You talk about them demanding money. Tell me, in order for you to meet with Gochiyaev, Batchayev, and Krymshamkhalov, all wanted by the FSB, how much money did they demand?
Well, you know, in such situations everyone likes large, round figures& And not just to meet with them, but to meet with them and to get their testimony on videotape, with a guarantee that all our questions will be answered.
A large, round figure in their opinion is - how much?
The sum mentioned was three million dollars. It s clear that there s no way I could obtain three million dollars. So my ethical considerations in this case are in complete agreement with my absolute practical inability to pay this kind of money.
Interview conducted by Dmitriy MURATOV
December 09, 2002
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Appendix 18 Print-out of the interview given by A. Gochiyaev on August 20, 2002 The interview was given to someone he knew well and recorded with a video camera.
As proof of the tape s existence we were sent the first minute of the video interview. The handwritten transcription was sent to us on January 18, 2003. The text has been noted down from the video tape with many inaccuracies. A precise print-out of the first minute of the video tape is given below. However, to judge from this first minute of the video interview, there are no substantial distortions of meaning. In the text of the handwritten transcription, on the initiative of the owners of the tape the names of two people, (K.) and (Kh.), have been omitted, as we were warned that they would be. The people who control Gochiyaev and own the tape were expecting to get from us money precisely for these names.
Text of the first minute of the interview, checked against the tape:
Question: Tell us about yourself, where were you born?
Answer: My name is Achemez Shagabanovich Gochiyaev. I am a native of Karachayevo-Cherkessia. Until 1988 I lived in the republic. In 1988 after graduating from secondary school I went to study in Moscow, was drafted into the army, then went back and lived in Moscow again. Until September 1999 I lived in Moscow. I lived in Moscow in the Strogino Region, on Marshal Katukov Street.
Question: How did it happen that precisely your name began to be linked with the blowing-up of houses in Moscow? The special services of Russia accuse you directly of organizing these explosions. (recording breaks off).
Print-out of the handwritten transcription of A. Gochiyaev s video interview, August
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20, 2002
The spelling and punctuation of the original document have been retained In this interview a great deal is left unspoken. The first names and surnames of currently active FSB employees involved in these events are known. To this day they are living peacefully in their homes and occupy high positions.
This is the only interview. The correspondent is a person he knows well.
Question: Can you introduce yourself please?
Answer: I am Achemez Shagabanovich Gochiyaev. I was born in the Karachayevo- Cherkesskaya Republic. Until 1988 I lived in the KChR. After graduating from school in 1988 I went to Moscow, to study. From there I was drafted into the army. I went back
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and lived in Moscow again. Until September 1999 I lived in Moscow on Marshal Batukov Street.
Question: How did it happen that precisely your name began to be linked with the blowing-up of houses in Moscow? The special services of Russia accuse precisely you of organizing these explosions. Why is it you they blame?
Answer: How did I come to find myself in this situation. In 1997 I set up a firm for building cottages. I did building work. In the summer of 1999 an old acquaintance whom I had known from the school days came to the firm to see me. He is called (K.). He invited me to go into business with him. He said that he had places for selling goods, i.e. food products and I should help him. I supply food products, he sells them and pays me.
One time he ordered mineral water from me, I delivered it to him and he paid me. Then he asked me to help him rent storage premises in the south of Moscow, he said he had good sales points there. I found four storage premises, showed them to him and helped him to rent them. Immediately after this the explosion at 9 Gurianov Street took place.
That day I was not at home, I was at a friend s place. He phoned me on my mobile and said there had been some kind of fire at the storage premises and I had to go there. I said, All right and started getting ready. It was already almost morning. I phoned for a taxi and switched on the television. In the morning news I saw that there was almost nothing left of the house. That put me on my guard and I waited. And when, a few days later, there was a second explosion on Kashirskoe Shosse, I finally realized that I had been set up. I immediately phoned the police and the rescue services and informed them of the other two storage premises; at Borisovskie Prudy Street, in the Kapotnya district, there was another store in a prefabricated garage. After that I had to leave Moscow. I went back to the republic and lived there for a certain time. Now what can I say. I know that this man (K.) no longer hides the fact that he is an FSB employee, that he works in the FSB in the city of Cherkessk. I didn t know that before, when I helped him.
Question: Do you think it was precisely (K.) who set you up?
Answer: Yes, of course. I m sure of it, he was the one who did it. Who was with him, how it was done I don t know for sure, or these people either. The only thing I can tell you is that once on my way home I decided to drop in to visit him - he wasn t expecting me. When I walked into his place, there was another man there with him. After I d said hello, that man left immediately. By following the press and searching the internet just recently I found out who that man was. He was (Kh.)& !!
Question: Are you sure that is definitely the man you saw?
Answer: Yes, I recognized him from a photograph..! Apart from that, in late August and early September (K.) made several trips to Ryazan and he asked me to help him there as well. Supposedly he had places for selling goods there as well, but since he had no firm of his own, as he told me, and he wanted me to register the renting of these storage premises to my form. But then he apparently found some other firm that helped him to
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rent the premises. I know for certain that (K.) made a trip to Ryazan at the beginning of September.
Question: What do you think, why did he choose precisely you and not someone else to rent these storage premises?
Answer: I think that the point is that I worked in Moscow.
Question: When did you work there?
Answer: I was working there in 1997, building cottages.
Question: Was the firm registered?
Answer: Yes the firm was called KAPSTROI-2000. My construction office was in the area of the Barikadnoe metro station. There s a two story building beside the metro.
Question: The press has often presented information that you re a Chechen, that definitely the terrorist attacks that blew up the houses in Moscow were organized by Khattab, that you were a member of Khattab s group. There s a photograph published in the internet where you and Khattab are in the same shot. How true are these photographs?
Answer: Concerning that I can tell you the following. If you mean that photograph in the internet where I am supposed to be in a beard and a cap beside Khattab - I ve seen that photograph in the internet. That man is not me and he doesn t even look much like me, and it has already been proved that it is a photomontage! Although the Russian FSB claims to this day that it is me. Now we can see and understand what it was done for.
They needed a Chechen connection. Even in my documents as a wanted man I was described as a Chechen, although my identity documents were issued by the Karachayevsk ROVD (District Department of the Interior) and consequently in the FSB they knew that I am a Karachayevan. They needed to link me with Chechnya. It was done for that. I never knew either Khattab or his group and I had nothing to do with them. Now it is obvious what they required this for.
Question; You
say that you are innocent. For what reason are you hiding?
Answer: The reason is that the special services are searching very intensively for me.
After the explosions in Moscow I went back to my own country and knowing that they had set me up I realized that now I had to hide. I lived for a while in my own country and hid - that was after the events in Moscow in 1999. My own brother was working as the head of the Criminal Investigation Division of the district and he warned me through relatives that they had a secret order not to take me alive, i.e. to eliminate me, he warned me to be careful. Now I know that he was fired from his position. I also know that the Russian FSB is offering big money to have me eliminated.
Question: But why do they need to have you eliminated?
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Answer: Because I possess information, I know certain facts, the names of these people, the employees - the real perpetrators of what happened. It s not hard to check.
To this day they are still active employees of the FSB who often visit Moscow.
Question: Why shouldn t you contact the Russian embassy and tell them the way things really were?
Answer: There is no point. This system, the NKVD, KGB, FSB - is all one system. The name changes, but the essence, the working methods and the goals are the same. They really have a rich pedigree, and there is no sense at all in trusting them. I know it would not do me any good at all. I am simply talking now just so that the world can know the truth, how it all was. That is what I am hoping for.
Question: Do you feel any guilt for not trying earlier to tell the world about these events in Moscow? After all, these bombings were one of Russia s motives for the invasion of Chechnya. Why did you not speak out about this sooner?
Answer: Only now have people appeared who are willing to listen, interested in the truth being made public. Earlier nobody wanted that. I made attempts, but the business wasn t allowed to proceed - people were afraid to expose themselves Question: Afraid precisely of the Russian authorities?
Answer: Yes. They are afraid now, and very much afraid.
Question: What else would you like to say? Are there facts that are more convincing?
Answer: I ve already mentioned some facts. There are others, a great deal has been left unsaid.
Question: What was it that finally led you to hide from the authorities? When did you realize that it was precisely you they wanted to set up? When did you come to believe this?
Answer: Immediately after the second explosion I realized that I had been set up for certain. After the first explosion I didn t understand anything completely. The only thing that put me on my guard was that (K.) didn t tell me what had really happened there. He phoned my mobile and said, Come over, there s been a little fire, although in actual fact right then I saw on television that something terrible had happened. Later I went there and had a look - it was a horrible sight. But I didn t meet with (K.). I came, looked and went away. All those false documents that I supposedly used were prepared by him in advance so their operation would be a success and nothing would go wrong along he way. They didn t think that they wouldn t find me at home, or I wouldn t be talking to you now, or to anybody else.
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Question: After what happened did anyone get in touch with you?
Answer: No. After the 13th I left Moscow. I know that afterwards there were Moscow FSB employees working in our republic. They tried to break down my relatives, frightened them very badly. At first, I heard, they offered my sister money. Then when she refused the threats began and the demands for her to give an interview and say that I was capable of it. First bribery, then menaces. I know they took her out to the cemetery with her little child, who wasn t even three yet, so that she would give testimony discrediting me, otherwise they would kill her and her child. Those are the methods the FSB works with.
Question: What do you friends and acquaintances think about this?
Answer: As for my friends and acquaintances: no one who knows me believes that I could have done it.
Question: There is testimony against you from several prisoners?
Answer: I know that there are several people who are supposedly also accused of terrorist acts, and these prisoners are giving testimony against me. But knowing the system of the KGB and FSB, there are150 million people living in Russia and with that system it s always possible to manufacture witnesses for a specific case. For the FSB it would not be a problem. And there is another point too: when they say how it all happened there, the thing that amazes me most of all is the naivete of our Russian citizens. How can they think that it is possible to bring, as they say, ten tons of explosive into Moscow and carry out an explosion - it isn t possible. Apart from the special services nobody could do it. This naivete of our citizens surprises me greatly.
Question: The mass media are saying that in Western Georgia in Adjaria one of the men suspected of involvement in the terrorist attacks in Russia has been arrested and supposedly he is now giving testimony that satisfies the Russian special services. Do you not think it possible that he can give testimony against you? And in general, are you acquainted with this man?
Answer: All I know is that a certain Adam Dekkushev has been arrested and he is giving some kind of testimony. I do not doubt in the least that he is giving precisely the testimony that is in the FSB s interests. And that is not surprising, knowing this system.
Let us recall one example from history, the arrest of Beria. On the second day after his arrest Beria had confessed that he worked for 10 foreign intelligence services.
Consequently, everyone who falls into the hands of the FSB will say what suits the FSB and everything they want to hear.
Question: Does it follow from this that all of these testimonies are fabricated and beaten out of the suspects under investigation by force?
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Answer: Of course. Any man who has fallen into their hands even once or has come up against this system in at least some way, for him it s no secret.
Question: Are you not afraid for your life? Are you not afraid of falling into the hands of the special services?
Answer: Of course, I do not rule it out. I know that the special services are offering big money to have me eliminated.
Question: Is it a question of elimination?
Answer: In the special services it is only a question of elimination. That is, it is not in their interest to take me alive, because I will talk. But it is not ruled out that the same thing could happen to me as to this man. And I will say what they want to hear from me, even if I am signing my own death sentence with my words. The truth is what I am saying now, while I am free. Not in their hands.
Question: So you do not offer any guarantee for your own self, that if you are caught you will not give false testimony against yourself?
Answer: Of course not. If I end up in their hands, in the hands of the FSB, I will not be saying what I am saying now, I will be saying what they want.
Question: Well if Beria was unable to resist these tortures I think there are probably not many who could stand up against the FSB. And they have a lot of ways of beating information out of you.
Answer: Of course.
Correspondent: Thank you for agreeing to give us an interview. Thank you very much.
And we hope that this very interview of yours will cast light on the true perpetrators and the instigator of this crime.
Answer: I very much hope so too.
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Appendix 19
Questions for A. Gochiyaev 1. Three group photographs have been placed on the site FSB.ru. In two of them Gochiyaev (according to the FSB) is photographed together with Khattab. In the third Gochiyaev (according to the FSB) is photographed together with a different man. Can you tell us if it is you that was photographed in these photographs? If it is you photographed in them, when and in what circumstances were these photographs taken and were you really photographed toge
ther with Khattab? Why were you photographed with Khattab and why was Khattab photographed with you?
2. Was the testimony published by us on the Grani.ru site and presented by us to the commission written by your own hand?
3. Do you confirm that it is your testimony?
Alexander Litvinenko Page 40