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In memory of Anna Politkovskaya
Written by Åâãåíèÿ Àëüáàö   
Âîñêðåñåíüå, 08 Îêòÿáðü 2006
ImageOn radio ‘Echo of Moscow

E. Albats: Good evening, it is 6 hours, 15 minutes, and 24 seconds in the evening and radio station ‘Echo of Moscow’ is on the air. We are broadcasting on a frequency of 91.2 FM. We can also be heard on the Internet, though in recent weeks something bad is going on with this. I am Evgeniya Albats and with me are my colleagues, journalists and human rights activists, and today we will talk about Anna Politkovskaya, who yesterday at about five o’clock in the evening was killed in her home by a shot in the chest and a control shot to the head. But before we start talking about Anna and theories about her murder, I wish to express my deepest condolences to Anya’s loved ones, her children, her sister, her mother, and all who loved her, and for whom this loss will never heal.
I offer my condolences to Anya’s colleagues at the papers ‘Obschaya Gazeta’ and ‘Novaya Gazeta’, where she had been working for the past few years. My condolences to Anya’s and my classmates, the graduates from the 1980 Moscow University College of Journalism, Anya’s group of 16. Anya was a complex person, difficult for many, but completely honest, completely devoid of mercantilism, and a lover of politics, but not a holder of much respect for politicians. She was a person, quite confident of the correctness of whatever her cause. She was active in journalism, investigative journalism, which requires a particularly hard-nosed, special personality, the ability to bring an investigation to its end, and this kind of journalism is always costly — financial expenses and temporary costs, fees which are never covered by anyone. This kind of journalism is always difficult, in part because this kind of investigation is difficult to publish. This kind of journalism is not simple and easy to communicate to people, because it requires a fantastic, fanatical obstinacy, so even when there is the threat of murder, death cannot stop an investigation. Anna Politkovskaya was engaged in just this kind of journalism. She defended the humiliated and the insulted, this is called advocacy journalism, for which the Russian press was famous for centuries — during czarist times and in rare moments of thaw during the Soviet days, and during these New Russian times. This kind of journalism also brings no money or no love from the audience, but what it does is bring honor to the profession, and for Anya that was the absolute, she always sided with those who suffered and are suffering. With me today in the studio is Elena Rykovtseva, a journalist from ‘Radio Liberty’.

E. Rykovtseva: Hello.

E. Albats: Vyacheslav Izmailov, a military columnist for ‘Novaya Gazeta’.

V. Izmailov: Good evening.

E. Albats: And Alexander Cherkasov, a board member of the ‘Memorial’ Human Rights Society.

A. Cherkasov: Good evening.

E. Albats: Dmitry Muratov, the editor in chief of ‘Novaya Gazeta’, was also supposed to arrive, but he got a call to go speak with investigators at five o’clock, so if he can, he may come towards the end of our broadcast, but if not, that means no, because of course, the investigators, who are engaged search for the Anya’s killers, today, of course, they take precedence. I remind you that our on the air pager number is 725–6633, the area code for Moscow is 495, and the country code for Russia is 7. The phone number for the live broadcast in Moscow is 783–9025, for the regions and abroad dial 783–9026. The sound operator in the studio helping me today is Natalya Yakusheva. We are journalists. We are obliged to practice our profession even when we do not particularly wish to engage in it. We are obliged to seek information, to look for theories, including and especially what happened yesterday. In the day since Anya’s murder a whole series of theories have appeared, the theory most often mentioned is a version associated with a recent investigation that Anya conducted and was going to publish in ‘Novaya Gazeta’, an investigation into torture and murder in Chechnya, performed with the approval and participation, she thought, of Chechen president Ramzan Kadyrov.
Vyacheslav Izmailov, my first question is to you: what do you know about this?

V. Izmailov: Anya repeatedly wrote about this. This was not the first article on torture in Chechnya by Kadyrov and his puppets. There have been such articles before. I do not think this was the reason and grounds for her murder — they just need to regard it as one theory. In general I believe that there are four major theories, and Anya talked and wrote about and exposed those who were engaged in non-judicial killings in Chechnya, those in uniform and, above all, in the FSB and GRU. It could be revenge, and not just revenge. She did this for seven years and it was impossible to convince and convict her, I mean Anya, so she could only be dealt with in this way and their are other similar precedents supporting this hypothesis. If you recall in 2001, February 21st, remember how we were all looking for Anya and then Sasha got involved, back when she vanished in Khatuni, where the 45th Regiment was. She had gone there to assist local residents who had lost relatives and she discovered these pits where people were being held, and she was held hostage for three days she, sitting there, and it was just a miracle that we learned about it in time and were miraculously able to save her, but back then she was placed against the wall and there was a simulated firing squad, and they abused her and when she was saved. She said that they could have done anything they wanted to, that there were GRU and the FSB officers there, so this theory for me one of the key theories.

E. Albats: Vyacheslav, if possible, we will come back to this. I have it written down here, too. I want to go back, because there are very many, and in particular on the Internet, there appear conjectures and comparisons of facts and the fact that Anya gave an interview, we will now ask Elena Rykovtseva about this, an interview with ‘Radio Liberty’ on the day before the murder, and she said that a trial was going to be held in which it seems Mr. Kadyrov could be a party, and Anya was preparing to be a witness at this trial. Does it seem to you that this theory is likely? And the second one, Vyacheslav, if possible, a question: the material that Anya was supposed to send to the newspaper, is anything left? Because I have a lot of text messages and the program site has received a lot of questions. Investigators seized the hard drive from her home computer and sealed her office at ‘Novaya Gazeta’ and took two boxes of documents from there and people are naturally worried that the materials that Anya collected will be lost.

V. Izmailov: I spoke yesterday with the investigators. There are four groups from the law enforcement agencies, from the Moscow city prosecutor’s office, the Central District of Moscow prosecutor’s office, from the anti-organized crime department, and the Moscow criminal search department. They are young guys, but their mood is really serious. I talked to each of them, seven came to ‘Novaya Gazeta’ and they are really serious about solving this case.

E. Albats: We have no doubt. Slava, I have a specific question: the material that Anya was going to publish in the edition that will be released without her, with her portrait with a ribbon of mourning ribbon across it…

V. Izmailov: I will say right now that to the newspaper did not get this material, unfortunately. It may have been on her home computer, and that computer was confiscated, but I am sure that the material will not disappear, if it is there.

E. Albats: Okay, now I want to ask Elena Rykovtseva: as I understand it and read it, Anya was on the air with you the day before her murder and talked about proceedings against Ramzan Kadyrov for torture and killings in Chechnya. Tell me what Anya discussed on the air and after going on the air, as is usually the case when information can no longer cause any more damage than that which has already been done. What do you know? What did Anya say about this?

E. Rykovtseva: No, of course not. Before going on the air Anya did not say anything about it. She then agreed to go on, despite a difficult situation in the family, because she was concerned that journalists who were previously critical of Kadyrov’s regime had now become more tolerant and enthusiastic of it. She felt that it was all for show, that what was really going and the acts of charity that Kadyrov was doing there, they were to smooth over all these tortures, something that she considered to be the most important. So, considering that in this matter she may have been the only one who maintained a clear position, she agreed to come on the air. That is, up until the last minute she thought she could physically come to the radio station, but at the last moment her mother had a heart attack in addition to surgery, and Anya could only talk on the phone from the hospital, and she, of course, could not go into certain details. With regard to details, in all of this the most…

E. Albats: What did she say, Len?

E. Rykovtseva: You know, she said that on her desk were photographs of mutilated corpses. But explain to me, now where are these photos? I understand that we are talking about her desk at home, the one that the editors at ‘Novaya Gazeta’ cannot access. They have none of these photographs. You see, she worked at home, she wrote the text of her articles at home. Everything she had, her home computer, and in all of this the most important thing right now is: what was in her home computer, and what was on her desk at home? That is what she said, that she had everything, but as you just said, our quotes are the same as yours, she was a witness in a case and Kadyrov may enter into it in some role. That was all she said. I do not have anything else here, but as to whether the investigators will return these pictures, and in what form, and as to whether her text will be revised, that is, of course, a question.

E. Albats: Thank you, Len. Alexander Cherkasov, another hypothesis also, by the way, from ‘Novaya Gazeta’, this appeared on their website. It appeared where they placed Anya’s portrait. It consists of the fact that Anya’s murder is actually a provocation against Ramzan Kadyrov, that is, from the opposing side. Here is another theory that certain of the Chechen prime minister’s people could have ordered the killing. The second theory is that it was a provocation against Kadyrov. It is known that Kadyrov managed to kick a lot of security people out of Chechnya, and they, understandably, have lost a lot of money out there what with the oil business, the arms trade and all. He squeezed out a lot of security types and FSB people. It is known that the shots of Kadyrov in the sauna, where he is engaged in sexual antics, these were apparently made by the FSB with a mobile phone, so maybe they took some other shots that do not increase of the young Chechen prime minister’s credibility. So now ‘Novaya Gazeta’ suggests that the Anya’s murder was a provocation against Kadyrov. What do you think about this?

A. Cherkasov: You know, I am not a great expert on complex theories. These are all for paperbacks with brightly colored covers. Recall that Anya had already been threatened, threatened in a simple fashion, threatened by Cadet Lapin who is now in jail, the only one in jail for kidnapping.

E. Albats: He was from the Khanty-Mansiysk SWAT police, yes?

A. Cherkasov: Yes, he was from the Nizhnevartovsk judicial police detachment, he is the only man jailed for kidnapping and torturing people. They put him in jail because ‘Novaya Gazeta’ undertook to protect its employee, whom he threatened. Otherwise, as on other thousands of criminal cases, they could do this with complete impunity. The fact is, if we take the dozens of articles written by Anya and published over the past year, we see in them a figurant who could very well be a defendant in this criminal case, because every time she went after someone, the FSB, the GRU, and Lapin as well. Lapin, for example, was just a policeman and in general none of these who torture people and make them disappear are huge monsters with horns and hooves. They are but ordinary policemen and FSB people.

E. Albats: So an ordinary policeman has the money to pay for a murder? Investigators say that the murder was well prepared, that Anya was watched, followed from a shop, that a professional worked on it and he left the murder weapon there. He did a control shot to the head…

A. Cherkasov: The professionals who organize kidnappings and murders, the professionals creating the terror in Chechnya, which Anya was investigating, were not some Martians, but ordinary employees of the Russian security structures.

E. Albats: But these are different things. It is one thing to do a ‘clean sweep’ of a village, but quite another to commit a murder in the center of Moscow.

A. Cherkasov: For several years there have not been any sweeps — they come for a specific person and he is taken away or killed. This is no different from Moscow. Chechnya today is just as much a part of the Russian Federation, so ask somebody else for a complex hypothesis. I should look for something simpler. Another thing is that this all could just be some horrible coincidence.

E. Albats: We, unfortunately, now need to break for the news, we will return to the studio immediately after the news on ‘Echo’.

/ News /

E. Albats: Hello again, this is radio ‘Echo of Moscow’. At the microphone is Evgeniya Albats and it is now 6 hours and 34 minutes in the evening. I will remind you that we are broadcasting on a frequency of 91.2 FM. Here with me in the studio is Elena Rykovtseva from Radio Liberty, Alexander Cherkasov from ‘Memorial’, and Vyacheslav Izmailov from ‘Novaya Gazeta’, and we are talking about theories for the murder of Anna Politkovskaya. Here some scumbags have sent various texts and I would like to tell Sergey from Moscow: dude, go take a shower, you are seriously messed up if you think that this was an everyday killing, that she owed somebody money, you do not know how she lived, you do not know if she was broke, so at least shut up at least until she is buried. I would like to advise anybody who sends me a text, who sends me this excrement, to shut up. Let her be buried and keep your nasty stuff to yourself, you do not know her work, you do not know what it was she was up to, you do not know what she went through and managed to survive.

E. Rykovtseva: Jenny, calm down. Pay it no mind, really.

E. Albats: No, Lena, I am drawing attention to it because there is a simple sense of morality.

E. Rykovtseva: He is just one person, while you have a lot more normal listeners, well, agree that there are more of these.

E. Albats: A simple and elementary sense of morality that should not allow people to toss muck about while a person is not even buried. It is just, you do not have to be either a Democrat nor a revolutionary.

E. Rykovtseva: Maybe it would be best just to ignore him.

E. Albats: If, in our country, this elementary sense of morality still worked, they probably could not kill us so easily, Lena, and so we will speak about this on ‘Echo of Moscow’. Returning to the…

E. Rykovtseva: The main thing is that he understood you, and that is what this is all about.

E. Albats: You know, if a person could sit at his computer and write what I see, and he is not alone, believe me, I have such excrement on my screen right now.

E. Rykovtseva: I do not know. I read your site and there is a bunch of warm responses. A lot of people have written kind words about Anya, so I just feel sad that a certain person, or two people, wrote something, but these words are now beginning to overshadow us. Better, perhaps, to move on to good words? Just some advice.

E. Albats: So, that is out beyond the limits of our affairs, thank you, Lena, or your affairs. I have a question for Vyacheslav Izmailov and Aleksandr Cherkasov. Alexander says that we do not need any especially complex theories, that we have a number of people in uniform who have served in Chechnya and committed crimes there. Anya wrote about it, and this is revenge. Slav, you talked about how she wrote extensively on various FSB and GRU people who also had a reason to, well, it is clear, a reason to hate her, but still, to go and kill someone you need a very strong motive. That is, could you somehow argue this theory? Slav, here you heard what Alexander Cherkasov said just now, what do you think?

V. Izmailov: I cannot agree with Alex, it is really just one of the theories because there are frostbitten brain such as Captain Lapin, who not only committed murder in Chechnya but also ventured online to threaten Anna. They only caught Lapin, but she harassed dozens like Lapin, and exposed them. They did not show up on the Internet, but they were also ready to deal with her. This is also one of the theories, that those could have dealt with her, but still here is yet another theory…

E. Albats: So you do not mind that it was deliberate murder, that it occurred right in the center of Moscow, and that anybody could have done it?

V. Izmailov: It should also be considered one of the theories, especially since for seven years Anya continued her activities and they were following her all the time, and after seven years it got old. So they got ready and they understood that it would not easy to do, because there for a time Anya had protection, ‘Novaya Gazeta’ got her protection.

E. Albats: That was when there were these threats from this cadet?

V. Izmailov: Yes.

E. Albats: Len, what do you think about this version?

E. Rykovtseva: You know, I thought right away, when it happened, well, I was in absolute shock when it happened, I thought: too close. You, Zhenya, said it is too close, and it is, and I take a sin on my soul for thinking that it was some sort of hell-raiser, not Ramzan himself, but some admirer and fan, and (Kadyrov) is his spiritual idol. I do not know who it was, but he just up and decided to give him such a gift. Then I thought that I must be absolutely crazy to think such a thing about Ramzan, to set him up, roughly speaking. One must simply think nothing at all because it is really too close. It looks like a provocation, but double-cross, because they killed her on Putin’s birthday and set the world on its ear. I do not know. I think that here in Russia it is quiet, but over there it is much bigger, there they are talking about it 24 hours a day, and it is the first news item. Today, however, if you watched ‘Vesti’ at two o'clock, there it was not the lead item, the first news item was this election in Sverdlovsk where one and a half people showed up. But the world was stood on its ear, and Mr. Putin, who always looks to the West, did he need this on his birthday? Of course he did not need it. So, Ramzan Kadyrov did not need it, because he is too close, and Putin did not need it, and these people are tied together. After all Ramzan is nobody Ramzan without Putin, and Putin, too, is nobody without him, because if Chechnya falls apart, if Ramzan cannot deal with his people there, what will (Putin) do in Chechnya without him? This is a double-cross that could be directed against two people, and against a third. So they take out Anya, who was inconvenient for all these people, they spoiled things and they poisoned the waters for Putin and Ramzan Kadyrov. You know, Jen, I am certainly not a politician and not an analyst, but there is also a third force in this country, it is this so-called ‘power block’ (the leadership of the military, police, and security services — ed), this ‘power faction’, and all the time there is talk about what the ‘power faction’ thinks about government, what will they do after 2008. It does not have its own candidate and Putin for the twenty-fifth time has declared that he will not run, even though they expect that he will run, because then they could hold on to everything they have. One must enter this into the calculations as well. Here are the options.

E. Albats: And?

E. Rykovtseva: And this ‘power faction’ also did not need Politkovskaya, with her principles. What else?

E. Albats: Why would the ‘power faction’ need to kill?

E. Rykovtseva: Look, I am telling you: to poison the waters for Putin and Kadyrov, and to remove an inconvenient journalist. It turns out that the worst thing about her murder, for me personally, what we are talking about here all the time, is that it has become commonplace to ‘clear the field’. Not only have they cleaned out our information field, they are also all cutting down, one by one, what little remains. After all, Anya was sticking out like a stake, so they cut her down, and who will rise in her place? No one will do what she did, not a single person is capable, absolutely not. This is one radio station, and, God forbid, that they change its manager. Jen, do you know which station this is, and what will happen to it? Who will deal with all of them?

E. Albats: Radio on the Internet will operate.

E. Rykovtseva: Yes, and that is easy.

E. Albats: Still, I would like to ask Slava and Alexander. There is really this theory going around on the Internet, that security officials do not want to let Putin leave and so they are running a script to drum up hysteria outside the country by picking off Russian journalists opposed to the Kremlin. The security officials think that this will supposedly force Putin to stay for a third term. Do you think this is real?

A. Cherkasov: You know, there is this rule that I adhere to, though maybe because I am not an analyst: I do not look for meaning in places where I did not put it. There has been terror in this nation for the last few years. In the Caucasus there is the mass terror and tens of thousands of people have been killed, thousands of people have disappeared, and it is not the Martians doing it. People who speak our same language, Russian, are doing it. Our common, everyday security officers are doing the killing, and Anya wrote about it all the time and so there are too many possibly interested parties, too many prospective participants and partners, to think that it is any kind of a political design. We can hide from ourselves a simple thing behind these political designs: there is a war is going on in our country. They are killing people in our country. They are killing people in Chechnya and in Moscow. Moscow and Chechnya are in now way separate from each other.

E. Albats: Thank you, Alexander. That is another theory that you have expressed on the air here on ‘Echo of Moscow’. Svetlana Gannushkina mentioned the fact that Anna Politkovskaya led an investigation into the terrorist attack in the ‘Nord-Ost’ theater. By the way, a number of listeners have sent in their questions and there are a lot of them on the show’s Internet site. Here is one, in particular, from a doctor from Moscow. Larisa Berezhnaya wrote: “I still wonder why everyone is silent about the number of dead at ‘Nord-Ost’ and the lack of antidote. Perhaps Anya Politkovskaya decided to get to the bottom of this. What is known about these investigations?” Slava, do you know anything about the investigation Anya carried out on ‘Nord-Ost’, and how likely is it, as they suggest, that this investigation…

V. Izmailov: She published everything she did on ‘Nord-Ost’ in ‘Novaya Gazeta’, and she always had a green light, that is, her material was never late. It did not stagnate. It always had a green light. Everything she thought about it and everything she investigated, all of this material was published. I would guess that Svetlana Alekseevna Gannushkina, I think she would probably gravitate toward such a theory, because she was also upset that pseudo-patriots, fascists and nationalists, might have been involved in Anna Politkovskaya’s murder, because that is what Gerenko was working in St. Petersburg. Anya also did similar work and could have fallen prey to these people.

E. Albats: Sasha, you have any thoughts on ‘Nord-Ost’? What did Anya find that could have set a killer on her?

A. Cherkasov: You know, recently we talked about various subjects, about the Caucasus and about Moscow. As I understand it there is no progress in this case, including a public inquiry done recently, and it is unlikely that anything new came up. It would be nice if there were some kind of an investigation that one could be afraid of, but alas, the public inquiry into the ‘Nord-Ost’ is at standstill.

E. Albats: Igor from Moscow asks: “Do you agree with the opinion of journalist Pushkov, a reporter who works on the TVC channel, that those who wanted to make Anna Politkovskaya a martyr were interested in her murder, that is, liberals and foreign intelligence agencies?”

E. Rykovtseva: May I respond?

E. Albats: Please do.

E. Rykovtseva: It is just that I have heard a similar hypothesis, so let us bring to bear the absolute laws of formal logic. There are these liberals, well, why does Comrade Pushkov just come out and say that it was Berezovsky, why be shy?

E. Albats: No, they also name Nevzin.

E. Rykovtseva: Okay. So here they take out Politkovskaya and now they have ruined Putin, but in this case, unlike those whom I mentioned that do not need Politkovskaya, these people need Politkovskaya. Suppose they do not work together, that they are not in the same bunch, but they both oppose the regime. So, they make a big noise for four days, believe me, in this country the noise quickly subsides, it is already almost gone and we discussed this. So what have they accomplished? They destroyed the only opposition weapon. She was the only journalist who seriously opposed the authorities, so they destroy her and there will be some noise for five days, and for a month abroad, and that is it, and for what? In my opinion this theory does not stand up to simple logic.

E. Albats: On the Internet there appeared some kind of an analysis by an FSB officer, of course, all this is ‘supposed’, it was on the site of one of ‘Pavlov’s puppies’, they analyzed operational information written on this supposed research, that a year ago Nevzin looked an alternative in which the murder of an opposition journalist, Anna Politkovskaya for example, would destabilize the situation in Russia and thus start an ‘Orange Revolution’ here.

E. Rykovtseva: They know that this will not happen. They watch TV and they see how many people showed up at the rally today. Yes, you had the radio broadcast and I was listening to ‘Echo of Moscow’ say that this was the biggest, most numerous rally about anything lately, and, good Lord, how many people showed up? Two thousand? That is supposed to be an ‘Orange Revolution’? They are not little kids. They know how many people in Moscow can take to the streets on such an occasion. We already counted just how many.

E. Albats: Vyacheslav Izmailov?

V. Izmailov: I absolutely agree with Lena, that this theory is far-fetched. It is no coincidence that it was thought up by someone such as Pushkov.

E. Albats: Well, okay, perhaps just because we belong to the so-called liberal media, and, I think, are the kinds of reporters who have the facts and use their profession to defend the weak and abused, but really, can we even think up such a complex plot with such sophisticated logic and so full of conspiracy theories, that the opposition kills Anya and the people rise up and they ride this wave into the Kremlin?

V. Izmailov: Why? We know about specific people who threatened Anna, people from the security services and even Kadyrov, whom she also interviewed in 2004, and after this interview she thought that she would never make it back alive. She said she felt such fear when she was there because they could do anything they wanted, they said: “we can take you to the sauna and do something to you.”

E. Albats: This was when she took his interview?

V. Izmailov: Yes, in 2004. So, there are specific people who threatened her, of whom she was afraid, and from whom we were trying to protect her, thus this far-fetched theory is nonsense.

E. Albats: You say that there were people from Kadyrov’s inner circle, in 2004, who threatened her?

V. Izmailov: Yes, and not only Kadyrov’s people. She also wrote about people like Yamadayev and Baisarov, so this also needs to be to considered and explored, and at ‘Novaya Gazeta’ we are following just such a path that we have designated.

E. Albats: So you are looking for people who had real motives to shut up Anya?

V. Izmailov: Yes, certainly, and who already tried to do this.

E. Albats: Another theory that was formulated by Moscow student Alexander Sukhov, he sent us this on the website, this is what he wrote: “We have two types of journalists — the ones that long ago lay down before the authorities and have no right to call themselves journalists, and the second group, these are the truly principled journalists. Unfortunately, few of these remain and I fear that the government has found a way get rid of them. They save face in the West by simply destroying them and writing it off as some murder for hire, but without a customer. Beware, my friends, I am very afraid for you. Accept my sincerest condolences to her friends and relatives and to all of Russia. This is a great tragedy for the country, and a great victory for the government, for the authorities.” Again, by the way, he wonders whether Anna managed to get at least some of her materials to the editor: “but I am afraid that if her hard drive was taken by the police, how could they not remove all the material?” Quite a lot of questions have come into the site from people who are inclined to think that the central government, not just the authorities in Chechnya, had reason to eliminate Anna Politkovskaya. Vyacheslav Izmailov?

V. Izmailov: As a matter of fact, many supported her, and since 2002 she has moved about Chechnya practically illegally, and who has been helping her? Decent Russian servicemen helped her. Decent Chechen police officers helped her. They even took her from village to village in the trunks of their cars.

E. Albats: And disguised her.

V. Izmailov: Yes, to keep the riffraff in epaulets away. There are these kinds among those who are investigating. I talked with these guys and I believe they are good people and I am sure that Anya’s materials, if they are there, that they we will find them and save them.

E. Albats: Vyacheslav, can I ask you something? The policemen who were involved in the mysterious death of Yuri Shchekochikhin, whom I recall was investigating the ‘Three Whales’ affair, is it possible that they too were honest once? (Shchekochikhin was ‘Novaya Gazeta’ deputy editor and an MP who died a few days before a trip to US to talk with the FBI about the alleged involvement of high-ranking FSB officials in corruption – Ed.) And how about the people who were involved in the murder of Galina Starovoytova? (St. Petersburg MP and head of the newly-formed ‘Democratic Russia’ party who resisted the appointment of the former KGB general Yevgeny Primakov to Prime Minister — Ed.) And how about the people who were involved in the murder of Vlad Listyev? (The chief of ORT TV who was shot dead in stairwell of his Moscow apartment building – Ed.) And how about Dima Kholodov? (A military correspondent for ‘Moskovsky Komsomolets’, he was killed in Moscow when a booby-trapped briefcase he picked up in a railway station locker exploded in his newspaper office — Ed) And how about Igor Domnikov? (A ‘Novaya Gazeta’ reporter who was hit on the head with a hammer in the stairwell of his Moscow apartment building – Ed.) And how about Paul Khlebnikov? (The editor in chief of Russian version of Forbes magazine, he was killed by a hit man in Moscow – Ed.) I am not talking about any money that might be involved.

V. Izmailov: I will say this, that the people who were involved in Igor Domnikov’s murder helped us find the true killers. Even though we know who ordered the crime, there is a trial going on now in Kazan and we know who ordered the murder and we will name them in the paper, but I think that our main goal is to do this in court, to see that the people who ordered his murder are also punished, even though it will be very difficult.

A. Cherkasov: Slava, you are an optimist.

V. Izmailov: Yes, and so far as Yuri Shchekochikhin, back then, except for ‘Novaya Gazeta’, our law enforcement agencies did not consider it murder and so they did not look into it.

E. Albats: They did not even open a criminal case?

V. Izmailov: Yes, but right now ‘Novaya Gazeta’ has some data, and if it were not for this matter with Anna, we were prepared to publish, Roman Shleinov was, ready to publish. We had hoped that after this was published we would send this newly discovered evidence to the Prosecutor General’s Office so that they could open a criminal case.

E. Albats: Alexander Cherkasov, you are shaking your head, why so pessimistic?

A. Cherkasov: Here Vyacheslav Izmailov sits in the studio, my dear Major Izmailov, who, while employed by the Ministry of Defense, dragged captive soldiers around, and now he is sitting here without his epaulets. Certainly there are great investigators and beautiful prosecutors, I too was questioned on various matters and six months later here comes another prosecutor with the same questions and my testimony and evidence keeps disappearing from a criminal case. The system is able to grind down individual, honest officers, so fears that…

E. Albats: Thank you. Dmitry Mikhailovich, an engineer from Moscow, writes: “What is the Kremlin’s reaction to this heinous crime? Perhaps Dmitry Muratov, editor in chief of ‘Novaya Gazeta’ could appeal to President Vladimir Putin and ask for an intelligible explanation for the direct destruction of our most uncompromising Russian journalists.” By the way, today Vladimir Putin held a Security Council meeting, did you hear if they had anything to say about this?

E. Rykovtseva: No, nothing, not a word.

E. Albats: Well, probably, maybe, they had not yet learned, it was not reported.

E. Rykovtseva: Not a word from the Administration.

E. Albats: None that were reported, probably.

E. Rykovtseva: Yes, they were shielding their nerves.

E. Albats: One must think that he just does not know about it yet, otherwise Christian compassion, of course, would force him to say a few words, mindful of the fact that Anya has children, and, by the way, in February she was to have a granddaughter or grandson. Another theory for Anya’s murder is that it was a case of Russian Nazis, skinheads and other filth with similar properties. I appeal to all three of you: what do you think, was this possible?

E. Rykovtseva: I think that Vyacheslav knows better, what percent of her articles were about these types, since she was closely engaged in that matter. I simply do not remember such…

V. Izmailov: Anya had articles on this subject, and I can see this as one theory, yes, indeed, it could be possible.

E. Albats: On the website of ‘Russian Will’, in particular there is the Kurinovich (enemies of Russia) list, here all these Nazi lists have appeared and you might suspect a possible scenario where these guys are shooting those they identified to be enemies of Russia.

V. Izmailov: Yes, and they were very resentful, these pseudo-patriots were, that our army, which Anya often harassed, that she helped many servicemen and harassed and exposed those who committed dirty deeds, those who kidnapped and killed people.

E. Albats: Another theory that appeared an hour after Anya’s murder on the ‘Izvestiya’ website was that Anna Politkovskaya’s murder was not related to her professional activities. One of our colleagues, editor in chief Vladimir Mamontov, said something like, I heard it was from this man, he said something along the lines of: “Why are you worrying about it? She ran into someone nasty, and that’s it.” Do you have any information, Slava, where did ‘Izvestiya’ get this theory that Anya’s murder was not connected with her professional activities?

V. Izmailov: From nowhere. They pulled this theory out of their hats. They wish it were so. As a matter of fact, other than her work as a journalist, Anya did nothing and could not do anything else. She was breathless from this work that she constantly had to do. All these visitors and their needs and their problems wore her out. Her office was full of letters and documents sent to her in the office. She shared an office with Galya Mursaliyeva, and she told her that she would probably never get through all of it, and so here yesterday the investigators were raking through it for 6 or 7 hours.

E. Rykovtseva: But the truth is that she knew where it would lead. They just showed this film in the Ukraine once again, but never once in Russia, they showed this film in which she said that she would be killed. Either they would kill her in her apartment stairwell, just like they did to Starovoytova, or she would take a whiff of some bouquet and get poisoned again. She knew.

E. Albats: That is true. She also told me that she accepted life as a gift, because she understood that at any moment she could be killed.

E. Rykovtseva: Every article was a struggle.

V. Izmailov: On September 1st, 2004, when she traveled to Beslan, she was indeed poisoned and they were also statements similar to those expressed by Vladimir Mamontov. They really poisoned her and that the forensics materials mysteriously disappeared. Thank God that Muratov and Sergey Sokolov went to Rostov and were able to get her back on her feet.

E. Albats: Well, unfortunately, the time for our broadcast has come to an end. Our pager is continuing to receive messages. One of them is that Anna Politkovskaya the journalist was responsible for the murder of Anna Politkovskaya the person. I want to finish by reading a message from Professor Igor from Moscow: “The feeling is that Anna was killed at the front, where it is useless to search for a killer and as far as a motive, everything is straightforward. It is a pity. It is sad that this is so commonplace, and, in general, happens in ordinary lives as well.” Well, we are alive. I wish everyone all the best, and goodbye.

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