Felshtinsky: About the publication of Gochiyaev s materials in the Chechen media (on the internet, as I understand it): this is just another indication of their authenticity, proving that their authenticity is accepted by the Chechen side also. We received these materials directly, without any tricky maneuvering. I don t know what they mean when they say that we obtained them through some American reporter.
Yushenkov: These materials are authentic - Prima news agency?
Litvinenko: We now have an opportunity to check: we can look at Gochiyaev s handwriting. I think the passport office will have a sample. We can ask his wife, his sister. She will bring us his letters, notebooks, records, and we can check: is the handwriting his or not his? That s not a problem. It s easily done.
Ezhenedelny Zhurnal: From what it says in the press release that we received, your contacts with Gochiyaev s representative took place in March-April. Why is this information being made public only now, four months later? What were you doing these four months?
Litvinenko: First, we were verifying the materials here, verifying whatever we could.
Second, we were getting in touch with members of the Commission and asking them to make these materials public. We made our request to make these materials public, I think, about one or one-and-a-half months ago, after additionally verifying them, and the 25th was set as a date. We saw no need, when we received the materials, to run somewhere with them that very day. They had to be verified. We also had to establish a contact - to say that we were going to publish them, that we were going to make them public - and to obtain an answer. So that, for instance, the contact shouldn t disappear in case there were any additional questions. There s a certain question of correctness here.
Felshtinsky: Also, two other considerations. First of all, it took some time before the reception of the information from Gochiyaev produced concrete results. And also, as has already been said, we were getting expert opinions about the photographs.
Kommersant newspaper: Could you give us the name of the lab of the expert who considers the photo of Khattab with Gochiyaev a fake?
Litvinenko: This is his business card, his name - Kommersant newspaper: That s all in the press release. Name the lab where he works.
Litvinenko:& This person is an official expert. He gives testimony in British and international courts. I know that yesterday he got phone calls from reporters. He was
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giving expert testimony in a British court. He has a license. Here, for example, is a notarized confirmation of his findings.
Kommersant newspaper: Why don t you show the videotape you received?
Felshtinsky: That s a question for those who arranged the technical transfer of the documents. I don t know much about this side of things. But I know that the photographs were delivered, but& You yourself can come or ask someone - we ll give it to you.
We ll make multiple copies. There s no question here. Currently, there are only two or three copies of the tape, to be honest. Also, we didn t fully understand until the last moment in what format the photographs and texts themselves were going to be delivered& The texts and photographs were sent to us only, I think, either today, or late yesterday. That s basically it. I repeat, this is just a question of time.
Kommersant newspaper: A question for Mr. Felshtinsky. You mentioned some additional testimony from a certain Batchayev, who claims that Khattab has no relation to the bombings in Moscow, and that Gochiyaev doesn t either. Who are the people making these claims?
Felshtinsky: These are very well-known people. These are the people who are accused by the Federal Security Service of organizing the bombings in Moscow and Volgodonsk.
These are the people who are currently being rather actively pursued by the FSB in Georgia. These are the people about whom the FSB declares (such a declaration was made, I believe, two days ago to one of the wire news services) that the question of their arrest is only a matter of time, a short period of time. I readily believe that the question of their arrest may indeed be only a matter of a short period of time.
Precisely because experience shows that people who wind up in the FSB s interrogation rooms for some reason give testimony that is advantageous exclusively for the FSB, and moreover that even this testimony, in contrast to the testimony that we receive in written form and that we make public, is not shown to the public& In order to prevent the same thing from happening - when these people end up in the FSB s hands and then start testifying that they got the order to blow up the buildings from Khattab or from some Chechen field commanders - I wanted to make use of this opportunity and to get it down on record that we already have written testimony from Batchayev and from Krymshamkhalov.
And this written testimony, I repeat, does not confirm the FSB s account. Rather, it indicates that neither Khattab, nor any of the Chechen field commanders, nor anyone from the Chechen leadership, was behind the September 1999 bombings or paid money for the organization of the September 1999 bombings, and that completely different people are behind these bombings, namely, I repeat, the Federal Security Service, under the leadership of concretely named individuals - Patrushev and German Ugriumov.
Kommersant newspaper: What is the basis of&
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Litvinenko: I want to add to what Felshtinsky has said. When the FSB gives us, for example, Dekkushev s testimony, they give us nothing except the testimony. You know: Dekkushev said& - and that s it. But [& ] Gochiyaev has made this declaration, but if Gochiyaev gets caught by the FSB, the FSB will say: Gochiyaev said this& In other words, besides the testimony, there s nothing else. That s the first thing.
And second, you understand that the FSB is an interested party. In Ryazan, there s direct evidence of an attempt to blow up an apartment building. For two-three years now, Patrushev is being directly accused of terrorism. This is not just something I say. This is something said by the media. They state openly that Patrushev organized these bombings.
And there hasn t been a single coherent response! You see what s going on? Not a single FSB agent came to this meeting& [They went to] the British security services. Why the security services? Because these services are secret. That s why they go to them. They re hoping that I ll pass these materials to the British security services, and that from these security services these materials will secretly pass to Mr. Patrushev, and that we ll never hear anything about them.
That s why I say one more time: I m prepared to answer the questions of any security services only publicly.
Felshtinsky: Still, I have the impression that we cut you off and you didn t finish your question - from Russia.
Question: Question from Russia - here, please! Question from Russia! (Audience noise.) Question: Mr. Felshtinsky, tell us, please, what is these people s testimony based on?
What does Patrushev have to do with it, what does Khattab have to do with it? Nothing is clear.
Felshtinsky: The point is that these people are, according the FSB and in our opinion, the main witnesses in the case of the September 1999 bombings. An official warrant for their arrest has been issued by the General Prosecutor of the Russian Federation. I repeat: according to the FSB and in our opinion, they are at the very least the principal witnesses (together with Dekkushev, perhaps) in the September 1999 bombings. These are vary valuable, very important witnesses. And tomorrow something is going happen to them. If tomorrow, for example, they re accidentally killed while being taken into custody in Georgia, we risk never knowing what they know about the September 1999 bombings in Moscow.
I have the written testimony of both participants (or suspected participants) of these events, stating that they know everything about the events of September 1999 and are ready to tell it.
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Sergei Kuznetsov: I have a question from Russia. Sergei Kuznetsov, Radio Liberty, Ekaterinburg edition. A question for Alexander Felshtinsky. Exactly what you were just&
Excuse me, for
Alexander Litvinenko.
September 2 (going back to the book) is the anniversary of the possible signing of the decree that s published in your book: to dissolve the FSB. Don t you think that such a decree would be remarkably appropriate right now? This would give the Commission the best opportunity to work effectively. Has your attitude to this decree changed at all? And, at the very least, would you not recommend that our president immediately remove Mr.
Patrushev - at least for the duration of this Commission s investigation?
Litvinenko: Recommend to Putin to remove someone from their post? I consider this inappropriate. He is a grown man, occupies a high position, and must decide for himself whom to appoint and whom to remove. He is personally responsible for his subordinates.
Regarding the decree. There is a law about terrorism, about the fight against terrorism in the Russian Federation. The law clearly states that an organization which contains elements that are engaged in terrorism and that the leadership knows about must be declared a terrorist organization and dissolved.
But we already have instances when agents of the Federal Security Service committed terrorist attacks: Captain Schelenkov, 1994, the bombing of the railroad; Lieutenant Colonel Vorobyov, the bombing of the bus, before the start of the first war in Chechnya.
Based on these facts alone we can already pose a question in terms of the law about fighting terrorism: in general, does the FSB of the Russian Federation - under the current conditions in Russia, within the framework of the current laws and Constitution - does it operate within the bounds of what is acceptable in the country, or doesn t it? If we bring up these facts& (Audience noise.) Yushenkov: Alexander, I understand. Yuri and Alexander, you still haven t answered the question from Kommersant: where did you get the testimony of these new parties about this matter? And on what basis, in general, did they supply you with this evidence, and so on? And what support is there - does the testimony that you have have any objective support?
Felshtinsky: We were contacted more or less the same way as with Gochiyaev. Yes, people got in touch with us and told us that they wanted to tell the truth, again, about what happened in September 1999. We are now in active contact with these people.
Naturally, as always, this contact isn t direct but through their intermediaries. I don t even know how to answer this question more precisely. These people, I repeat, are either participants or at least witnesses. They claim that they know everything [& ] - everything about what happened in Moscow in September 1999.
Alexander asked them questions, very many questions, to which they gave extensive answers. And from their answers to these questions (absolutely specific, so to speak, concrete questions, that we asked them) a very clear picture emerges.
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I repeat: this picture is that no Chechens, on any level, not even the hired Khattabs and so on, had anything to do with ordering the bombings in Moscow and Volgodonsk (and in Dagestan, by the way) in 1999, that this whole bombing campaign was organized by the Federal Security Service. I repeat: specific people are named.
Yushenkov: Yuri, when will you send us these materials, this testimony?
Felshtinsky: You know, I d like to say the following. You must understand, and I hope that the reporters will understand this also, that Alexander and I are two private citizens, we don t have ID s in our pockets, we don t have gun holsters on our belts, we don t have Russian or foreign law enforcement behind us. The work we re engaged in, which is actually quite difficult, exhausting, and even dangerous, is directed against a very powerful apparatus, which is called the Federal Security Service, that has tens of thousands of people working for it. While we strive to be as open as possible - going back to the question of openness - and to make public each new bit of evidence in this independent investigation of ours as quickly as possible - we (I hope you ll understand us) must devote a little attention to the safety of our work. And at this stage, right now, I don t want to give you the pieces of information that we already have, simply because, I repeat, these are people with whom - in contrast to Gochiyaev, with whom we re not in active contact at the moment - these are people, Krymshamkhalov and Batchayev, with whom we are in active contact, and from whom we re constantly receiving small installments of new information and new&
Yushenkov: Yura, everything s clear. Since the topic for today is only Gochiyaev, let s
[not] go into the topic of&
Litvinenko: Sergei Nikolayevich, I would also like to say, to point out, that we ourselves are constantly being watched. For example, Russian intelligence agents recently tried to enter my apartment. My wife didn t let them in. It was shown in court that they were not diplomats but Russian intelligence agents. Their documents [are in court], I can show them to you. You see what s going on? My relatives are being pressured. My close relatives, who come to visit me here, are detained and searched in Sheremetyevo, stripsearched, you understand? My 65-year-old mother-in-law was strip-searched in Sheremetyevo-2. There are constant threats. Over there is Mr. Trepashkin, the lawyer.
He ll confirm that they threatened me, that I ll be killed, thrown under a train, if I don t calm down. You see what s happening?
Yushenkov: No, we understand your position&
Litvinenko: These facts I ll also present to your Commission. I ll give you these facts.
Yushenkov: Fine, fine.
Litvinenko: Why are they doing this? Because they re not interested in being objective.
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Yushenkov: Please, next question.
RosBiznesKonsalting Information Agency: I have a question for Tatyana Morozova. If I m not mistaken, earlier you announced your intention to file a lawsuit against Russia in connection with the inadequate investigation of these bombings, [in which] your mother died. Tell us, please, have you acted on your intention, have you brought up charges?
Morozova: Yes, we filed a lawsuit and now the lawyers are handling it. The lawsuit was filed at the Lublin Municipal Court on March 4 of this year, right before the press conference on March 5.
I m very grateful to you, respected reporters and members of the press, for coming to this studio. I hope that my plea, my appeal, will reach all the people who answered those phone calls that Alexander spoke about, at the 03 emergency service, and the 911 emergency service. I hope that these people will respond and get in contact with the Moscow Commission that is investigating this tragedy. I truly hope that people will respond. I think that their hearts have not yet become frozen and that help will definitely come to us. Please, convey my appeal.
Yushenkov: Yes& Thank you. Who has questions? Raise your hand, so we can see.
Lev Moskovkin: I have a more ideological question. At the present time the position of the security services in the public consciousness is remarkably firm, in contrast to [& ] ago. Even if we take your side and accept your arguments - how should we understand them? What are you hoping to accomplish, what are you trying [& ]?
Yushenkov: I think we ve all said that we re investigating facts and want to determine the truth. El País, please.
Lev Moskovkin: That s probably a question for everyone, both for the Commission and for you& Well, you haven t answered& Alexander, the question is to you.
Litvinenko: I want to say the following. These bombings that happened - they affected every Russian family. How? Some people died under the ruins of these buildings. Some people are now fighting in Chechnya - the President of Russia has said explicitly that these bombings were the casus belli. Some people are now fighting in Chechnya, dying, killing. As for the majority of Russia s citizens, they have exchanged their freedom in return for safety. In other words, the people of Russia have given the law enforcement agencies permission, in return for their own safety, to search the trunks of their cars, to enter their apartments. They are forced to patrol the doorways of their buildings, and cannot walk twenty meters away from their apartment without a passport in their pocket, a residence permit, a registrati
on. That s what we re talking about, you see.
And that s why I think that everyone must now define his own civic stance. And every Russian citizen must take an interest in discovering the truth. I want to find this truth, you understand? And to use, among other things, the experience that I have of twenty years in
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law enforcement. I m not the most experienced agent. Nor am I an inexperienced agent. I don t want to say that. I ve simply served for twenty years, and I would like to devote the knowledge that I have to finding the criminals responsible for these bombings. That s my position.
Yushenkov: El País, Spain.
El País: I have a very specific question. Gochiyaev s testimony from April 24 shows that a certain man paid him a visit at his firm, a man whom he knew very well, and from the text it follows that this is the man who set him up. So the question is: why isn t this man named?
Alexander Litvinenko Page 36