Ten people have been arrested on suspicion of the involvement in the murder of Anna Politkovskaya. In relation to that the official statement was made that this crime has been solved.

This is not so.

First, it’s not all involved who are arrested.

Second, the guilt of those arrested is to be proved. Our own investigation done allows us to assume that the arrested people were really involved in this crime in this or that degree, but the prosecutors will have to do a lot of routine work: interrogations, confrontations and additional searches. It’s not today or this year that the trial will be held.

Third, the question of the client of this murder is to be cleared.

Fourth, and the main, the leak organized in the media because someone had a wish to gain something and someone wanted to prevent investigation to establish all the circumstances of the contract murder of the journalist, this leak has complicated the whole situation. Actually, open day was announced starting from 27 August in the Prosecutor’s Office, interior ministry and FSB. Everything is getting confused – names, circumstances of the arrest, past criminal cases, relations and versions. It may seem that maybe it is the client and client’s protectors who have made up all this fuss.

The arrested had not known the information of who else was arrested, before 27 August, the date of the press conference that featured Prosecutor General’s and special service officers’ statements. And those who are still at large did not know the full list of the arrested. Now those people can guess the main direction of the investigation and have opportunities to escape. First arrests were done 13 August, and they had been planned and prepared carefully. There were no leak and the investigators planned to make unexpected confrontations, interrogations and identification parades. The lawyers of the detained were warned against divulgation of the investigation secrecy. It turned out now that all those measures were in vain. It seems that someone had a wish to make the currents list of suspected to be final and, besides, not to let solving other crimes that could possibly have been done by the arrested. It’s probably because the list of the involved in those other cases could be rather unexpected.

Prosecutor General was very careful during the press conference, if we don’t consider his words about the client and involvement of FSB and police officers in this murder. A bit later, chief of department of interior security of FSB Kupryajkin came to be first to divulge the secrecy of investigation. He announced the name of one of the arrested – that was Pavel Ryaguzov.

To our mind, this is one of the key figures in the investigation of Anna Politkovskaya murder and in the investigation of other crimes. Our assumption proceeds from the statements by FSB officers who say that it has been long that they got on to lieutenant colonel Ryaguzov and not only him. We would like to understand how long and was it before 7 October 2006 or later? And what was it related with? First known to us mentioning FSB officer Ryaguzov comes back to 2004 when he was suspected of abuse of power. Already that time he knew personally officer from ethnic division of department of combat against organized crime Sergei Khadjikurbanov (this name appeared in the list of the arrested on 28 August, and the details about him were given next day). Khadjikurbanov was convicted exactly in 2004. Then 4 years of prison were substituted for 2 years by Zamoskvoretsky Court. So in August 2006 Khadjikurbanov got at large.

After disclosing the name of the arrested special service officer the information just burst out. Different versions of the list of arrested, photofit picture of the conjectured killer, video records made by video cameras at the entrance to the block of flats on Lesnaya Street and the photos of chief of investigative group Pyotr Garibyan appeared in abundance in the Internet. All possible has been done to prevent investigation and to provide the lawyers of the suspected with a good line of defense. For ten months before there had been no serious leak which was a very rare phenomena in our modern practice. The chief of official investigative group was controlling that from his side and we were controlling it from ours. Even journalists who represented interests of the special services in different periodicals only could suggest versions based on guessing. But as soon as the results of preliminary investigation came to desks of various chiefs, civil as well as shoulder strapped, it turned out to be that the secrecy was to fail to be kept.

All that information must have been classified top secret as connections of Khadjikurbanov and Ryaguzov are too large and they belong to the system. If you make a search in the data base that police officers leak to open sale, you will find strange things. For example, how can it be that office phone number of Khadjikurbanov came to appear in the notebook of a well known criminal? Or how did the phone number that was spotted in relation to explosion near McDonald café some time ago, came to be related to the arrested about this current case. Or who asked officers from central department of FSB to establish the real place of residence of Anna Politkovskaya in August 2006? And what relation do the officers from Department of Combat against organized crime have to all this? These are only four questions that might be never answered because of this mass leak. The divulging of some materials has already led to some irreversible for investigation consequences. Was it needed to be done because someone failed to prevent the investigation at the preliminary stage?

Rather big number of strange people has been fussing around the Novaya Gazeta and to investigation all this time. It looked like a turbid broth consisting of professional agent provocateurs, former and acting special services officers, informers and bandits. Some of them appeared later to be “main sources” in other causes celebres like Kovtun’s case or Zharko’s case. Others were trying to put investigation in the wrong direction. It all appeared like a planned special operation. To investigation’s credit be it said that that operation failed. And now it seems like this operation just came to another stage – additional plan B.

The practice of special service - and interior ministry is coming to follow the same practice – is that any exposed officer is dismissed before any official charge is brought against him or her. The officers, who are aware of corporate ethics concept, usually resign of their own will. In this case it was said that Ryaguzov is acting FSB officer in the Department of Moscow and Moscow region (we would add, the ethnic department). FSB gives up its officers only when they violate the rules. Has Ryaguzov refused to become “former” because he is sure he will be able to prove he is not guilty? This is unlikely. Maybe he had some trumps and thought they would play. That could be more true-like, because having trumps you can bargain. It’s always better to admit there are monsters (as Prosecutor General said) in the special service than to investigate their relations and connections more deeply, isn’t it?

We won’t be beating about the bush. The reason why someone is trying to confuse the case is not a plot or something, this reason is corruption and total interpenetration of law enforcement system with the criminal.

This, in particular, was what brought to prison the arrested on suspicion of murder officers from internal affairs department of Moscow. Besides “former” Khadjikurbanov there are three of them. Thanks to press conferences by our officials from law enforcement bodies the world got to know that besides illegal tapping (the case of high rank officer from police department Orlov is in the court now), illegal observation is also used in Russia. Of course, it was known before. Those who needed could use this service for $100 per hour while the officers complained to their supervisors about lack of staff for observing real criminals.

Analyzing circumstances of Anna’s death we reconstructed approximately the crime. The mediators got the order in spring or summer 2006. In the beginning of September Politkovskaya began to be shadowed. Before that, her actual address of residence (she had moved to a flat on Lesnaya Street not long before that) was established using facilities of the special service. She was shadowed from morning till night. Generally, Anya was very careful, considering the number of hidden and evident threats. She always reported to editorial staff about all “peculiarities” that happened to her and her relatives.

But in the end of August and beginning of September the situation was different. Her mother was in hospital and they just had buried the father. Anya’s route was practically same those days, differently from her usual working days. In the morning she had a walk with her dog, and then she went shopping and came to see her mother in the hospital. In the afternoon she took again her dog for a walk and late in the day she came to hospital again. When you have problems about your relatives you don’t care of yourself too much. Anya mentioned, though, some strange people hat she met on her staircase.
 
Yes, those strange people, to put it more exactly one man, really had to be met by her. We think that the killer had at least twice entered the block of flats before, following Politkovskaya and scouting the place. 7 October at 16:01 he fired 5 shots. The first and the fifth bullet (checking shot) were shot into the head. Remodeled gas gun with silencer was left at the crime scene. This gun had no crime records before.

The killer rushed out from the entrance, got in a car and left the crime scene. The publication of the frames fixing all this, made by someone and passed to the journalists, prejudiced the investigation very much.

As you understand, there are a lot of essential details lying behind this laconic chronicle that cannot be disclosed yet. So do we really need to explain why we have kept silence all this time?

The number of the arrested and those who will be arrested (we still hope) allows several suppositions. First, one may assume that separate investigations by Prosecutor General’s Office and by the Novaya Gazeta came to at least two stable criminal groups that cooperate “fruitfully” with each other. This is interpenetration of crime and law enforcement bodies that Anna wrote about many times. This is absence of control that makes warrant officers and majors sell their official powers. It must be stressed that this is the joint business established years ago and based on the grave crime and offence. If we unraveled this tangle, then the details of many celebrated unsolved cases would be disclosed. Judging from the latest events, this is what is being prevented from.

Second, the murder was planned and prepared meticulously by professionals who had had experience of solving such kind of “problems”.

Third, it cost expensive. The last conjecture leads to the question of the client. We put this question aside now. Not because we have nothing to say, but because it’s too early to say about it now that the chance of political special operations around circumstances of the crime is too big which was proved by the press conference given by the Prosecutor General. Actually, he just quoted the President who – 3 days after the murder - had given to the prosecutor’s office the “right” direction of searching for the main guilty. It’s “certain forces residing abroad and interested in destabilization of the situation in Russia”.   

Those “forces” are known by name. Assistant President Shuvalov was making broad hints while President of Chechnya Kadyrov said directly that this is Berezovsky. (Neither Shuvalov nor Kadyrov have been interrogated officially so far while they must be, if they really know something). By the way, “the exiled” does all his best to confirm this version in the public’s eye. It appears sometimes that they agreed to act simultaneously. The appeal to revolution made in London coincided actually with the press conference where “the revolutionary” was charged with involvement in contract murders.

We do not exclude possible involvement by “runaway oligarchs” and other characters. There are several versions of who was the client of Politkovskaya’s murder. We consider it that the client didn’t leave Russia. None of the versions is proved with evidence now and so all speculations must be stopped for the moment. While political PR games are played around the investigation, and corrupted special service officers are trying to cover their tracks, there is no guarantee that the names of actual doers and real clients will be heard in the court.

We have repeated many times that we don’t have claims against those who investigate the murder of the Novaya Gazeta’s journalist. We are collaborating, and the mutual opinion is that this collaboration is effective. We just want to be sure that certain “rational reasons” that don’t relate to this matter directly, wouldn’t influence the outcome of our joint work. The outcome we need is clear. The killers, accomplices and real clients of this murder must be established and convicted.

Actually, we have heard many times reproaching question: why does it take so long?
About term of investigation. Anna Politkovskaya published over 500 articles in the Novaya Gazeta. Almost each of them could have been the reason of the murder. It’s not only materials about Chechnya. The geography is rather large. It’s Dagestan, Ingushetia, Kabardino-Balkaria, Astrakhan, Bashkiria, St. Petersburg, and Moscow. That is why initially there were many versions. One of the first ones was about possible involvement of special squad officer in the city of Khanty-Mansiysk whose family name is Lapin. He threatened Politkovskaya. Now his case (another case) is being heard in the court in Chechnya. His partners in crime, interior ministry officers major Prilepin and lieutenant colonel Minin were wanted by federal security service. Of course, there were questions to them about Politkovskaya’s murder too. While being searched for, those people gave interviews to the press. Finally, one of them was found in the City of Nizhnevartovsk. He didn’t even think of escape. He continued to live at his address and he served being of the same rank and at the same position – such was the federal retrieval! Anyway, it was established that those two did not have any relation to the Politkovskaya’s murder. As for their other crimes, the prosecutor’s office made a separate presentation. But further is what we started with – absolute absence of control and corruption by special services and law enforcement bodies.

Then there was an incident about murder of Baisarov, former officer from interior ministry of Chechnya and former special service agent. Autumn last year the former mayor of Grozny Bislan Gantamirov came to the Novaya Gazeta office. He said that three groups of killers were acting in Moscow. One of them was hunting after him, the second after Baisarov and the third worked about Politkovskaya. He gave the names and said that one of the groups was detained accidentally by officers from Khamovnichesky district internal affairs department.

It turned out that all mentioned above characters didn’t have any relation to Politkovskaya’s murder. But the fact was confirmed that three Chechens, officers of interior ministry of Chechnya, were detained by Khamovnichesky district police station officers. The Chechen officers didn’t have any warrant but they had the “killer’s set” in their trunk. The set included a big bore with telescopic sight intended for making shots at cars protected against common guns. Captain first rank Bazhanov from central department of FSB tried to get them out of that situation, but failed. An inquiry was done on this fact but, according to our intelligence, it came to nothing. The detained had been getting ready for some action out of Moscow and even out of Russia.

All that had no relation to Anna Politkovskaya’s murder. But Baisarov was killed a week after Gantamirov’s visit to our office. Officers from central department of interior ministry were present at our meeting with Gantamirov, at our request.

Generally, many things were happening around these two investigations – ours and the official one. Agent provocateurs tried to foul the trail and distract the investigation. Some people tried to get the money offered by the Novaya’s shareholder Alexander Lebedev as consideration for the information given. There were also threats. But all this is just details that have no direct relation to this case while casting light on how the world of special services relates to the criminal. We will tell about it later when the main thing gets done.

And for promoting that the main thing gets done we are doing our best. In particular, we keep silence about many known to us circumstances, in contrast to directors of FSB and prosecutor’s office. Too many criminal cases were solved in the newspapers and very few of them were brought to real sentence.

Such was the background the investigation was carried out at. This is to answer the question “why so long”. Quality work takes time (and the investigative work was professional and of high quality). And we will have to wait more, just as much as it is needed for the sentence to be indisputable and true, in spite of outright attempts to prevent investigation. This will happen, of course, if the investigation is allowed to be completed correctly and no one tries to make a deal with the criminals.

This material was prepared with participation of
Vyacheslav Izmailov,
Dmitry Muratov
and
Ilya Politkovsky