Now Moscow News has published an interview with Aleksandr Litvinenko, the ex-KGB and FSB officer who worked for the Organized Crime Control Directorate (URPO), and who came to prominence when he held a news conference where he said that URPO directors had ordered them to kill Boris Berezovsky. "Furthermore," the newspaper writes, "the officers said that URPO had in fact been created to carry out special operations to physically eliminate certain individuals." In retaliation for the news conference, the FSB opened a criminal case against Litvinenko, on charges of kidnapping, but the case "collapsed in court like a house of cards." Litvinenko and his family fled for London where he was granted political asylum.
Litvinenko subsequently published a book entitled Vyzyvayu Sebya na Dopros (Called In for Self-Interrogation). It contains passages that have a direct bearing on the Listev murder.
Aleksandr Litvinenko, in particular, writes about a report that came from his agent in the Kurgan organized crime group. The agent stated that he could be ordered to "terminate" the man who had killed Vladislav Listyev. Should he indeed get the hit order he would turn in the killer to law enforcement officials, the agent said.Moscow News conducted a telephone interview with Litvinenko in London, in which the following exchanges took place:
Litvinenko reported the situation to Aleksandr Korzhakov, head of the Presidential Security Service (SBP). Having found out who the agent was, Korzhakov said that he was a con man. Nonetheless, Korzhakov asked Litvinenko to leave the room and called Acting Prosecutor General Aleksei Ilyushenko. They spoke for several minutes. Later, after hearing Litvinenko's report in the Kremlin, Ilyushenko said that the Prosecutor General's Office did not need his information.
This looks very strange. Investigators were questioning hundreds of people; possible witnesses were being delivered all the way from Siberian labor camps, in the hope that some information would surface and shed some light on the crime. But when there was a real chance of tracking down the killer, the head of the Presidential Security Service and the acting prosecutor general ignored it. Why? And why did Litvinenko have to brief Korzhakov, rather than his superiors, on the agent's story?
Korzhakov and his deputy, Ragozin," Litvinenko explained, "showed great interest in the Listyev case although they had nothing to do with investigating the crime."
Even so, you kept him up to date.
I was ordered to by my superiors.
Who exactly?
Korzhakov knew that I had some information and he found me through First FSB Deputy Director Safonov.
You describe yet another episode connected with the Kurgan crime group. Apparently, one of its two members who were held at the Matrosskaya Tishina jail was going to tell investigators about some contract hits, including the Listyev murder. Soon afterward both men were killed. How could that happen?
The detainee told his lawyer about his intention. The room where they were talking was bugged. Police operatives from Petrovka (headquarters of the Moscow City Criminal Investigations Department, or MUR. - ed.) decided to move both Kurgan men to the Lefortovo jail and work on them there. One of the operatives knew me and asked for help. I informed my superiors. Two weeks later both Kurgan men were killed in their cells. On the same night.
Why both? After all, only one of them was going to talk.
I did not know the name of the man who was going to cooperate with the police and so in my report I wrote about two Kurgan gangsters. Nor did the official who read my report. So they decided to play it safe.
In your book you talk about a private security firm called Stealth. You, in effect, assert that there is an FSB unit that organizes killings of people. Do you have any proof?
I assert nothing. I only cited information that had come from my source. A person working for Stealth told him that his bosses had ordered him to case a number of targets. He would study the entrance, the apartment, its location in the building, and the approaches to the building. Then he would draw a map and make a verbal report. Thus he cased the entrance to Listyev's apartment building. When the journalist was killed, television showed footage from the scene of the crime, and my source recognized the place. The firm's employee told my informer that after Listyev was murdered, he examined all the places that he had cased and found that murders had been committed there.
I visited Stealth many times, taking some documents there on my superiors' orders. Apart from this firm, as far as I know, there was another one operating under FSB auspices: Kosmicheskaya Alternativa (Space Alternative).
It engaged in unlawful monitoring of cellular phones and pagers.
Could it have monitored a victim's conversations at the time when an operation was carried out?
It probably could.
(via Marius)
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