Alexander Litvinenko Read online

  MUR, which at that time was headed by Savostianov, repeatedly observed and even detained senior Lanako personnel in the company of FSB officers. Lazovsky s personal bodyguard and his firm s security service were headed by a serving officer from the Moscow Department for Illegal Armed Formations of the UFSB, Major Alexei Yumashkin, who employed FSB officers Karpychev and Mekhkov (on one of the occasions when Lazovsky was arrested, they produced their FSB passes and were released, together with Lazovsky). Lazovsky s close friend and comrade-in-arms, Roman Polonsky, used to carry in his pocket the identity card of a member of the GRU and General Staff officer. When Polonsky was shot down at the parking lot on Burakov Street on September 18, he had a Ministry of Defense GRU holster on his belt and a GRU identity card in his pocket.

  In February 1996, MUR operatives traced Lazovsky to an apartment on SadovoSamotechnaya Street in Moscow, which belonged to an individual by the name of Trostanetsky. Lazovsky and his bodyguard Marcel Kharisov were arrested in the yard of the building as they got into a jeep, which was being driven by Yumashkin (who was also immediately detained). Tskhai arrested Lazovsky in person. He himself had obtained the sanction for his arrest and the search warrants, since no one else wanted to get involved in the case. When searched, Lazovsky was found to be carrying 1.03 grams of cocaine and a loaded PM pistol, while a revolver, a grenade, and a shotgun were removed from Trostanetsky s apartment. Kharisov was also discovered to be carrying an unlicensed TT pistol. He and Lazovsky were taken to the FSB s detention center at Lefortovo, where they refused to answer the investigator s questions. Yumashkin was taken away by the UFSB duty officer.

  In addition to MUR, Lazovsky s case was also dealt with by the First Section of the Department for Combating Terrorism (UBT) of the FSK of the Russian Federation, where it had been handled since 1994 by Major Evgeny Makeiev, a senior operations officer for especially important cases. The head of the First Section at that time was Alexander Mikhailovich Platonov. Even then, the operatives understood just who Lazovsky was and who stood behind him, which was why Platonov warned Makeiev that

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  it was a difficult and complicated case, gave him a small separate office to share with just one colleague on the ninth floor of the newly refurbished old Lubyanka building, and asked him not to discuss the contents of the operational report with any one. The colleague who found himself in Makeiev s office was Alexander Litvinenko, one of the authors of this book, who first learned from Makeiev that the Moscow Department of the FSB had been transformed into a gang of criminals.

  Makeiev worked in a highly conspiratorial manner. As a rule, he himself was the only member of his section who attended joint operations meetings with MUR, carrying a MUR identity pass as a cover. In 1995, Platonov was removed from operational duties and Lieutenant Colonel Evgeny Alexandrovich Kolesnikov (who is now a major-general) became the new head of the section. Kolesnikov joined the FSB from the FSO after Barsukov was appointed head of the FSB in June 1995. Further work on the case of Lazovsky s group was blocked. The only person who would now sanction any measures concerning Lazovsky was the deputy section head, Anatoly Alexandrovich Rodin, who was appointed in Platonov s time. Then Rodin and Makeiev were both dismissed.

  In its investigations into Lazovsky and Lanako, MUR identified six Moscow UFSB operatives as being involved in Lazovsky s gang. Journalists got wind of this and on November 11, 1996, Novaya Gazeta published the text of a letter of inquiry written by its deputy senior editor, Yury Shchekochikhin, a deputy of the State Duma: To: Director of the FSB of the Russian Federation N.D. Kovalyov Copies: Minister of the Interior of the Russian Federation A.S. Kulikov; Public Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation Yu.I. Skuratov; Head of the Office of the President of the Russian Federation A.B. Chubais.

  The Security Committee of the State Duma of Russia has received a letter addressed to me from a high-ranking officer of the Ministry of the Interior of the Russian Federation.

  The letter claims, in particular, that recent times have seen the emergence of a tendency for organized criminal groupings to merge with members of the agencies of law enforcement and the secret services. In order to be able to confirm or refute the conclusion drawn by the author of the letter, I request you to reply to the following series of questions.

  1. Are the following people named in the letter listed among the personnel of the UFSB for Moscow and the Moscow Region: S.N. Karpychev, A.A. Yumashkin, E.A. Abovian, L.A. Dmitriev, A.A. Dokukin? 2. Is it true that since last year Sergei Petrovich Kublitsky, who has a criminal record and is now the president of the firm Vityaz, which specializes in oil operations, has been using as his personal bodyguards members of the UFSB for Moscow and the Moscow Region, S.N. Karpychev and S.N. Mekhkov, and that on several occasions they have accompanied him to meetings with the management of the Tuapsi Oil Refinery and representatives of the firm Atlas, which holds a controlling interest in the refinery?

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  3. Is it true that investigators from the Public Prosecutor s Office of the city of Krasnodar have made several attempts to interview as a witness to the murder of a director of the Tuapsi Oil Refinery one Major A.A. Yumashkin, an employee of the UFSB for Moscow and the Moscow Region, who also provides personal security services to M. M. Lazovsky, the leader of an inter-regional criminal grouping, but that they been unable to do so? How accurate is information that since 1994, Major A.A. Yumashkin has been Lazovsky s intimate business partner and that they have on several occasions traveled together to Tuapsi and Krasnodar, where they have jointly decided matters relating to the oil business? 4. Is it true that on February 17 of this year, employees of the UFSB of the Russian Federation for Moscow and the Moscow Region, A.A. Yumashkin, S.N. Karpychev, and S.N. Mekhkov, were detained together with S.P. Kubitsky and M.M. Lazovsky by employees of the Ministry of the Interior of the Russian Federation? If so, then how true is it that after the FSB identity cards presented by Karpychev and Mekhkov had been checked, they were both released? Were the leadership of the FSB of the RF and First Deputy Minister of the Interior of the RF Lieutenant-General V.I. Kolesnikov informed that employees of the UFSB for Moscow and the Moscow Region had been detained? It is true that the prisoner Lazovsky is suspected by agencies of law enforcement and the Office of the Public Prosecutor of the RF of involvement in a number of contract killings? Has the prisoner Kublitsky been questioned at the request of specialists from the law enforcement agencies of the Krasnodar Region who are investigating the murder of the director of the Tuapsi Oil Refinery? 5. Is it true that on October 16 of last year, employees of the Moscow RUOP detained A.N. Yanin, born 1958, a resident of Moscow, and that the documents confiscated from him included a check for luggage checked in at the left luggage office of the Central Airport Terminal? Is it true that members of the police discovered in Yanin s luggage five AKS-74U automatic weapons not registered in the card index of the MVD of the RF, five magazines for the AKSes, 30 5.45 caliber, and three 7.62 caliber cartridges? Is it accurate to assert that these arms had been confiscated from criminal groups and, according to official documents, were kept at the premises of the UFSB for Moscow and the Moscow Region? Is the information correct, according to which after investigator Sholokhova initiated criminal proceedings against A.N. Yanin at the Airport Criminal Police Service [SKM] under the number 1646 in accordance with article 218 4.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, two employees of the Service for Combating Illegal Armed Formations and Banditry of the UFSB for Moscow and the Moscow Region arrived at RUOP and that one of them, Colonel Edward Artashesovich Abovian, obtained the release of the prisoner Yanin from custody? If this is so, did Colonel Abovian, in insisting on Yanin s release, have any basis for asserting, and did he, in fact, assert that he was carrying out instructions from his immediate superior, General Semeniuk, and that First Deputy Director of the FSB of the RF and head of the UFSB for Moscow and the Moscow Region, General Trofimov, was aware of this? Does Colonel Abovian hav
e free access to the special technology and armaments, which the UFSB for Moscow and the Moscow Region has at its disposal? What connection, if any, exists

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  between colonel Abovian and the commercial activities of the Mosinraschyot Bank and the Tver Beer Combine? 6. Is it true that on October 17 of this yea, employees of the ROOP of the Northern District of the City of Moscow detained a BMW 525 automobile with detachable number plates 41-34 MOK, which had previously been used by S.P. Kubitsky, whom I have already mentioned and who is better known in criminal circles as Vorkuta ? Did the automobile contain a driver who was carrying no documents and three passengers who showed the ROOP employees identity cards for employees of the UFSB for Moscow and the Moscow Region in the names of captain L.A. Dmitriev and Warrant Officer A.A.

  Dokukin, following which they were released? Yours sincerely, Yury Shchekochikhin, Member of the Security Committee of the State Duma of the Russian Federation

  Abovian, the FSB colonel working in the section for combating illegal bandit groups who is mentioned in Shchekochikhin s inquiry, was Lazovsky s controller at the FSB.

  On November 23, 1996, First Deputy Minister of the Interior Vladimir Kolesnikov, sent Shchekochikhin a reply via the Duma committee in which he stated: Indeed& in the course of operations undertaken in Moscow to capture armed criminals in addition to Lazovsky, the persons handed over to the agencies of the Ministry of the Interior included individuals who presented identification from the agencies of law enforcement and other state services& Under the present state of measures taken, Lazovsky and the other accomplices stand accused of more than ten premeditated murders in various regions of Russia&

  Kolesnikov avoided giving direct answers to the specific questions raised by Shchekochikhin in his inquiry. There was nothing to do but wait for the criminals to be brought to trial.

  FSB director Kovalyov had two meetings with Shchekochikhin. At the end of the year, Shchekochikhin received two replies from him, essentially identical in content. One was secret and has remained in the archives of the State Duma. Shchekochikhin made the other, open reply public: The Federal Security Service has carried out an internal investigation into facts and circumstances presented in the Duma deputy s letter of inquiry in Novaya Gazeta&

  Investigations have determined that the actions of the [UFSB employees] involved certain deviations from the requirements of departmental regulations which, in combination with a lack of practical experience and professionalism, could well have served as the cause of the incident which has attracted your attention. In this regard, particular concern is occasioned by the fact that a conflict occurred between the members of two departments which engage in operational and investigative activity in the criminal

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  environment. Nonetheless, despite this regrettable misunderstanding, the main goal was achieved, since Lazovsky s gang was neutralized&

  Kovalyov s particular concern was not occasioned by the collaboration of the UFSB for Moscow and the Moscow Region with organized criminal groups, terrorists, and underworld bosses, but by the actions of MUR employees under Tskhai s leadership.

  As for the actual employees of the UFSB, Kovalyov discerned in their behavior no more than certain deviations from the requirements of departmental regulations. From his own point of view Kovalyov was right. He saw no difference in principle between members of the secret services and Lazovsky s gunmen, and so he genuinely could not understand the reasons for Shchekochikhin s indignation. Shchekochikhin believed that the representatives of the people, in the persons of members of the State Duma, and the agencies of state security, fight together against bandits and terrorists. However, Kovalyov knew that the FSB and the extra-departmental agencies of coercion, which the people call bandits and terrorists, actually wage their struggle against the very people represented in the Duma by Shchekochikhin and others like him.

  Naturally, no internal FSB inquiry was ever held, and nobody was dismissed. Abovian was apparently given a new name and retained in service. No records of any investigations were submitted to any court or military tribunal. A reply was received from the first deputy senior military prosecutor, lieutenant-general of justice G.N. Nosin, to the following effect: On the basis of the results of an investigation concerning the officers of the UFSB for Moscow and the Moscow Region mentioned in the letter, the instigation of criminal proceedings has been rejected. In reply to an inquiry from a correspondent of the Kommersant newspaper concerning Yumashkin, the Moscow UFSB gave the honest answer that Yumashkin had been carrying out a special mission to monitor the activities of Lazovsky s group. In 1997, however, Major Yumashkin was finally exposed and became a key figure in criminal proceedings concerning contract killings, which were initiated by the Tagansky District Public Prosecutor s Office of the City of Moscow. Since even his involvement in organizing contract killings was apparently part of his special mission, Yumashkin continued to serve in the Moscow UFSB, and in 1999, he was promoted on schedule to the military rank of lieutenant colonel.

  The only person to suffer as a result of Shchekochikhin s inquiry was the head of the Moscow UFSB and deputy director of the FSB of Russia, Anatoly Trofimov, who was removed from his post in February 1997. Sergei Yastrzhembsky, press secretary to the president of Russia, declared that Trofimov had been removed for gross irregularities exposed by an inquiry conducted by the Accounting Chamber of the Russian Federation and dereliction of duty. It is widely believed, however, that Trofimov was simply made a scapegoat.

  According to another version of events, Trofimov was dismissed because he attempted to do something about the substance of Shchekochikhin s inquiry. Supposedly, having read the letter of inquiry, Trofimov summoned one of his deputies and ordered him to draw up the paperwork for the dismissal of all the members of the FSB who were mentioned in it.

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  His deputy refused. Trofimov then suggested that he should submit his resignation. In the end, the scandal surrounding the arrest of two of Trofimov s subordinates was exploited to have Trofimov himself dismissed. The two were arrested for dealing in cocaine by MUR and the Central Department for the Illegal Circulation of Narcotics. Trofimov was sacked two days after the media reported the arrest of drug dealers carrying the identity passes of officers in the Moscow UFSB.

  It should be emphasized that the question of the involvement of particular FSB officers or of the FSB, as a whole, in terrorist activity, which had been attributed to the Chechens, was not raised either in Shchekochikhin s letter inquiry or in the replies given by various officials. The court did not pass a guilty verdict on any of the members of the coercive departments who were suspected, according to Kolesnikov, of a total of more than ten murders. On January 31, 1997, Lazovsky and Kharisov appeared before the Tver court in a trial, which lasted only three days. They were accused of possessing weapons and drugs and of forging FAPSI and MO documents. Not a single prosecutor or judge so much as hinted at terrorist attacks and contract killings. The accused s lawyers demonstrated quite correctly that no forgery had been committed, since they had carried genuine identity documents for agents of the secret services and agencies of coercion, and so the charge of forging documents had to be dropped. The case materials contained no information at all about the use of forgeries by the accused (which was in itself weighty evidence of the interfusion of the structures headed by Barsukov, Kovalyov and Lazovsky). The count of possessing and transporting dangerous drugs was also dropped-so that Lazovsky and Kharisov would not have to be charged under such a serious article of the Criminal Code.

  Lazovsky s lawyer, Boris Kozhemyakin, also tried to have the charge of possessing weapons set aside. He claimed that when they were arrested, Lazovsky and Kharisov were with UFSB employee Yumashkin, with whom they had spent a large part of the day, that both Lazovsky and Kharisov were engaged in carrying out certain tasks for the secret services, and that was why they had been given weapons and cover documents. (Whe
n he was arrested, UFSB agent Yumashkin was also found to be in possession of a cover document, a police identity card.) However, for some reason, the question of collaboration between Lazovsky and Kharisov and the secret services failed to interest judge Elena Stashina, and representatives of the UFSB refused to appear in court, with the result that the accused were in any case found guilty of the illegal possession of weapons, and sentenced by an impartial court to two years imprisonment and a fine of forty million rubles each. When he heard the sentence, Boris Kozhemiakin said, he had been counting on a more lenient verdict.

  Lazovsky served his time in one of the prison camps near Tula together with his codefendant and bodyguard Kharisov (which is strictly forbidden by regulations). While in the camp, he recruited new members for his group from among the criminal inmates, studied the Bible, and even wrote a treatise on the improvement of Russia. He was released in February 1998, since the time he spent in custody, while under investigation, was counted against his sentence.

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  Meanwhile, in 1996, Russia had lost the war in Chechnya. Military operations had to be halted and political negotiations conducted with the Chechen separatists. There was a real threat that the conflict between two nations, which had cost the secret services so much effort to provoke, might end in a peace agreement, and Yeltsin might be able to return to his program of liberal reforms. In order to undermine the peace negotiations, the FSB carried out a series of terrorist attacks in Moscow. Since terrorist attacks, which didn t kill or maim had failed to make any impression on the inhabitants of the capital, the FSB began carrying out attacks which did. Note, once again, how well the supporters of war timed their terrorist attacks, and how damaging they were to the interests of supporters of peace and the Chechens themselves.