| eng.kavkaz.memo.ru
Caucasian Knot 19/5/2004 Activist sues Moscow government On Friday, May 14, Moscow's Taganskii District Court started consideration of a lawsuit from Lev Ponomariov, leader of the Movement for Human Rights, questioning the legality of banning a meeting scheduled for February 23 this year. Lev Ponomariov told Caucasian Knot about the progress in the legal proceedings. The action was timed to the 60th anniversary of Stalin's deportation of the Chechens and Ingush. The government of the capital city planned to block some of the city's central streets in connection with the Homeland Defender's Day celebration, which served as the formal reason for the ban. However, Lubianskaia Square in which the action was planned to occur was not included in that list. However, they had to substitute a picket at the Solovetskii Stone for the meeting. The authorities considered the picket unsanctioned, so the police detained some of the picketers, while the organizers were fined through court proceedings. But now an attempt to restore justice is being made. Besides, the fines will be annulled given the positive decision of the court. Lev Ponomariov: In my statement, I demand that the actions of Mr. Zaitsev, deputy prefect of the Central Administrative District, should be declared unlawful because he refused to consider the notification of conducting the meeting without any substantial ground. The court accepted my additional statement and ruled that Zaitsev must submit a reasoned explanation. The hearing will occur on June 2. I am sure that not all courts or not always judge in favor of the executive. That is why I believe I will be able to win this case and cancel the order Zaitsev signed. Caucasian Knot: Your action has had higher resonance than usual thanks to the bans and court proceedings. What do you think about that sort of "hype"? Lev Ponomariov: I am rather negative about it. Indeed, this action accidentally turned out to be widely known. To me, however, this is by far not the reason for being glad: I'd rather our government observe the law. I'd like there to be less hype and more real action. If we fail to have a lot of people at the meeting devoted to the 60th anniversary of the deportation of the Chechens and Ingush, this is our problem and our society's. You mustn't draw appeal through scandals in such cases. Caucasian Knot: What methods do you use to try to draw people's attention to such activities? Lev Ponomariov: Quieter ones. For example, we always make announcements about our actions in radio Echo of Moscow's news. We also work through the Antiwar Action Committee. As a matter of fact, we have a database with our permanent members' names and contacts: these are two or three thousand people on average. They all are personally notified of forthcoming meetings and pickets. However, it is never possible to foresee, at least approximately, how many people will come. Caucasian Knot: What can you say about the actual results of the actions your organization conducts? Lev Ponomariov: As a matter of fact, meetings, demonstrations and pickets play a huge role in democratic nations. But present-day Russia is not a democratic nation, so everything is a bit different here. To us, conducting such actions is one form of expressing citizens' opinion, codified in the Constitution. This form must be sustained, because one day hundreds of thousands of people will come to our demonstrations, again. I am sure this has a huge influence with government given the number of demonstrators is big. Thus, pickets, meetings and demonstrations in the early 1990s organized by the Democratic Russia movement which I headed that time and still do played a decisive role in the peaceful, democratic revolution in Russia. People then went into the streets themselves, in protest against the monopoly of the communist government. Meanwhile, we transformed spontaneous demonstrations that could result in God knows what into peaceful actions. We negotiated with police about how they would be conducted. That is why, actually, a peaceful, democratic revolution took place. Caucasian Knot: Do you plan to conduct any activities soon, for example, against war in the Caucasus? Lev Ponomariov: A meeting in defense of political prisoners will occur on May 20. An application has been lodged already. This is not directly linked with war in Chechnya, but it is indirectly, no doubt. I am sure they will mention it in their speeches. If there are prisoners of conscience in the country, it means government has something to conceal. War in Chechnya is not the least among such things. Author: Ksenia Ladygina Source: Own correspondent Lawyer Investigating Apartment Bombings Sentenced to 4 Years Created: 19.05.2004 MosNews The Moscow District Military Court has sentenced former intelligence agent and lawyer Mikhail Trepashkin to four years in prison for carrying an unregistered weapon and disclosing state secrets. Trepashkin has called his prosecution politically motivated — the former FSB agent led a lone investigation into the 1999 apartment bombings that were blamed on Chechen separatists. He will serve his sentence in a penal colony. His trial lawyer, Valery Glushenkov, told MosNews he plans to appeal to the Supreme Court’s military tribune within the ten days that he is given for the appeal by law. He remains optimistic about the results. “I hope there will be some leniencies or some other thing that will take some [years] off,” he told MosNews. The Hague Court, meanwhile, has accepted Trepashkin’s appeal, Glushenkov told MosNews. “My client has been called a prisoner of conscience,” he said. “Those are big results.” He also hinted that prison authorities knew of the sentence in advance. “A guard in the detention center told my client several days ago ’don’t worry, they’ll give you four years in a penal colony,’” Glushenkov told MosNews. Overall, however, Glushenkov said he was “satisfied that atleast they didn’t [give him the five years] the prosecutor had asked for.” Trepashkin was set to represent a bombing victim’s family in a trial in October where he planned to bring evidence connecting the bombings and the Russian government. He was arrested, however, a week before the trial on what he has said were trumped-up charges of carrying an unregistered weapon. He has been in prison ever since then, with prosecutors adding disclosure of state secrets to his list of charges in a closed trial that was concluded Wednesday. Trepashkin spoke to journalists before hearing the verdict, saying the case “doesn’t stand to criticism.” He told journalists he was certain that the case against him was sparked by his role in a public commission that was investigating the 1999 apartment block bombings in Moscow and Volgodonsk that killed nearly 300 people. The commission, led by State Duma deputy Sergei Kovalev, is one of several activist groups in Russia that believes the government was complicit in the bombings while trying to bolster support for military action in the breakaway republic of Chechnya. In a prison note obtained by The Moscow News, Trepashkin said his case began when the security directorate — an agency that oversees police and FSB activities — contacted the FSB about a meeting that had taken place between British intelligence, the exiled oil tycoon Boris Berezovsky, and fellow FSB agent Alexander Litvinenko. According to Trepashkin’s note, Litvinenko apparently told of a planned demarche “of disinformation in connection with FSB activities and the apartment bombings in Moscow.” The security directorate said Trepashkin was the one who had gathered all the information. Boris Berezovsky and Litvinenko both denied that the meeting had ever taken place in a statement to The Moscow News. Thursday, May 20, 2004. Page 1. The Moscow Times FSB Critic Trepashkin Jailed for 4 Years By Anatoly Medetsky Staff Writer Sergei Karpukhin / Reuters Photo: A policeman taking handcuffs off Mikhail Trepashkin, a former FSB officer who investigated the 1999 apartment bombings and the Dubrovka siege, in court on Wednesday. Lawyer Mikhail Trepashkin was sentenced to four years in prison Wednesday in a move that he and human rights advocates decried as retribution for his investigation into allegations linking the Federal Security Service to the 1999 apartment bombings. After a seven-month closed-door trial, the Moscow Military District Court found Trepashkin, a former FSB lieutenant colonel, guilty of divulging state secrets and illegal possession of ammunition. The charges are based on a search that turned up 26 cartridges in Trepashkin's apartment in January 2002 and a report from a former FSB agent that Trepashkin showed him classified documents he had kept from his time in the service. Trepashkin, wearing a blue tracksuit emblazoned with the word "Columbia," showed no visible reaction from the defendant's cage as the verdict was read out. Trepashkin's lawyer, Valery Glushenkov, said he would appeal the verdict and seek a full acquittal. Prosecutors had demanded Trepashkin be jailed for five years. Speaking in a quiet, subdued voice from the defendant's cage to reporters, who were allowed into the court a few minutes before the judge pronounced sentence, Trepashkin said: "I don't expect anything good. The case was filed on someone's orders and doesn't stand up to criticism from a legal point of view." "It's linked to my work with Sergei Kovalyov's commission," he said, referring to the Terror 1999 commission investigating the 1999 apartment bombings on Ulitsa Guryanova and Kashirskoye Shosse and the 2002 Dubrovka theater hostage-taking, headed by the then-State Duma Deputy and human rights advocate. "If I hadn't gotten involved, there wouldn't have been any case [against me]." With his security service background, Trepashkin was an important member of the commission who could provide valuable information through his contacts and experience, said Alexander Podrabinek, editor of the Prima News human rights news service, after the sentencing. Trepashkin had a theory that the FSB could have had a hand both in the 1999 apartment bombings and the Dubrovka hostage-taking blamed on Chechen rebels, an allegation the FSB had denied. The apartment bombings were part of the reason why then-Prime Minister Vladimir Putin ordered federal forces back into Chechnya in 1999, a resumption of the war that sent his popularity ratings sky- high. Despite the FSB's denial, Wednesday's verdict shows that "the authorities are clearly afraid of an open and independent investigation of the 1999 bombings and Dubrovka," Podrabinek said. "Now we have yet another political prisoner," said Lev Ponomaryov, head of the For Human Rights movement. Podrabinek said that the commission's investigation had wound down after Trepashkin's jailing. "It's not ruled out that we will never find out what actually happened," he said. The sentencing is also a signal to others to avoid questioning the official statements on the commission's allegations, a "signal that we hope won't be heard," Podrabinek said. Trepashkin's misfortunes began after he first publicly voiced the apartment bombings allegation, even before joining Kovalyov's commission, on RenTV television in late 2001. Shortly after the interview aired, police found the ammunition in a box for threads and needles in clear view on a shelf in Trepashkin's apartment, Glushenkov said. A few days before the police raid, a former FSB colleague of Trepashkin's had visited his apartment, Glushenkov said. The lawyer said the ammunition was planted. The Main Military Prosecutor's Office filed a criminal case against Trepashkin but didn't jail him pending trial. Trepashkin was invited to work for Kovalyov's commission in the summer of 2002. The second count on Trepashkin's indictment -- divulging state secrets -- appeared after the Dubrovka siege. Trepashkin then revealed four classified documents about the way the FSB operates to Viktor Shebalin, a former FSB officer he knew, prosecutors said. Glushenkov said Trepashkin had given Shebalin only one document and asked him to pass it on to the FSB because he believed the document could lead to the people behind the Dubrovka attack, Glushenkov said. That document wasn't sensitive and the four classified documents cited by prosecutors had never been in Trepashkin's possession, Glushenkov said. Trepashkin had gone through Shebalin because his work with Kovalyov's commission cut his access to the FSB, Glushenkov said. Trepashkin will serve out his sentence in a prison village, said Nikolai Gorokhov, a member of his defense team. A term in a prison village is considered the least severe punishment in the federal prison system and basically amounts to exile. Trepashkin will live in a separate house and his wife, Tatyana, will be able to join him, but he will not be allowed to leave until his term is up. Trepashkin still faces trial in another case, also believed by his lawyers to be linked to his theory implicating the FSB. In 2002, after joining Kovalyov's commission, Trepashkin agreed to represent sisters Alyona and Tatyana Morozov, whose mother died in the blast on Ulitsa Guryanova, at the Moscow trial of two men charged with transporting explosives for the bombing. This January the men were found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. Trepashkin was going to ask the Moscow court to consider his evidence, and the court could have agreed to study his findings, Trepashkin's lawyer said. But police stopped his car outside Moscow on Oct. 22 last year, a week before the trial started, and claimed to have found a handgun. Trepashkin was immediately arrested on charges of illegal arms possession. Trepashkin says the gun was planted in the car after he was stopped. The lawyer replacing Trepashkin in the bombing trial didn't file the motion. A court in the Moscow region town of Dmitrov is due to start the arms possession trial on June 2, Trepashkin's lawyer in the case, Yelena Liptser, said. Trepashkin faces up to a further three years in jail if found guilty in the Dmitrov case. Trepashkin had earlier antagonisms with the FSB that could also be reasons for his prosecution. He supported FSB agent Alexander Litvinenko's claim in 1998 that the FSB plotted to kill then-Kremlin insider Boris Berezovsky. Also, Trepashkin helped police ambush and arrest a Chechen gang that planned to rob a Moscow bank in 1995, but the FSB said that he had overstepped his authority. Gorokhov said Trepashkin has complained of worsening eyesight, asthma, heart problems and dizziness since his detention. Liptser said that, during his first two months of detention, Trepashkin had complained of being tortured. He wasn't able to take a shower for weeks, and was held in an overcrowded cell, she said. Defense lawyers appealed to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, claiming that Trepashkin's jailing and torture violated rights to freedom and humane treatment guaranteed by the European human rights convention. Late last year, the Strasbourg court sent a memorandum to the Russian government expressing concern in the case, and Trepashkin was transferred to a better cell on Dec. 30. The court is due to consider Trepashkin's complaints after June 9, when his lawyers are due to respond to submissions from the Russian government. Russian officer convicted for murder in Chechnya recalls appeal SAMARA, May 19 (Itar-Tass) – Yuri Budanov has recalled his appeal for pardon. In the last year’s July, the North Caucasus regional military court ruled him guilty of overstepping his powers and killing young Chechen woman Elza Kungayeva. The court sentenced Budanov to ten years in a maximum-security prison and stripped him of his rank of colonel and decorations. Budanov serves his term in the city of Dimitrovgrad, Ulyanovsk region. He earlier said in his letter to the chief of the regional pardons commission, Anatoly Zherebtsov, that he did not have citizenship and it was unclear where he could live and work if he was pardoned. Zherebtsov told members of the commission that he had learnt from Budanov during his meeting with Budanov that his family was evicted from service housing in Buraytia and moved to Ukraine. In July, 2003 the North Caucasus military tribunal found Budanov guilty of the abduction and murder of the Chechen woman and abuse of his powers. Budanov was also stripped of his military rank and state awards. Budanov has turned 40, serving his prison term at a penitentiary in the town of Dimitrovgrad - one of Russia’s nuclear research centers. Budanov had 151 predecessors as a minimum whose fate was discussed by the Ulyanovsk Pardons Commission. The Russian president pardoned three of them, two other convicts had their prison terms shortened and one was released. In 2003, the Pardons Commission looked into 53 appeals for pardon and recommended to revise punishment, making it milder in ten out of the 53 cases studied. eng.kavkaz.memo.ru Caucasian Knot 19/5/2004 Ulman case: shooting six may be unpunished in Russia Moscow's Independent press center hosted a news conference titled Crime without Punishment on Friday, May 14. The conference was called on the occasion of the court verdict returned in the so-called Ulman case on May 11. The verdict in respect of officers Ulman, Kalaganskii, Perelevskii and ensign Voevodin who killed six civilians in the Shatoi district, Chechnya, in January 2002 was not guilty. The military men's allegedly acting against their own will, but obeying their orders served as an extenuating circumstance. The following people came to the Independent press center to meet journalists: Magomed Gandarov, lawyer of the injured party; Jalil Satabaev, the brother of one of the killed people; Svetlana Gannushkina, a member of the board of the Memorial Human Rights Center and a member of the Commission on Human Rights for the Russian president; Oleg Orlov, chairman of the board of the Memorial Human Rights Center; and Valentine Gefter, director of the Human Rights Institute. The members of the press conference tried to give a valuation to the Ulman case, look into the situation both in terms of morals and in terms of law. Thus, it is not absolutely clear why the case was heard in Rostov-on-Don, not in Chechnya, for example, or in some other region where it would be given a more objective hearing. In this respect, it is noteworthy that two jurors asked to exempt them from participation in the hearing because they thought they would not be able to stay unbiased. All the rest may just not have mentioned it. By the way, they all were ethnic Russians. The lawyer of the injured party, Magomed Gandarov, is currently going to appeal against the decision of the Rostov court to the North Caucasus Military Court. What remains is just to wait for the minutes of the hearing. This time, there will be no jury. All the members of the news conference unanimously expressed their disagreement with the court's verdict which actually confirms the following: one can shoot six people dead in this country and remain unpunished - absolutely officially at that. After all, there were orders, and the defendants just obeyed them. Accidentally, no one remembered that orders do not exempt one from liability for obeying them if they contradict the law. Government in this country protects only institutions, not people, Svetlana Gannushkina said. By the way, each of the defendants is still on service. One of them was awarded the Order of Courage by decree of the president a month after the incident in the Shatoi district. Author: Ksenia Ladygina Source: Own correspondent Captain Ulman: Send the Prosecutors into Battle Created: 20.05.2004 14:34 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 16:30 MSK, Denis Bulanichev Gazeta.Ru This week Captain Eduard Ulman returned to his hometown of Novosibirsk from Rostov-on-Don, where a military court acquitted him and his subordinates of murdering six Chechen civilians. Capt Ulman and the others confessed to the killings but said they had been following orders from their superior. Eduard Ulman was born in the Krasnoozersky district of Novosibirsk Region. He graduated from the Novosibirsk Military School of the Defense Ministry and now serves in the military unit of the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU), based in Ulan-Ude. Gazeta.Ru's correspondent met the officer in Novosibirsk. How do you evaluate the outcome of the trial? The jury managed to sort things out and passed a fair verdict. As a result, we were acquitted. The jury was granted access to sensitive information — orders, classified documents — that were touched upon during the proceedings. Nothing was concealed from them as being a military secret. And they passed their verdict. Do you plan to claim compensation for moral damages? It is too early to talk about that yet, since the verdict is to be confirmed by the military board of judges of the Supreme Court. After it is considered it will be possible to talk of further actions. And have the aggrieved parties already filed an appeal? I don't think so. Not yet, but apparently they plan to. And what do you plan to do if they succeed in challenging the "not guilty" verdict? We will fight on. As far as I understand, the most that the aggrieved can achieve is for the case to be sent for re-trial in the North Caucasian military district court, and then we will continue the fight there. Don't you fear vengeance form the aggrieved parties? Should I? No I don't. Whether or not they will attempt to do that, I have no idea. Will you continue your army career? Yes. Today my plans are clear: to return to our base in Ulan-Ude together with my comrades. We need to go, take everything in, and decide. Although, at first, I would like to go on vacation — maybe I will visit Novosibirsk again. If you are asked to go back to Chechnya, will you accept? Of course, that is my job. What is the relationship with your commanders like? What was their reaction towards the trial? They wished me well. They helped me as much as they could and for that, of course, I am grateful to them. Both the command and the rank- and-file fellow servicemen helped, even though they continued to carry out their combat missions. In connection with your trial much was said about your superior setting you up. What do you think of that? I would rather not make any judgments today. I have just completed a certain stage, together with my comrades, and I am happy and glad and would like to thank all those who extended their support to me. How common is it during hostilities to have to fulfill criminal or controversial orders? I am a military man. For me there are no criminal or controversial orders; we do not question them and do not discuss whether to fulfill them or not. You know, officers in the Tsarist Army used to say: "Our job is to shoot and die when ordered. As to the whys and wherefores, the colonel knows." My standpoint remains: we acted correctly. We fulfilled the combat task set before as. That's it. If a commander issues an order, he surely knows what goal he is pursuing. That is his plan. I do not know what his final goal is and what my part is in his plan, or what the part of the others is. I am not even familiar with his plan in its entirety, because he orders one of us to do this, and another to do that. My task is to fulfill my part of the task. And our branch, the GRU, is remarkable for its high level of discipline, compared with the rest of the Russian army. You must have had time to think about how a military man can safeguard himself against such situations where he is forced to carry out unlawful orders, for which he may later be brought to trial. Do you have any answer to that question? Maybe, it is worth amending the law or signing a special contract? I think there are two options: either change the law, or take the prosecutor along to the battlefield so that he can see to it that the law is observed. The latter is more feasible, I believe. eng.kavkaz.memo.ru Caucasian Knot 19/5/2004 Who stands behind abduction of schoolboys? Three schoolboys abducted from the mountain village of Dyshni-Vedeno, Chechnya's Vedeno district, returned home on May 15. The "release" of the teenagers went according to the "classic" plan used in such cases, officers of the Chechen Interior Ministry said. The abductors drove the blindfold boys to the outskirts of the settlement and just threw them out of the car. "The victims, Kulumov, Azgiev, and Gaziev, can't say where there were held for two days and who exactly abducted them. The abductors spoke both Russian and Chechen, one boy said. They demanded that the boys indicate who is a rebel in their village and asked other questions. They beat the teenagers and threatened to kill them. The boys are still in state of shock," a Chechen police officer said. An investigation into the case is underway. Meanwhile, residents of Dyshni-Vedeno are convinced the abductors will never be found. "Such attacks against civilians are committed by both the Russian military and officers of local security agencies. There has hardly been a case when the culprits were found. The released teenagers and their relatives will not tell the whole truth anyway as they fear of possible consequences. And our police don't show special zeal investigating such cases," Magomed, a 47-year-old resident of the Vedeno district, said. Author: Sultan Abubakarov Source: Own correspondent
|