Alexander Litvinenko

by Blowing Up Russia (lit)

  Why Krymshamkhalov and Batchayev have given their testimony today, have sent this declaration, is sooner a question for them than for me. But I have no difficulty explaining the logic of their crime, the logic of their actions. This logic is very simple. They were relatively young. (Batchayev was 21, Krymshamkhalov 32. I have all these facts from their answers to my questionnaires.) These were young people. They believe - let s suppose they re right - that it was they who transported the explosives. In other words, they think that what they transported from point A to point B were explosives. Frankly speaking, it s entirely possible that this was not the case. And that everything that these young people did was precisely a cover-up operation on the part of the FSB.

  It would all seem to fit. Except that the buildings that were blown up were the buildings where they d delivered the explosives! In other words, there s no escaping their personal responsibility.

  Yes, but these were not the buildings that they were told were supposed to get blown up, not the federal targets. This is the main puzzle here. As I understand it, Krymshamkhalov and Batchayev were hired by certain people, who presented themselves as Chechen separatists, and who said that they had orders from Khattab, Basaev, or

  241

  242

  maybe the president of Chechnya, to blow up federal targets on Russian territory. And these young people, who were not especially educated, not especially experienced, as I understand it, these people agreed to take part in this operation.

  And these inexperienced people know about the participation of Patrushev? It doesn t fit, Yura.

  No, no. The only thing these young people knew at the time was that this was not an operation organized by Chechen separatists. Their job, as they understood it, was to transport the explosives from point A to point B in Moscow and in Volgodonsk.

  In other words, they knew that these were explosives?

  They claim that they knew. But the bombings happened not when they were told they would happen, and not where they were told they would happen&

  But still, let me repeat, at the locations where the explosives were delivered.

  I would say, yes - at those locations where the explosives were delivered. But, in their view, the bombings occurred prematurely. I asked them this question: Were you troubled by the fact the bombings everywhere occurred prematurely? They said no.

  You gave them these questions in writing?

  Yes, of course. And the only thing they knew was that the buildings that got blown up were not federal buildings, but buildings with peaceful civilians. And this is what tipped them off them that something was wrong, and that they had to run. The only place they could run in that situation was Chechnya, which is what they did. And they arrived in Chechnya as people who claimed that they had participated in the September 1999 terrorist attacks in Moscow and in Volgodonsk.

  The Chechens had a very big problem with this information. They didn t know what to do with people who showed up in Chechnya claiming that they d carried out a terrorist attack in Moscow on Khattab s orders. Everyone thought that they were impostors who were lying and attempting to gain some kind of political capital.

  Here a simple question comes up: Who were these Chechens, in point of fact, that didn t know what to do with them? Where did you get the idea that such Chechens exist?

  Krymshamkhalov and Batchayev are not Chechens by nationality. You have to understand that Chechnya is a small country or more like a large village, where everybody knows everybody. As soon as people appeared in Chechnya claiming that they d carried out terrorist attacks on orders from Khattab and Basaev, they very quickly wound up at Khattab s, who told them that there d been no instructions to carry out any terrorist attacks in Moscow and Volgodonsk, and that no one from the Chechen leadership, the military leadership included, had given any such instructions. They were

  242

  243

  told this by Khattab. I want to emphasize that the Chechen leadership, from the very first days, denied any involvement in the bombings in Moscow, in Volgodonsk, and in Buinaksk.

  In that case, who were the Chechens who found Krymshamkhalov and Batchayev in Moscow and invited them to participate in what was in their opinion a just cause?

  First of all, no one said they were Chechens. These were people who presented themselves as Chechen separatists. We don t know who these people were or who they were working for in reality. We can suppose, if we accept the theory that the 1999 terrorist attacks in Russia were planned by the FSB and the GRU, that these people were from the FSB and the GRU.

  These are shaky assumptions. Why did they need to go to such lengths? And why, then, did the FSB and the GRU let Krymshamkhalov and Batchayev go? Why did they allow them, as Krymshamkhalov and Batchayev claim, to make phone calls, to call some kind of emergency service, and to say that there were explosives in other places? It s nonsense.

  Let s examine the evidence. They didn t let Krymshamkhalov and Batchayev go. They ran away. They re still being pursued, like Dekkushev, who was arrested in Georgia and extradited to Moscow. So it is clear that they were intending to arrest them immediately after the bombings, but since the bombings took place prematurely and not where they were supposed to, not in federal targets, Krymshamkhalov, Batchayev, and others realized that they d been set up, decided not to wait for an explanation, and took off.

  An analogous thing happened with Gochiyaev, except that Gochiyaev had offered his storage space for storing sugar and didn t know that Krymshamkhalov and Batchayev had stored hexogene there. It was precisely Gochiyaev who called the emergency services. He didn t know about the explosives, but after the first explosion he realized that his bags of sugar were exploding. Precisely Gochiyaev called emergency and, by reporting the address of the storage space on Borisovskie Prudy, prevented further bombings in Moscow.

  Then why do they give the names of Lazovsky, Patrushev, Ugriumov?

  That s the most interesting part&

  According to your logic, there are certain unspecified individuals who, in the name of Chechen separatists, asked Krymshamkhalov and Batchayev for aid in the struggle.

  Then, when the bomb went off too soon, Krymshamkhalov and Batchayev didn t like the look of it. And they ran off to Chechnya, where Khattab announced to them that he hadn t given any such orders.

  243

  244

  But in that case, where do they come up with the names of Patrushev, Ugriumov, and Lazovsky, who was simply a bandit and indeed an FSB agent? Because according to their own logic, they didn t know anyone!

  From the moment they arrived in Chechnya and announced that they had been recruited by people presenting themselves as separatist sympathizers, it became clear to the Chechen leadership that the events in Moscow, in Volgodonsk and Buinaksk, were a deliberate provocation by the Russian security services, directed against Chechens. From this moment, the Chechen leadership itself begins investigating the 1999 bombings. In other words, various Chechen leaders - they have no single leadership there now, obviously - start gathering information, each one trying to find out for himself who was behind the 1999 terrorist attacks. Because they know it wasn t them. This explains the attempt to obtain this information from Galkin; this explains similar attempts to obtain the same information from any security agent captured by the Chechens.

  The number of people captured by the Chechens in the last 2-3 years is quite large. And each of them supplied some information that had, among other things, a direct or indirect connection to the events of 1999.

  But in that case, Krymshamkhalov s and Gochiyaev s testimony is not the testimony of witnesses who were actually acquainted, for example, at least with Lazovsky, but the testimony of people to whom it was only later explained where their orders may have been coming from.

  In principle, that is correct& But I stress this: about Lazovsky-Abdulgafur, the Russian, they claim that they knew him personally and that he was the leader of the whole group of terrorists. They also knew another terrorist leader: L
ieutenant Colonel Abubakar (AbuBakar) - Tatar, 32 years old, short, with glasses. But I m far from thinking that Krymshamkhalov and Batchayev, without a legal, military, or any kind of education, were capable of conducting their own independent investigation, even in the event that they had a direct connection to these events.

  But a simple question comes up: Are they so naive that they didn t even ask for the names of the people who presented themselves as Chechen separatists? They didn t know them and they didn t ask for any references? What, do you just walk up to someone who looks Chechen and say, Old man, how would you like to blow a building or a federal target in the name of our common cause? - I must say that their answers to all my questions and all my questionnaires contain the same phrase, repeated over and over again: We will answer all questions in greater detail when we meet. All the information that I m being given now is so highly regulated by the people giving it to me that we can only guess about what they really know and could tell us. Because they say the same thing about absolutely everything: we know everything, but we ll give the details when we meet; we know all the names, but we ll provide them when we meet.

  244

  245

  But why don t they give them? For what reason? They re really the first who must tell the truth about themselves, in order to put an end to this totally suicidal war. Why then do they keep saying: the details when we meet ; why don t they immediately go to the Commission that you created for investigating these terrorist attacks; why don t they act on their own initiative; why are you - an independent historical researcher - now doing more than they are?

  The answer is simple. They are now in hiding. There s a large price on their heads.

  They re being hunted by the FSB and the GRU. In the places where they re hiding, they re not alone but among groups of people.

  They re being hunted by one group and provided for by another? If the GRU hired them, then why is the GRU hunting them? To kill them or to arrest them?

  Either to kill them or to arrest them. In any case, to force them to be quiet. Their testimony has to be studied, many questions have to be asked. A genuine, serious investigation has to be conducted in order to identify all the terrorists, at all levels, who took part in the 1999 terrorist attacks. For me, their testimony does not look like a falsification, since if it were, believe me, it would have been a simple black-and-white statement like we confirm that we were recruited by the Russian security services and that we carried out the bombings on instructions from the FSB and the GRU. But their testimony, as you see for yourself, raises more questions than it answers. Today Krymshamkhalov, Batchayev, and Gochiyaev are being controlled by certain groups of people. They are not free. Not free to move around, not free to make decisions.

  Controlled by Chechens? Fighters?

  Chechens. The three of them can t survive on their own: they would either get killed or sold, because they re being hunted by serious Russian security agents.

  In other words, Chechen groups are protecting them? Own them?

  Own, more than protect. But also protect, certainly.

  In other words, terrorists can be bought and sold?

  With Gochiyaev, this is definitely the case. He is definitely not free to do as he wishes.

  In other words, it s not Gochiyaev who determines if he s going to give interviews, answer questions.

  You saw this personally?

  It s a conclusion I ve reached. I can t say that I saw it, because I repeat, I haven t seen any of these people. The information is gathered and received by us in various ways, but neither I nor Alexander Litvinenko have seen any of these people, ever. That s why I m now talking about my impressions and conclusions. I think that they are completely

  245

  246

  correct. Krymshamkhalov s and Batchayev s degree of freedom is undoubtedly substantially greater than Gochiyaev s. By the way, the materials that I submitted to Novaya Gazeta make this sufficiently obvious.

  If Gochiyaev, according to his testimony, had nothing to do with it, then why is he being so protected and kept under such tight control? Essentially, almost imprisoned?

  Why doesn t he go to the General Prosecutor s Office?

  I don t think we should leave anything unsaid here and present the situation in a rosy light. He cannot turn himself in to Russian law enforcement because these are agencies with vested interests. If he turns himself in, we ll never find out the truth, period. The crux of the problem, however, is that the people who control Gochiyaev are demanding money for his release.

  During the TV bridge from London in July of this year, Litvinenko and I were asked a question: Why didn t we obtain from Gochiyaev the name of the FSB agent who transported hexogene in sugar bags to Gochiyaev s storage space? Without this name Gochiyaev s declaration looks considerably less convincing than it would with it. Trust me, I ve tried to find out the name of the FSB agent repeatedly, at every convenient opportunity. The only thing that I ve been able to find out is that the FSB officer who stored explosives with Gochiyaev has made a decent career for himself, has been promoted, and to this day works for the security services. Today he is a well-known figure. But any further information can be obtained only in exchange for money. Without money, Gochiyaev will not provide the name. And since from the very beginning, we never had any intention of paying - explaining that we can t pay for information, since information that is paid for is no longer authentic - we haven t been told the name of the FSB agent who hired Gochiyaev to store the explosives.

  It becomes a closed circle. Because if you pay, you ll find out the name that the person who paid the money wants to hear; you won t obtain any real information. Do I understand correctly that money is much more important to them than the suffering which their people are going through in the war?

  I ve spent many hours talking to them about this subject. And my argument - that they re the ones who need this most - hasn t worked so far. Yes, they re the ones who need it, but for the moment they also need money. I m not going to give a moral evaluation of these people s behavior. This is the reality with which we were confronted.

  The same problem came up when we were getting testimony from Krymshamkhalov and Batchayev, who are being controlled by other people. When asked if they know everything, they reply: yes, we know everything. When asked if they re ready to tell everything, they also reply yes. When asked if they d be ready to appear in a European court in a third country, they reply: yes, we re ready. But until we re given money, with which we can provide for our families, we won t give up the information that we possess.

  And you can do what you like.

  246

  247

  But you must admit that this is really a kind of cannibalistic position, no? First buildings with living people inside them get blown up, whole families with children&

  Then the sadists say: yes, we blew them up, but in order to say who was involved, concretely, we need money to provide for our families&

  Yes, yes& But since I m the listener here, nothing depends on me. The only thing I can do is to say, for the hundredth time, like a parrot, that we ve already been through this, that we don t pay for information&

  But what s the next step, then? Look: they re there, they re alive. Is that a fact? Yes.

  They re now being controlled by certain people who aren t part of the Russian federal apparatus. Or are they?

  They re not. Moreover, I m certain that, in one way or another, they re part of those whom we call Chechen guerillas or Chechen separatists. But this is, again, my own assumption.

  And these people are buying and selling terrorists whom they hold as hostages! Is it fair to say that?

  Yes. Although Gochiyaev does not consider himself a terrorist.

  And in order to allow the terrorists to talk, they re demanding that we, who are the terrorists hostages, pay them money. Right? So what do we do next?

  Nothing. That s the reason why I personally believe that my and Alexander Litvinenko s reportorial
investigation of this subject - I mean, obtaining testimony from Krymshamkhalov, Batchayev, and Gochiyaev - has reached a dead end. That s my frank opinion.