Orders to Kill

by Amy Knight

  47.  His Honour Judge Nicholas Hilliard QC, “Inquest into the death of Alexander Perepilichnyy,” May 22, 2017, https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/perepilichnyy-ruling-on-public-interest-immunity-and-related-issues-20170523.pdf.

  11. The Boston Marathon Bombings: Russia’s Footprint

    1.  Eric Schmitt and Michael S. Schmidt, “Two U.S. Agencies Added Boston Bomb Suspect to Watch List,” The New York Times, April 24, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/25/us/tamerlan-tsarnaev-bomb-suspect-was-on-watch-lists.html?ref=us.

    2.  House Homeland Security Committee Report, Preventing Another Boston Marathon Bombing, April 2015, https://homeland.house.gov/press/homeland-security-committee-releases-follow-report-boston-marathon-bombings/, 11; The Road to Boston: Counterterrorism Challenges and Lessons From the Marathon Bombings, House Homeland Security Committee Report, March 2014, https://homeland.house.gov/files/documents/Boston-Bombings-Report.pdf.

    3.  Masha Gessen, The Brothers: The Road To An American Tragedy (New York: Riverhead Books, 2015). Also see Sally Jacobs, David Filipov, and Patricia Wen, “The Fall of the House Tsarnaev,” The Boston Globe, December 15, 2013, http://www.bostonglobe.com/Page/Boston/2011-2020/WebGraphics/Metro/BostonGlobe.com/2013/12/15tsarnaev/tsarnaev.html.

    4.  Gessen, The Brothers, 63.

    5.  Ibid., 79–81.

    6.  Scott Helman and Jenna Russell, Long Mile Home: Boston Under Attack, the City’s Courageous Recovery and the Epic Hunt for Justice (New York: Dutton, 2014), 35–36.

    7.  Ibid., 46.

    8.  U.S. v. Tsarnaev, Jury Trial—Day 51, April 28, 2015, http://thebostonmarathonbombings.weebly.com/uploads/2/4/2/6/24264849/day_51_trial_day_april_28_2015_transcript-defense-witnesses-51.pdf.

    9.  Ibid.

  10.  A good example is the network of ten Russians who were residing on the U.S. East Coast and were exposed by the FBI as “sleeper agents” for the SVR in June 2010.

  11.  Mairbek Vatchagaev, “Why Tamerlan Tsarnaev is Outside of Chechen Mentality,” Eurasia Daily Monitor, vol. 10, issue 83, May 2, 2013, http://www.jamestown.org/programs/edm/single/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=40825&cHash=d5aa5ba44b8d9b178e232d854d1ddde7#.V7s5SbV7fBI.

  12.  http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/24/us/boston-brainwash/.

  13.  Transcript of the Tsarnaevs’ news conference, April 26, 2013, from The New York Times.

  14.  United States v. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Jury Trial—Day 54, May 4, 2015: http://thebostonmarathonbombings.weebly.com/uploads/2/4/2/6/24264849/day_54_trial_day_may_4_2015_transcript.pdf, 72–73.

  15.  United States v. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Jury Trial—Day 56, May 6, 2015, http://thebostonmarathonbombings.weebly.com/uploads/2/4/2/6/24264849/1393_trial_day_56_may_6_2015_transcript.pdf.

  16.  Christian Caryl, “The Bombers’ World,” The New York Review of Books, 60, no. 19, June 6, 2013, http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2013/06/06/bombers-world/. See also Caryl’s interview with Greta Van Susteren, April 29, 2013, http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/on-the-record/index.html#http://video.foxnews.com/v/2338904976001/boston-terror-probe-who-is-the-mysterious-misha/?playlist_id=86925.

  17.  Irina Gordienko, “Bostonskii vzryvatel’ byl davno zariazhen,” Novaia gazeta, April 27, 2013, http://www.novayagazeta.ru/inquests/57925.html. It is important to note that Gordienko’s source was an employee of Dagestan’s anti-terrorism center, which is run by the FSB and often leaks misinformation.

  18.  http://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/2011-request-for-information-on-tamerlan-tsarnaev-from-foreign-government.

  19.  Telephone interview with Congressman William Keating, January 16, 2014.

  20.  The Road to Boston, 11.

  21.  Curiously, during his testimony in June 2013 before the House Judiciary Committee, FBI chief Robert Mueller let it be known that Tamerlan had come to the FBI’s attention on at least two occasions prior to March 2011. In response to a question by Representative Steve King, Mueller allowed that “his name came up in two other cases.” He then added that these cases involved two other persons and were later closed. King then asked “So it’s reasonable that the letter of March 4, 2011 refocused the FBI on Tamerlan?” Mueller responded: “Absolutely.” James Henry, “Missing Evidence of Prior FBI Relationship with Boston Bomber,” whowhatwherewhy.org, June 6, 2015, http://whowhatwhy.org/2015/06/06/missing-evidence-of-prior-fbi-relationship-with-boston-bomber-2/.

  22.  http://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/2011-request-for-information-on-tamerlan-tsarnaev-from-foreign-government.

  23.  http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2017/04/fbi_releases_report_detailing.html.

  24.  Unclassified Summary of Information Handling and Sharing, Inspector General’s report issued April 10, 2014, https://www.oig.dhs.gov/assets/Mgmt/2014/OIG_Bos_Marathon_Bom_Rev_Apr14.pdf.

  25.  Ibid.

  26.  “Keating to FBI: We Need Answers on Boston Bombings,” press release from Bill Keating, July 31, 2013, https://keating.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/keating-fbi-we-need-answers-boston-bombings.

  27.  Alan Cullison, “After Murder Suspect’s Death, Probe Is Decried, Defended,” The Wall Street Journal, May 23, 2013, http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887323475304578500883785930480.

  28.  Follow-up interview with Congressman William Keating, June 5, 2015.

  29.  Transcript of the Tsarnaevs’ news conference, April 26, 2013, from The New York Times.

  30.  Tom Balmforth, “Mystery Swirls around Boston Bombing Suspect’s Trip to Daghestan,” RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty, April 22, 2013, http://www.rferl.org/content/tsarnaev-boston-bombings-trip-to-daghestan/24965405.html.

  31.  Ibid.

  32.  Zakaev telephone interview from London, June 4, 2015.

  33.  Gessen, The Brothers, 108.

  34.  U.S. v. Tsarnaev-Jury Trial—Day 52, 26–39, http://thebostonmarathonbombings.weebly.com/uploads/2/4/2/6/24264849/1362_trial_day_52_april_29_2015_transcript.pdf.

  35.  U.S. v. Tsarnaev-Jury Trial—Day 52. Also see Simon Shuster, “Exclusive: Dagestani Relative of Tamerlan Tsarnaev is a Prominent Islamist,” Time.com, May 8, 2013, http://world.time.com/2013/05/08/exclusive-cousin-who-became-close-to-tamerlan-tsarnaev-in-dagestan-is-a-prominent-islamist/.

  36.  Brian Glyn Williams, Inferno in Chechnya: The Russian-Chechen Wars, the Alqaeda Myth, and the Boston Marathon Bombings (Lebanon, NH: University Press of New England, 2015), 250. Terrorism specialist Elena Pokalova concurs: “The spectrum of terrorist attacks perpetrated by the Caucasian Emirate indicates that the threat remains local and targeted against Russia.” Pokalova, Chechnya’s Terrorist Network, 166.

  37.  Gordienko, “Bostonskii vzryvatel’ byl davno zariazhen.” Also see Williams, Inferno in Chechnya, 247–248.

  38.  Mairbek Vatchagaev, “Hot Issue—A Profile of Mahmud Mansur Nidal: The Alleged Dagestani Connection to Boston Bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev,” Jamestown Foundation, May 3, 2013, http://www.jamestown.org/single/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=40828&no_cache=1#.V8l66rV7fBI.

  39.  Vatchagaev, “Why Tamerlan Tsarnaev is Outside of Chechen Mentality.”

  40.  “Ziauddin Sardar Explains the Long History of Violence Behind Hizh ut-Tahrir,” the New Statesman, November 14, 2005, http://web.archive.org/web/20080511175612/http://www.newstatesman.com/200511140010.

  41.  Jury Trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev—Day 50, April 27, 2015, 112–113, http://thebostonmarathonbombings.weebly.com/uploads/2/4/2/6/24264849/day_50_trial_day_april_27_2015_transcript_defense_witnesses_50.pdf.

  42.  Williams, Inferno in Chechnya, 252.

  43.  Scott Shane, “Agents Pore Over Suspect’s Trip to Russia,” The New York Times, April 28, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/29/us/tamerlan-tsarnaevs-contacts-on-russian-trip-draw-scrutiny.html?_r=0.

  44.  Vatchagaev, “Why Tamerlan Tsarnaev is Outside of Chechen Men
tality.”

  45.  Tracy Jan, “Suspect returned from Russia ‘with a willingness to kill people,’ Kerry says,” The Boston Globe, April 24, 2013, https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2013/04/24/secretary-state-john-kerry-says-tamerlan-tsarnaev-returned-from-russia-with-willingness-kill-people/59mtQpCSKTKk38udnyybSI/story.html.

  46.  Janet Reitman, “Jahar’s World,” Rolling Stone, July 17, 2013, http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/jahars-world-20130717.

  47.  Jury Trial of Dzhokar Tsarnaev—Day 50, 92–94.

  48.  Jury Trial of Dzhokar Tsarnaev—Day 51, April 28, 2015, 135.

  49.  House Homeland Security Report, March 2014, 15–16.

  50.  http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/05/us/boston-marathon-bombing-trial-help/.

  51.  House Homeland Security Report, March 2014, 7.

  52.  See a video of Putin’s comments: http://rt.com/news/putin-boston-bombing-terrorists-381/.

  53.  See Amy Knight, “Playing Moscow’s Game,” NYR Daily, June 1, 2013, http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2013/06/01/syria-terrorism-playing-moscows-game/.

  54.  Valery Dzutsati, “Russian Security Services Offer Surprising Revelations about Boston Bombings,” Eurasian Daily Monitor, 10, no. 80, April 29, 2013, https://jamestown.org/program/russian-security-services-offer-surprising-revelations-about-boston-bombings-2/.

  55.  “Foreign Fighters: An Updated Assessment of the Flow of Foreign Fighters into Syria and Iraq,” The Soufran Group, December 2015, http://soufangroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/TSG_ForeignFightersUpdate3.pdf.

  56.  Paul A. Goble, “Number of Russian Citizens Fighting for ISIS in Syria Up Dramatically Last Year,” Euromaidan Press, April 21, 2017, http://euromaidanpress.com/2017/04/21/number-of-russian-citizens-fighting-for-isis-in-syria-up-dramatically-in-last-year-euromaidan-press/#arvlbdata.

  57.  Michael Weiss, “Russia’s Playing a Double Game with Islamic Terror,” Daily Beast, August 23, 2015, https://counterjihadreport.com/2015/08/25/russias-playing-a-double-game-with-islamic-terror/.

  58.  Ibid.

  12. Another Democrat Falls Victim: The Nemtsov Murder and Its Aftermath

    1.  See Amy Knight, “Russia: Another Dead Democrat,” NYR Daily, March 2, 2015, http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2015/03/02/russia-another-dead-democrat/.

    2.  See the 2015 film “My Friend Boris Nemtsov,” by Zosia Rodevich, https://www.google.com/search?q=zosia+rodevich+my+friend+boris+YouTube&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8#q=zosia+rodevich+my+friend+boris+nemtsov.

    3.  https://www.rt.com/news/236387-reaction-provocation-nemtsov-murder/.

    4.  See “Boris Nemtsov’s Mother: ‘This is Unbearably Hard for Me,” RFERL, February 26, 2016, http://www.rferl.org/content/boris-nemtsov-mother-this-is-unbearably-hard-for-me/27575931.html; and “My Friend Boris Nemtsov.”

    5.  Yelena Dikun, “Profile of Boris Nemtsov: Russia’s newest first deputy premier,” PRISM (The Jamestown Foundation), 3, Issue 5, April 18, 1997, https://web.archive.org/web/20070930191549/http://www.jamestown.org/publications_details.php?search=1&volume_id=4&issue_id=189&article_id=2244.

    6.  Ibid. Obituary of Boris Nemtsov, The Guardian, March 1, 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/01/boris-nemtsov.

    7.  Nemtsov, Ispoved’ buntarya, 52.

    8.  Ibid., p. 62.

    9.  Putin. Itogi.

  10.  See Knight, “The Truth About Putin and Medvedev.”

  11.  Zimnyaya Olimpiada v Subtropikakh. Nezavisimyi Ekspertnyi Doklad [Winter Olympics in the Subtropics: An Independent Expert Report] by Boris Nemstov and Leonid Martynyuk, Moscow, May 2013. See my piece on the report, “Putin’s Downhill Race,” The New York Review of Books, 60, no. 14, September 26, 2013, http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2013/09/26/putins-downhill-race/.

  12.  http://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Nemtsov_Testimony.pdf.

  13.  See an interview with Prokhorov by Ksenia Novikova on Democracy.net, April 27, 2017, https://www.opendemocracy.net/od-russia/ksenia-novikova/it-s-deeply-personal-matter-interview-with-vadim-prokhorov-boris-nemtsov-s.

  14.  As quoted in Andrew Kramer, “Fear Envelops Russia after Killing of Putin Critic Boris Nemtsov,” The New York Times, February 28, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/01/world/europe/killing-of-boris-nemtsov-putin-critic-breeds-fear-in-russia.html.

  15.  The complete interview is published in Russian on Nemtsov’s website, nemtsov.ru.

  16.  See Milov’s detailed analysis of the murder on his Live Journal page on March 2, 2015: http://v-milov.livejournal.com/404358.html. Also, see Amy Knight, “A Kremlin Conspiracy Gone Wrong?’” NYR Daily, March 15, 2015.

  17.  Catherine A. Fitzpatrick, “Putin’s Usual Suspects: The Bullshit Chechen-Charlie Hebdo Connection,” Daily Beast, March 9, 2015, http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/03/09/putin-s-usual-suspects-the-bullshit-chechen-charlie-hebdo-connection.html.

  18.  See the 2016 film on the murder by Leonid Martynyuk and Andrei Pointkovsky, “That Doesn’t Mean You Have to Kill Him,” available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uT7QmSbM4A8.

  19.  Milov on LiveJournal.

  20.  Interview on NPR’s Morning Edition, March 5, 2015: http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2015/03/05/390754346/boris-nemtsov-he-directed-his-words-against-putin-himself.

  21.  http://www.interpretermag.com/alexey-navalny-on-the-murder-of-boris-nemtsov/.

  22.  Ibid.

  23.  Fitzpatrick, “Putin’s Usual Suspects.”

  24.  https://life.ru/t/новости/150539?from=lifenews.ru; https://life.ru/t/новости/150563.

  25.  Sergei Mashkin, “Svidetel’ ne uznal ubiitsu Borisa Nemtsova,” Kommersant, March 27, 2015, http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/2695010. Evgenii was later identified as Evgenii Molodykh and testified at the trial that the shooter resembled the accused triggerman, Zaur Dadaev.

  26.  Grigorii Tumanov, “Oppozitsiia seichas perezhivaet ne luchshie vremena,” Kommersant, November 27, 2015, http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/2865042.

  27.  Sergei Mashin, “V ubiistve Borisa Nemtsova poiavilis’ gashish i geroin,” Kommersant, November 13, 2105, http://kommersant.ru/doc/2852232.

  28.  Telephone interview with Zakaev, March 13, 2015; Knight, “A Kremlin Conspiracy Gone Wrong.”

  29.  Film “That Doesn’t Mean You Have to Kill Him.”

  30.  Shaun Walker, “Putin Makes First Appearance in 11 days: ‘It Would Be Boring Without Gossip,’” The Guardian, March 16, 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/16/vladimir-putin-makes-first-public-appearance-amid-health-speculations.

  31.  https://openrussia.org/post/view/3463/.

  32.  http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/09/world/nemtsova-russia-putin-amanpour/.

  33.  http://www.newsru.com/russia/31oct2015/most.html.

  34.  http://en.news-4-u.ru/fso-responded-to-the-request-gudkov-on-the-protection-of-the-moskvoretsky-bridge-and-he-concluded-the-kremlin-is-in-danger.html.

  35.  Mariya Bondarenko, “Chubais rasskazal o svoikh sovetakh docheri Nemtsova naschet doprosa Kadyrova,” RBC, September 1, 2015, http://www.rbc.ru/politics/01/09/2015/55e5c59d9a79476e89986c47.

  36.  “Gosobvineniye na sude ob ubiistve Nemtsova usileno,” Interfax, August 18, 2016. http://www.interfax.ru/russia/524205.

  37.  Catherine A. Fitzpatrick, “Russia’s Investigative Committee Asked Gen. Zolotov to Probe Violations by Sever Battalion Linked to Nemtsov Murder Suspects,” the Interpreter, May 18, 2016, http://www.interpretermag.com/russia-update-may-16-2016-2/.

  38.  The Insider: rassledovanie reportazhi analitika, February 3, 2017, http://theins.ru/opinions/43609.

  39.  Egor Skovoroda, “Sud zavershil rassledovanie ubiistva Borisa Nemtsova. Kakovy ego (neuteshitel’nye) itogi?,” Meduza, May 31, 2017, https://meduza.io/feature/2017/05/31/sud-zavershil-rassledovanie-ubiystva-borisa-n
emtsova-kakovy-ego-neuteshitelnye-itogi; Igor’ Murzin, “Vernemsia k teme o role v ubiistve Nemtsova modeli Anny Duritskoi,” Kasparov.ru, May 30, 2017.

  40.  Interview with Prokhorov.

  41.  See Knight, “A Kremlin Conspiracy Gone Wrong.”

  42.  https://humanrightscommission.house.gov/events/hearings/worldwide-threats-media-freedom.

  43.  See Kara-Murza’s interview with Voice of America (in Russian), April 30, 2015, http://www.golos-ameriki.ru/a/karamurza-on-nemtsov-list/2743596.html; “Kongressu predstavili ‘spisok Nemtsova, “Kommersant, April 24, 2015. https://web.archive.org/web/20150424050051/http://kommersant.ru/doc/2715191.