Litvinenko File by Sixsmith Martin

Author:Sixsmith, Martin [Sixsmith, Martin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2007-11-02T00:00:00+00:00

34

UNSOLVED DEATHS

On 18 March 2000 two liberal members of Russia's parliament, the Duma, demanded an inquiry into the allegations of FSB involvement in the bombings. But the application, made in the name of Yuri Shchekochikhin and Sergei Yushenkov, was turned down. Yushenkov was a veteran member of the Liberal Russia Party, which was co-chaired and financed by Boris Berezovsky; Shchekochikhin was a member of a sister party, the liberal-leaning Yabloko (Apple) group. The two men were respected politicians. When they complained about the government's refusal to investigate the apartment bombings, they received the backing of several leading public figures. They also sparked great anger in the Kremlin.

After two years of stonewalling by the Russian authorities, Yushenkov and Shchekochikhin decided to take their campaign for justice for the bomb victims into the arena of public debate. And to do so they turned to their colleagues in London.

If Alexander Litvinenko's efforts to pin the blame for the bombings on Vladimir Putin had found few backers in the West, they had by now won the keen endorsement of Boris Berezovsky. Having read Litvinenko's book, the oligarch commissioned and paid for a documentary film about the apartment bombs. Made by a French production company, its title, Assassination of Russia; false-flag, government-sponsored terrorism, leaves little doubt about the thrust of its conclusions. The film insists that the evidence from 1999 indicates an FSB hand behind the bombings and points out that right up to a month before the explosions the director of the FSB was Vladimir Putin. At the film's conclusion Yuri Felshtinsky sets up an either-or scenario: ‘Either Putin knew exactly what was going on, and that is why he has refused to hold an inquiry, or there is another explanation – that the president doesn't really have control over the FSB.’ It is an either-or proposition that will become vitally important as we consider the FSB's subsequent relations with Shchekochikhin and Yushenkov, and with other opponents of the Kremlin, including Alexander Litvinenko.

Berezovsky's film was first screened in March 2002 in London, but efforts to show it in Russia were blocked by the Kremlin. Prints of the film and consignments of video-cassette copies were seized by customs at St Petersburg's Pulkovo Airport. Sergei Yushenkov, however, did manage to bring 1,000 video copies into Russia when he flew from London to Moscow's Sheremetevo Airport.

Soon after, the parliamentary leader of Liberal Russia, Yuly Rybakov, claimed members of his party were being assaulted and some had received death threats. Rybakov said unidentified assailants had beaten up three of his employees and attacked a fellow party member; he was convinced the threats were an attempt to prevent the showing of the Berezovsky documentary. He and Yushenkov renewed their demands for an inquiry into the 1999 bombs and sent a letter to Vladimir Putin urging him to set up a special commission to investigate the events. Yushenkov, meanwhile, continued to distribute copies of the tape to members of parliament and organized a private showing of the film in Moscow.

On 17 April 2003 Sergei Yushenkov was shot dead with a single bullet to his chest.

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