Archive for the police Category

10 Arrested in Politkovskaya Murder Case

Posted in Berezovsky, Chaika, Chechen, FSB, Litvinenko, Moscow, Muratov, Politkovskaya, Putin, Ryaguzov, arrest, murder, police on August 27, 2007 by accidentalrussophile

Russian Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika has announced the arrest and pending charges of 10 people in connection with the October 2006 murder of reporter/activist Anna Politkovskaya. Politkovskaya was 48 when she was shot dead in the stairwell of her Moscow apartment on Vladimir Putin’s birthday last year. Closed circuit security cameras at her building revealed a lone assassin shooting her as she left for work.

“We have made serious progress in the Politkovskaya murder investigation,” Russian television showed Prosecutor-General Yuri Chaika telling President Vladimir Putin at a meeting.

“Ten people have been arrested in connection with this case and literally, in the very near future, they will be charged with carrying out this grave crime.”

Prosecutors said her killing was probably linked to her reporting. She had been active in exposing abuses by security forces in Russia’s turbulent Chechnya and neighboring regions.

Putin said at the time the murder was a “disgusting crime.” [AR note: albeit belatedly] But Politkovskaya’s supporters said she had paid the price for criticizing the Russian authorities. Foreign governments appealed for a thorough investigation.

Anna Usachyova, a spokeswoman for Moscow City Court, said a judge had approved the detention of two people suspected of involvement in the killing. An earlier court hearing ordered the other eight to be held in detention pending charges.

Politkovskaya’s former employer, Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, was cautiously optimistic regarding the arrests. The newspaper said it believed the 10 arrested people included people from an “ethnic” organized group, and law enforcement officers (both former and active).

It will be most interesting to see who these people are as the case develops.

Update: Some more tidbits on the murder case and the police officers involved:

Investigators probing the murder of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya suspect the involvement of former police officers who served in Chechnya, the Kommersant newspaper said on Wednesday.

Investigators from the interior ministry and prosecutor’s office left Moscow “almost en masse” last week for the west Siberian town of Nizhnevartovsk with the aim of questioning former police officers who had served in Chechnya, the paper said.

They suspect that the officers may have taken revenge on the hard-hitting journalist from the Novaya Gazeta newspaper after she named them as being involved in at least one killing of a civilian in Chechnya, Kommersant said.

“It appears a dominant explanation has appeared. Investigators think that former officers from the Nizhnevartovsk police were involved,” the paper said.

Investigators particularly want to find a former police major and a former police lieutenant colonel who are already wanted in connection with crimes in Chechnya, the paper said.

This case will certainly do nothing to improve the less than stellar reputation of police officers in Russia.

Update 2: Another Reuters report has Prosecutor Yuri Chaika cutely implying that Boris Berezovsky ordered or paid for Politkovskaya to be murdered.

Russian prosecutors said on Monday they had detained 10 suspects in the murder of reporter Anna Politkovskaya, but that the killing was masterminded from abroad by anti-Kremlin forces trying to discredit Russia.

The contract-style shooting last year of Politkovskaya, a fierce critic of President Vladimir Putin, led to a storm of international condemnation, with critics saying the Kremlin was failing to protect freedom of speech.

Prosecutors had said her killing was probably linked to her reporting. She had been active in exposing abuses by security forces in Russia’s turbulent Chechnya and neighboring regions.

Prosecutor-General Yuri Chaika told reporters an investigation showed Politkovskaya had been killed by an organized crime group led by an ethnic Chechen and including serving and former law enforcement officers.

He said the same group may have been involved in two other high-profile murders: the 2004 killing of U.S. reporter Paul Klebnikov and the shooting last year of central bank deputy chief Andrei Kozlov.

But the chief prosecutor said the trail from the Politkovskaya killing, and other crimes, led to Kremlin opponents living in exile abroad.

Asked if he had in mind Boris Berezovsky, a multi-millionaire critic of the Kremlin who lives in London, he smiled and refused to answer the question.

“The person who ordered the (Politkovskaya) killing is abroad,” Chaika told reporters at a news briefing.

“Our investigation has led us to conclude that only people living abroad could be interested in killing Politkovskaya.

“Forces interested in destabilizing the country, changing its constitutional order, in stoking crisis, in a return to the old system where money and oligarchs ruled, in discrediting national leadership, provoking external pressure on the country, could be interested in this crime.

“Our investigations showed that this was not the first such attempt — a number of previous murders were similar provocations.”

The accusation, true or not, certainly ties everything up into a neat package for the Kremlin. Operating under the assumption that it is true, it would make the killing of Litvinenko look more like a tit-for-tat exchange of murders.

Of course, the Kremlin spokespeople had been making sounds about the Politkovskaya murder being done to undermine or discredit Putin’s government from the beginning. It does seem rather convenient for that version of events to be the final outcome.

I predict these accused will get pushed through the Russian court system rather quickly. It seems in these sorts of cases the judges simply agree with the prosecutors evidence and ship the accused off to jail.

Update 3: It is being reported by ITAR-TASS that one of the criminals was also an FSB agent.

In the group of those detained in connection with the murder of investigative journalist, Anna Politkovskaya, there is the man who gunned down the victim.

The officer of the federal security service FSB detained in connection with the Politkovskaya case had long been under the surveillance of the FSB’s internal security division, its chief, Lieutenant-General Alexander Kupryazhkin, said on Monday.

Slain investigative reporter Politkovskaya had known and met with the man who is suspected of ordering her murder, Yuri Chaika said.

International Herald Tribune quotes an Associated Press article that says it was a Chechen crime boss who ordered Politkovskaya killed.

Update 4: Another BBC article describes the former FSB officer as Lt. Colonel Pavel Ryaguzov. The article also quotes Novaya Gazeta chief editor Dmitry Muratov, as saying the evidence from the investigations are “very convincing and professional”.

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A Tale of Two Tales

Posted in Georgia, Ossetia, Russian, peacekeepers, police on July 11, 2007 by accidentalrussophile

CIS peacekeeping forces: Georgian policemen immobilized Russian serviceman and poured liquor in his mouth

The CIS Collective Peacekeeping Forces (CPF) Command in the Georgian-Ossetian conflict zone expressed resolute protest regarding provocative actions of Zugdidi Criminal Police officers towards servicemen of the CIS CPF.

As Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Diordiyev told REGNUM, last night, Georgian policemen detained two Russian servicemen, Andrei Kutsyi and Maksim Korenev, near a mobile check-point #307 and convoyed them to the regional police department. After Andrei Kutsyi refused to fulfill the claim to hand over his arms, the Georgian police officers knocked Kutsyi off his feet and forcefully poured liquor into his mouth. After that, both servicemen were convoyed to police station.

The CPF insists that actions of the Georgian policemen were pre-planned, as the detention of the Russian soldiers was recorded on video. “The peacekeepers once again showed restraint and patience and did not yield to the blunt provocation. They were at the police station until Commander of the CIS CPF South Security Zone Col. Andrei Belov arrived to the station. The Georgian side tried to present the act of handing over the servicemen as an act of good will,” Diordiyev said.

At the same time, the commander noted that the CIS CPF were resolute to continue fulfilling their duties in full correspondence with the mandate and not yield to provocations staged by people interested in it.

And the story of the same incident, from RIA Novosti (via RussiaNews.net)

Georgia releases two detained Russian peacekeepers

Tbilisi (Georgia), July 10 (RIA Novosti) Two Russian peacekeepers detained Monday night in Georgia have been released and handed over to their peacekeeping headquarters, media reported Tuesday.

Georgia’s Rustavi-2 television channel reported that on Monday night two Russian peacekeepers blocked a highway connecting the eastern and western parts of the country near the city of Zugdidi, West Georgia, to conduct inspections of drivers’ documents.

A Georgian police patrol force arrived at the scene later to unblock the road and detain the peacekeepers.

A spokesman for the local administration said the peacekeepers stopped a car carrying Irakli Daraseliya, a member of the Georgian parliament, threatening him with their weapons and demanding his documents.

‘Besides officers of the Georgian patrol police, UN military observers arrived at the scene as well and were witnesses to the illegal actions of the peacekeepers,’ he said.

The spokesman added: ‘Both Russian peacekeepers were handed over Monday night to a representative of the Collective Peacekeeping Forces. Georgian police also returned their confiscated weapons. A criminal case on charges of abuse of power has been launched.’

Russian troops are stationed in the region as part of the trilateral Collective Peacekeeping Forces, which also involve Georgian and Ossetian soldiers. They were deployed in South Ossetia in the early 1990s to ensure the implementation of ceasefire agreements after the conflict, but Georgia’s West-leaning authorities have sought their expulsion since coming to power in 2004.

Ok. Forcefully poured liquor down his mouth?

Or was Kutsyi questioned by his superior about the smell of alcohol on his breath, and he replied “The dirty Georgian police poured liquor down my throat when I refused to submit my weapon, Colonel!”.

I leave readers to form their own opinion about what exactly happened.

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Raid on Russian Cat Theater

Posted in Kuklachev, Russian, cat, police, raid, theater on July 5, 2007 by accidentalrussophile

Just a quick blurb and story link that I found interesting.

Remember the Russian Cat Theater of Yuri Kuklachev?

It seems his theater in Moscow was raided/searched by authorities.

From the Baltimore Sun story, by Erika Niedowski:

The recent raid – which, according to the family, was carried out by men who identified themselves as officers of the city’s Department for Combating Economic Crimes – is not the only sign someone wants to cause trouble for Kuklachev and his cats.

People who live above the theater recently began lodging complaints about the “smells,” which never seemed to exist before or bother anyone if they did.

“They thought they would find something” incriminating, Kuklachev’s son, Dmitry, 31, said in a recent interview, not long before donning his clown costume and pancake makeup for another performance, this one featuring a cat named Boris. “Unfortunately for them, they didn’t find anything.”

A spokeswoman for the Department for Combating Economic Crimes, Irina Volk, denied that the agency, which tackles smuggling, fraud and counterfeiting, had anything to do with the raid. But Valentina Titova, spokeswoman at the city prosecutor’s office, where Kuklachev has since filed a complaint, contradicted that account; she declined to comment further, saying the matter was under review.

The pressure on the cats theater is hardly new, if the tactics are. Businessmen and others have long visited the theater, asking Kuklachev to sell or rent his space, even though the building and the cats theater has been acquired by the state (with the blessing of the family). Some have offered the theater a new home, albeit one far from the city center in a neighborhood less desirable than Kutuzovsky Prospekt.

The family suspects the raid was the work of a commercial interest hoping to take over the coveted first-floor space – and that more pressure, in one form or another, will follow. Since the building is owned by the city government, the theater theoretically could be kicked out at any time if the right person gave the order.

Nothing unusual in the tactics, as “businesses” in Russia can often resort to strong-armed tactics, involving either police or thuggery. Prime real estate in Moscow is big money, and the market has shown no recent signs of abating.

According to Dmitry Kuklachev’s account, officers from the economic crimes department tried to shut down the 4 p.m. performance, which was already under way. But a shaken Kuklachev persuaded them to let the show go on. The rear offices were sealed, and two men sat backstage, apparently to make sure no one fled.

“It was funny and not so funny at the same time,” said Kuklachev’s son.

The officers implied that Kuklachev had stolen state funds. Their so-called evidence was the discrepancy between the modest amount of cash in the register and a 300-seat theater packed with families and children. Where, they wanted to know, was the rest of the money?

Kuklachev said only a few dozen tickets had been sold – and that the majority of spectators were children from orphanages who were admitted free, as they are regularly invited to do when there are empty seats.

Last week, the senior Kuklachev held a news conference at the theater, appealing to the public.

“I decided to ask you for help,” he told the assembled press corps, wearing a tie adorned with cats. He doesn’t go to parties, he said, and doesn’t have big connections. “My whole job is cats.”

If the theater is ultimately forced out of its present quarters, the family will likely be forced to take the show abroad for good. “He doesn’t want it to happen,” said Dmitry Kuklachev. “Neither do I. We love the country.”

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