds of the terrorist attacks are being sought (a series of materials "FSB. Hexogen. Ryazan", "The Hexogen Trace", materials about the gang of Max Lazovsky, involved in early Moscow bombings). Since then, a big political game has been going on in the country. The main players are the current Russian authorities and its past in the person of the fugitive oligarch Boris Berezovsky. The terrorist attacks continued: there was an explosion in the passage at Pushkinskaya, the seizure of "Nord-Ost", and the players all...

From the letter of KRYMSHAMKHALOV and BATCHAEV (another terrorist killed during a joint operation of Russian and Georgian special services near the Pankisi Gorge of Georgia) to the commission for the investigation of the bombings of residential buildings in Moscow and Volgodonsk:

... buildings of special services and the military, not residential buildings. We did not anticipate that the explosions would occur at the storage site of the bags, in the basements of residential buildings. The time of the terrorist attacks was not known to us. Having learned about these explosions, we fled to Chechnya.

1. <...> Our views allowed those who actually stood behind the organization and implementation of the terrorist attacks in Moscow and Volgodonsk in September 1999 to recruit us to participate in the organization of terrorist attacks. Today we understand that we were used "blindly," that in 1999 we did not understand who our bosses really were and who we were actually working for. Today we understand and know this. It took almost three years to realize what happened, to collect information and evidence about who...

Two of the few surviving terrorists are being tried in a closed process. This means that we will hear the truth about the terrorist attacks in September 1999 in a hundred years, or maybe never.

Novaya Gazeta No. 94 (927)

SECRETS OF A SECRET TRIAL

Hearings continue in the Moscow City Court on the case of the bombings of residential buildings in Moscow and Volgodonsk. The court has begun questioning the defendants.

The court session has been declared closed; all participants in the process have signed non-disclosure agreements, and lawyers categorically refuse to speak with the press... Nevertheless, we managed to find out what is happening behind the doors of the Moscow City Court.

Participants of the process

• The defendants are Yusuf Krymshamkhalov and Adam Dekkushev.
• The trial is presided over by Judge Marina Komarova.
• On Thursday, December 11, Krymshamkhalov confirmed the testimony he gave at the very beginning: he admits his involvement in the bombing of a residential building in Volgodonsk on September 16, 1999.
• Dekkushev denies his guilt.
• Both defendants categorically refuse to take responsibility for the Moscow terrorist attacks.

Of the 2,060 victims, only six are participating in the trial. The court did not send summonses to the rest. Some arrived because they happened to hear a short message on the radio. Only twelve people were able to familiarize themselves with the case materials after the investigation was completed.

Secrecy

• Journalists are absent from the courtroom.
• Participants in the process are prohibited from making audio and video recordings.
• This is all because some volumes of the case are marked "secret."
• Only five out of 91 volumes were declared as such, but this was enough to completely slam shut the doors of the Moscow City Court.

Meanwhile, all this secrecy is quite surprising. After all, just a few months ago, in June 2003, when the victims were familiarizing themselves with the case, it was not yet marked with a classification. Moreover, the procedural decision regarding this has still not been presented. Someone put the "secret" mark on the volumes with a ballpoint pen. Who exactly and when remains a great mystery...

Both defendants and victims are dissatisfied with the judge

During the last session, Krymshamkhalov's lawyer, Shamil Arifulov, filed a motion to recuse Judge Marina Komarova because, as stated in the motion, the judge behaves biasedly: she asks his client and other participants in the process questions filled with terms completely incomprehensible to a person without a legal education, and seeks to distort the meaning of Krymshamkhalov's answers.

Judge Komarova rejected the motion and, in turn, sent a letter to the Moscow Bar Association, in which she emphasized what she considered to be the lawyer's unacceptable behavior.

The second defendant, Adam Dekkushev, asked the court to contact his relatives and ask them to hire a lawyer. But Judge Komarova refused, and Dekkushev was assigned a free public defender. On Tuesday, December 9, during the court session, Dekkushev stated that throughout the entire trial, the appointed lawyer had visited him only twice.

Not only the defendants but also the victims are dissatisfied with the judge. According to eyewitnesses, the judge allows herself to make incorrect remarks addressed to their lawyers.

Oddities of the investigation

On Thursday, the court and the participants in the process were shown 14 videotapes with recordings confirming Dekkushev's participation in an illegal armed formation, as well as footage from the bombing sites.

• In the film of the inspection of the destroyed house in Volgodonsk, a large crater five meters deep is visible.
• The prosecution believes that this crater is the result of the explosion of a GAZ vehicle loaded with explosives and delivered to the site of the explosion by the defendants.
• However, the victims doubted the investigation's version. Some of them witnessed unknown persons filling sewer manholes in the courtyard of the house with some substance two days before the explosion. The manholes, as it turned out later, were right at the very epicenter. It is possible that the charges were not only in the truck, but, most importantly, in the manholes. In addition, the organizers could have counted on a domestic gas explosion and a fire that would destroy the traces of the crime.
• "Does it matter to us where the explosives were—in the manhole or in the car? This should interest the court, not you," was roughly the judge's reaction...

The victims also told the court about numerous procedural violations committed by the investigation. For example, the medical examination of the victims was carried out hastily, immediately after... [text cuts off]

[Left sidebar]
...[to the Moscow terrorist attacks, and about the trial of those gang members who miraculously survived...)
We were interviewed by GRU officer Senior Lieutenant Alexei Galkin, who was in Chechen captivity and whom the militants forced under torture to state that he blew up houses... Our correspondent visited the homeland of the terrorists Dekkushev (who has already been caught) and Gochiyayev (who is still on the run and writes letters demanding quite large sums of money for information—evidently, it is not he himself who demands it, but those who are holding him).
Gradually it became obvious that around the investi... [text cuts off]

[Right sidebar]
...accused each other of ties and joint business with Chechen militants, in preparation, planning, secret negotiations...
At the same time, none of them—neither the former Russian oligarch nor the current government—wants to clearly answer very significant questions. Berezovsky about his role in all these stories, the government about its own. It looks like an attempt to shift a common great guilt onto each other.
We are forced to remind the warring parties of some materials we have already published and repeat our questions.

...statements made by us and Gochiyayev long ago <...>, it seems that in the near future we will indeed face detention or death <...>.
1. We admit to being accomplices in the terrorist acts that took place in Moscow and Volgodonsk in September 1999 <...>.
2. We are accomplices in the terrorist attacks at the lowest executive level, and we have nothing to do with the explosions themselves. We were only involved in the transportation of bags, which we believed contained explosives for blowing up administrative [text cuts off]

[Photo captions]
1. Timur Batchayev
2. Achimez Gochiyev
3. Adam Dekkushev
4. Yusuf Krymshamkhalov