Russian who worked with
slain deputy seeks asylum in US
AFP
Sunday April 20
A Russian who said she had worked with slain liberal deputy Sergei Yushenkov on
investigating a mysterious appartment block blast four years ago said she feared
for her life and was asking for political asylum in the United States.
Alyona Morozova, who lost her mother in the September 1999 blast and had
worked with Yushenkov on an investigating commission, said she had "no doubt"
that the deputy's murder was linked to his role in the probe.
"I am afraid that to return to Russia would present a threat to my life,
and I am asking the US authorities to grant me political asylum," Morozova, who
is currently in the United States, said in a statement from her lawyer received
by AFP in Moscow.
The Moscow appartment block explosion was one of a series in which nearly 300
people died. Russian authorities accused Chechen rebels of organising the attacks
and sent troops into the southern republic to put down a separatist insurgency
there.
Yushenkov, who was gunned down near his home in Moscow on Thursday, played a leading
role in a State Duma (parliamentary) committee investigating long-standing allegations
that a faction of the Russian security services (FSB) had organised the bombings.
His party, Liberal Russia, had close ties with the self-exiled tycoon Boris Berezovsky
who last year produced and distributed a documentary film purporting to prove
FSB responsibility for the blast.
"I have no doubt that the killing of Yushenkov is linked to his role in the investigation
into the Moscow blasts," Morozova said.
"A year ago, I took part with him in the presentation of the (Berezovsky) film
'Attack on Russia' in the US Congress. After the screening we were told: Our activities
have angered the FSB, and sooner or later they will remind us of it. Now he's
dead."
Morozova said she had joined the public commission investigating the blasts in
the hope of determining who had killed her mother and neighbours.
"Now I have no doubts on that score. That's why I am afraid to return to
Russia," she said.
Morozova's lawyer Alex Goldfarb said his client was studying at a university in
the United States but did not want her location to be specified.
Nine Russian deputies have been murdered in the past nine years, mostly for reasons
associated with their business ties, but observers agreed that Yushenko's killing
by professsional hitmen was most likely to have been due to his political activities.
Yushenko, a vigourous opponent of the Chechen war, was to be buried in a
Moscow cemetery later Sunday, with many liberal lawmakers expected to attend.