The Judge can Postpone Anything

Irina Vasina is checking the 'durability' of the victims of the terrorist attack at Dubrovka, and will postpone judicial sessions

On April 25^th, 2005, in Hall 203 of the Zamoskvoreche district court, Moscow (Judge Irina Vasina presiding), hearings continued on the complaint of 'Nord-Ost' survivor Svetlana Gubareva, whose 13 -year-old daughter and US husband Sandy Booker perished at Dubrovka.

The essence of Svetlana's complaint is that she is charging the Moscow city attorney's investigative group with inaction on the 'Nord-Ost' case. Up until now, the precise time and place of her loved ones' deaths has not been established. She also disputes as illegal and groundless two resolutions by investigators to not seek criminal charges in the case. The first (on 10/16/03) was against officers of the special forces who used chemical weapons against the people being held hostage. The second (on 12/31/03) was against the medical staff who did not provide timely medical assistance to the victims. Svetlana believes that her daughter was simply suffocated to death under a heap of bodies.

The previous court session of the Gubareva case was on April 15^th. There, for the first time in the 30 months following 'Nord-Ost', the chief of the investigative brigade, Vladimir Kalchuk, was questioned. At that time, in front of the judge, he thought up some fairy tales: that there had never been any gas used; that he could not remember how Sasha Letyago and Sandy Booker died, that "there were a lot of those"; and that he would never return to court again.

On April 25^th, Kalchuk supported his words with deeds. He spat on the court, and did not return. Judge Vasina received copies of documents in Kalchuk's name, documents that were hilarious in their content as Kalchuk's behavior. Judge for yourself: during the previous sessions, Svetlana Gubareva asked the court to evaluate the legality of Kalchuk not replying to her questions regarding the deaths of her loved ones, even though she communicated with him officially in a registered letter that was assigned receipt #66675 by the Moscow attorney general's office on 09/16/03.

And this is what arrived in court on April 25^th: copies of pages from the receipts book of the city attorney's office, where papers received were registered in order. Everything before Gubareva's complaint was there (#65447), as well as everything after (#67413), but Svetlana's number and date “are not registered.” The court was provided with the personal signature of Kalchuk's boss, the head of the department of investigations into organized crime and murder, G.I. Shinakov. His conclusion: Kalchuk was not at fault, go find the guilty parties yourselves.

The court's reaction? It 'ate it all up'. If that was how it was, then it must have been so. They need not drag people into court, or tear them away from their work. Attorney Karinna Moskalenko (head of the Center for International Defense) began an attempt to focus Judge Vasina's attention on the official forgery that had been given to the court, and stated that the court "must react to this matter," but the bored judge asked Moskalenko to mind her own business.

The attorney general got to speak, in the form of a government prosecutor, that is, the victims' defender. At this time Elena Levshina from the Moscow city attorney's office read a prepared speech, which breathed life back into an already dethroned legend. She stated:

THAT, if not for the gas, then there would have been "one hundred percent mortality."
THAT medical assistance was rendered to the hostages completely and rapidly.
THAT there were doctors on every bus carrying the recently liberated hostages to hospitals. (The audience, many of them 'Nord-Ost' survivors, shuddered.)
THAT the ambulances had enough medicines and artificial respiration devices for everyone. (The audience moaned.)

So why then did Sasha Letyago die? This is the main question Svetlana Gubareva presented the court, and Prosecutor Levshina sidestepped this by a wide margin, as if it had never been asked. "I consider Gubareva's complaint completely disconnected from the case," she haughtily stated to the quiet accompaniment of Svetlana's sobbing.

We are all adults, and we all know what cynicism is. It is when the cynic, in their behavior and words, pretends to interpret the mind and meaning of another subject. Cynicism is very bad, but nevertheless, it is something you can argue with. What the prosecutor uttered was not even cynicism, but a shameless lie on the 'Nord-Ost' theme. Everything she asserted has already been made known thirty times to everyone, everywhere: the video frames of buses and doctors rushing about, doctors who cannot approach the victims laying out on the threshold of 'Nord-Ost', these were on the whole world's television screens, they were introduced as evidence in the criminal case, and they were unsealed and studied.

But once again, in April of 2005, this very same lie from the secret services is back. Had it made a circuit of the globe and returned?

In the prosecutor's speech there was something else that cannot be allowed to pass. It turned out that all the artifacts she presented (certainly, she presented no facts) found their reflection in other judicial sessions where they were accepted as irrefutable, and in turn became law, so it means that there can be no doubts about the truth of the matter.

Naturally, all this says very little to someone distantly removed from the 'Nord-Ost' tragedy. Therefore, I will provide an explanation: the case about which Levshina spoke was the Zaurbek Talkhigov case, the only person to be punished for participation in the terrorist attack. All the rest, as is well known, are dead or on the run. The Talkhigov case, however, had been falling apart at the seams from the very beginning, and the only way to 'make a conviction' was to close it. And that is how they proceeded - Kalchuk, Attorney General Ustinov, and his whole company. Talkhigov was condemned for seeming to be guilty of the hostages' suffering. Not a single one of the hostages or their lawyers were allowed access to materials from the case, or even allowed in court.

And so now, the prosecutor has turned everything upside down and is basing her conclusions as to Kalchuk's innocence on the fact that "everything has been investigated," and that the decisions of another court must be recognized by this one as de facto legal. For the 'Nord-Ost' victims, this is blasphemy: they were never allowed to dispute anything in the Talkhigov case.

Svetlana Gubareva was given permission to speak. She crossed her arms in front of her, and stated:

"On October 25^th, 2002, sitting there in the hall, we hoped that we would remain alive. Unfortunately, the prestige and politics of the state proved to be priorities. It would seem to be in the interests of the state to conduct a thorough investigation, so that a similar folly would not repeat itself. For two and a half years the attorney general has conducted an investigation, and in all these two and a half years I have received not one single answer to any of my questions. During the last session, Mr. Kalchuk stated that Sandy Booker was no one to me. It would have been more correct to say that all of us, the hostages, the dead and the living, and their relatives, we were no one to him. How otherwise is it possible to explain this? The deaths of the hostages are attributed to the actions of a complex of unfavorable factors. In the attorney general's resolution, they never established what substance was used at ‘Nord-Ost’, but, nonetheless, they conclude that it was harmless. We, the hostages, after passing through the gas chamber organized by secret services, have obtained a bouquet of diseases, and some of us became invalids. Why, even now, is the composition of the substance they used hidden to us, preventing us from receiving effective treatment? The investigation has never reliably established the number of hostages who were killed. How many - 130? 174?

"Even before the end of the investigation, before an explanation of the circumstances related to 'Nord-Ost', Russia presented awards and decorations to the participants. These people will do everything to ensure that they do not have to punish and lock up those whom they awarded. Nevertheless, I believe that justice will triumph. Today, April 25^th, 2005, two and a half years after the loss of my loved ones, I hope as always that there will be a Supreme Court, in Russia, or perhaps in Strasbourg, and this Supreme Court will put everything in its rightful place. I want to say in conclusion that, no matter what decision this court arrives at, I am grateful to the court for allowing my participation in the examination of the case, and for the court allowing me access to the materials which the attorney general refused to provide. No, I did not receive any answers to my questions. On the contrary, even more questions arose, but as before, I continue to hope."

Later Karinna Moskalenko spoke - for a long time, almost an hour. The attorney demanded nothing, she almost begged the court: help the victims, help Svetlana. Make them believe in our justice system, "make it possible to learn" why Sasha Letyago and Sandy Booker died. Be real people. "We are just pretending," said Moskalenko, "that we understand nothing. That they (the authorities) are just trying to fool us. But they simply are not telling us the truth. We could be at peace with this if they would explain, for example, that the gas is secret. But they are not telling us the truth in such a way that we cannot help but feel insulted."

The attorney confessed sincerely that representing a case connected to 'Nord-Ost' was an enormous labor, considering the gravity of the events there. The judge exchanged an understanding look with the prosecutor, and interrupted Moskalenko. Such it was several times: the judge did not hide the fact that she was dissatisfied with the attorney. Moreover, she was dissatisfied to such an extent that as soon as Moskalenko stopped speaking, at that very same moment she interrupted the session and postponed it to the 27^th. Moskalenko requested a different date, since that is when Khodorkovskiy is to be sentenced, and she is the attorney representing him as well. But, angered by the moralizations of Moskalenko, the judge refused the request: "No. Only on the 27^th," and, turning to her secretary: "The summons, make her sign a receipt. Sign a receipt! Without fail!"

Foolish. Vindictive. And in the end, vulgar. But one has to make it through all of this. For the truth about 'Nord-Ost'.

Behind the curtain, a little bit about our laws, and those who pervert them. A lot of bad things have been said about the criminal codex. However, the fact that Svetlana Gubareva and other 'Nord-Ost' victims could make it into court, obtain case materials, and cross-examine Kalchuk, all of this is because of the new criminal codex.
A bow deserves to be given to Article 125, which allows a victim to dispute the illegal acts of investigators, not only among family and friends, but also in court, and to disagree with the investigators' conclusions. We never had anything like this before. Why did Article 125 appear? For the people, certainly, but also for the health of the investigative process, in order to force attorney generals to perform quality work. The legislators were quite right in applying healing functions to the courts, in putting the strongest threads precisely in the hands of the judges who were eternally complaining about a lack of leverage with regards to poor investigations.

These 'Nord-Ost' lawsuits in the Zamoskvoreche court were the country's first test of Article 125. This means that they are precedents, and therefore especially critical.

But what did we observe? Article 125 fell into the wrong hands. The prosecutor made a parody out of everything. But judge proved to be a good match, that is, a surrogate. "They turned Article 125 into a cloak, behind which they could do nothing at all," said Attorney Moskalenko. And this means that it is impossible not to agree with Svetlana Gubareva: there is no point in waiting for anything, other than the Supreme Court. Against a background of the quick destruction of judicial independence, even our valuable Article 125 cannot save the people who have fallen into a dead-end. Who, these days, is more interested in placing blind alleys in our lives? Those whom we stupidly, and naively, trusted to decide our fates.

P.S. The ruling in the Svetlana Gubareva case should take place in Hall 203 of the Zamoskvoreche district court in Moscow on April 27^th, at 1700. Novaya Gazeta will continue to follow the course of its progress.

Perhaps you will find this interesting:

From Oleg Alexandrovich Zhirov,

Living at the address:

-------------------------,

The Netherlands,

Telephone: ----------------

GSM: -----------------

Description of events at the Dubrovka theatrical center in the city of Moscow, October 23-26, 2002

On October 23, 2002, my wife, Natalya Zhirova, and our 14- year-old son, Dmitriy, went to the musical 'Nord-Ost'. I, Oleg Zhirov, learned of the theater's seizure by terrorists from the television. I got dressed and within 15 minutes was at Dubrovka. I received the first call from my wife on my mobile phone as I was nearing the parking area by Dubrovka. It was about 10 PM on October 23rd.

Confusion reigned at Dubrovka. I immediately contacted police officers, who, naturally, ‘sent me packing’ and requested that I did not bother them with my information. After this, I contacted S.V. Yastrzhembskiy, who was the Russian president’s representative and in charge at Dubrovka during those hours. He permitted me to remain within the cordon that the police and military officers were setting up around the scene, and briefed me every half-hour about whatever he knew. Before my very eyes, his assistant asked him what they should tell the media. Yastrzhembskiy answered: "Tell them that the Chechens demand money." Within a half-hour, radio station Echo of Moscow, TV station NTV, and other media outlets transmitted this information into ether. Thus the disinformation was born.

About a half-hour later, Yastrzhembskiy went up to some members of the press, and promised to tell them frankly all that was going on. A meeting spot was set up in the square just outside the cordoned off area.

At this time, THEY SHUT OFF ALL MOBILE PHONE COMMUNICATIONS AT DUBROVKA! With regards to this, when journalists asked why they had cut off all mobile phone communications, S.V. Yastrzhembskiy smiled, joked maliciously: “Your cell phones don’t work? That’s strange, mine work.” Why the special services found it necessary to shut off all the cell phones is not understood. So that no one could contact those who were in the seized theater?

Communications were restored after two or three hours, and my wife was able to contact me a second time. She and my son gave me information on the number of foreign hostages, which I gave to representatives of the foreign press, and the Dutch embassy. All journalists, other than representatives from the television station ORT, who probably were otherwise informed) arrived at the spot Yastrzhembskiy had designated for his press conference, at the assigned time. The conference did not take place, however. Yastrzhembskiy gave an interview to journalists from ORT in a different location. The other reporters had been tricked into leaving the cordon, and were never allowed back inside. After this, no representatives of the media were right next to ‘Nord-Ost’ any longer; the building was now outside their line of sight.

By midnight the generals had arrived, and they did not talk with Yastrzhembskiy at all. He was assigned, probably, another duty. The role of ‘dezinformator’, the purveyor of disinformation. It easy to see that, from the very beginning, the military and secret services were preparing something which the rest of us had no need to know about, and without attempting to establish contact with the hostages. I figured out that from the night of October 23-24 onward, Yastrzhembskiy knew nothing, and was not going to help in any way, besides spreading disinformation. I began to look for Dutch journalists, and tried to contact the embassy.

My brother, who at that time worked for FAPSI (the federal government communications and communications intelligence agency), helped me contact the staff of the ‘Alpha’, the anti-terrorism force. They advised me to call Natalya and Dima, and tell them that they should mention the name of that special force’s operational planning commander, assuring me that Natasha and Dima would be left alone after that. I immediately understood what this could lead to. If they had done this, then Natasha and Dima would have been the first to be shot by the terrorists, and that this was probably what ‘Alpha’ in the first place. After this, I no longer tried to contact ‘Alpha’, Yastrzhembskiy, or any other of the authorities.

October 24^th was generally a terrible day. They broke off the first negotiations. Yastrzhembskiy was keeping some foreign diplomats in a building commandeered expressly for this purpose, in expectation of negotiations. He did not allow them to obtain information from the hostages or their relatives, or the terrorists, who themselves were attempting to release some hostages on the morning on the 24^th. The terrorists had made a new demand – if relatives of the hostages were to hold a demonstration on Red Square, then they would release the children. The government did not permit it. OMON paramilitaries used rifle butts to chase away grandmothers and grandfathers, who were holding up signs with the tears on the eyes. I was overcome with fury and malice.

On the morning of the 24^th, I strictly by chance met Zaur Talkhigov near the Dubrovka building. We started up a conversation, in the course of which I learned that Talkhigov was a Chechen, and knew Barayev. He had gone to the Dubrovka building at the request of the Moscow Chechen community, with no official pass, or money, etc., guided only by a desire: “to render assistance in establishing contact with the terrorists, in order to get the hostages released.” Contact was established after awhile, and I spoke with Zaur about the possibility of getting my wife and son released. I asked him repeatedly: “Zaur, please, let’s think of something, anything. I’m ready to take my wife’s or my son’s place.” Zaur said that he would do it. A woman journalist ran up to us at this time: “Zaur, a phone call for you. It’s the FSB duty officer. The FSB staff duty officer is calling.” So they invited him to the staff headquarters. I accompanied him to the police cordon personally, and saw someone come out of the headquarters and conduct him into the building. Talkhigov was now the center of attention. The Russian politicians Yavlinskiy, Nemtsov, Kobzon, etc., together with FSB officers, representatives of the government, and foreign journalists, used Zaur as a mediator in the negotiations. Many thought he was from the FSB. In reality, though, all he could do was call the hostage-takers by phone. I called up Zaur regularly, and was interested in the state of affairs, but there were no changes.

Talkhigov and I stayed up together on the night of October 24-25. At one point, he said I needed to go to the Internet cafe on the Manezh. I asked him how he would get there without papers. "(FSB chief) Patrushev signed this paper for me, no cop will arrest me,” he replied. “But since there’s no money, I’ll have to go on foot.” I offered him money for a taxi, and he said: “I won’t take any from you. Because then you’ll think I’m helping you for the money.” “You fool,” I said. “You’re the only one who can do something about his situation. I’m afraid to let you go at all.” Nevertheless, I managed to persuade him to take some money for a taxi, and he returned in an hour. We spend a sleepless night together in conversation, about how to help the hostages. I asked him again: “How can we contact Barayev?" Talkhigov look straight up me and said: “You know, Oleg, they are very good Moslems. They won’t do anything bad to the hostages. I think they have a different use for them. But they don’t entrust me. They think I’m from the FSB, and they don’t speak openly with me.”

Then I got an idea. I called up my wife again. It asked her to get one of the gunmen. I said that a Chechen wanted to talk to them. My son later told me that a masked terrorist came up, took the phone, went to a corner of the music hall, and talked in the Chechen language for a long time with Talkhigov. The Chechen even tried to give the phone to Barayev, but Barayev refused.

As soon as we had finished, someone called back on the very same cell phone: "Oh, will you will excuse me. I’m a Russian journalist, I dialed the wrong number.” How, I wondered, did a Russian journalist get my private Dutch telephone number??? As it later turned out, from this moment on, my telephone was under surveillance.

Natasha then called. “Oleg, they reseated us into the first row, and they said that if the Dutch ambassador comes tomorrow at 9 in the morning, with journalists, then us they will let go.” After discussing this with Dutch journalists, and the political adviser from the Dutch embassy, I again called Natasha’s number. A Chechen answered. From that point on, the Chechens had my wife’s telephone, and Zaur discussed the details of my family’s release with them.

On the morning of the 25^th, the diplomats arrived again. Yastrzhembskiy said that foreigners would be released all at once. This was not the truth, however, since Barayev had said that embassy officials could only take citizens from their own country. The government once again was exploiting disinformation. Someone did not want foreign hostages released. When, later in the day, the diplomats had left, representatives from the Ukrainian government contacted Zaur. They said that they were told to obtain the release of Ukrainian hostages from Barayev though Zaur. By midday, Zaur got the terrorists to agree to release the Ukrainian hostages. After awhile, I asked to speak with Barayev, to discuss the details of the release with him. I was going to promise him, that he could give my wife a message to send to the Dutch information agency RUSNET, which they could report to the outside world. I dialed Natasha’s number, and to my surprise she picked up the phone. It was our last conversation. It seemed to me that she and my son would soon be released. She gave the phone to the Chechens, and I gave mine to Zaur, and he talked at great length. I remember that he slipped a few Russian words in among the Chechen he was speaking: OMON, snipers, BTR, and so on. However, everything that he was saying could be seen by anyone who was standing there at Dubrovka.

Soon after this conversation, he was arrested. All negotiations concerning the release of hostages ceased at the time of his arrest, and the FSB conducted negotiations directly with the terrorists.

Zaur and I had twice negotiated the release of foreign hostages, and the ambassadors had arrived. They taken to a separate building, where they sat and waited, and then Yastrzhembskiy told the diplomats that Barayev allegedly would not negotiate. This, however, had absolutely no basis in reality, because Barayev had personally requested of Zaur: "Let the ambassador of Holland come, and I will free the Dutch. Other ambassadors come, I’ll let others go.” Someone greatly desired that the foreign hostages were not released, and so they arrested Zaur, stopped the negotiations, and conducted an assault.

Consequently, speaking as the main witness at Zaur’s trial, I described his efforts. According to the attorney general, the FSB, ironically, by chance only had one recording of Zaur’s telephone conversations, and it was precisely the one where he spoke about the disposition of the OMON officers, the BTRs, and the special forces. All Zaur’s other telephone negotiations about releasing the hostages, according the FSB, had been destroyed. In this manner, proving Zaur’s innocence was impossible. He was sentenced 7 years in prison.

On the morning of October 26^th, I found my son Dima quickly. My wife, Natasha, even though I turned over half of Moscow, could not in any way be located. Officially, at 9 AM, no foreign hostages had died, and no tally was provided for a long time. On the night of October 26-27, I again turned to my brother, who worked for FAPSI. A college friend of his, who worked on the operational staff of ‘Alpha’, starting looking for my wife, since he had access to those places usually closed to the public. Through these two, Natasha was located in a morgue of one of the Moscow hospitals.

Abusing by his authority, he talked FSB officers at the hospital into letting us in. Together with the ambassador and political adviser from the Dutch embassy, we arrived at 8 A.M. on October 27^th to identify her body, but by then they had transported her to the Botkin Hospital. On the way to this hospital, while listening to the radio, we learned that the corpse of the first foreigner known to have died at Dubrovka had been identified – Natalya Zhirova. At Botkin, FSB officers were already waiting for us, and they said that if wanted to have Natasha released quickly for burial, then we must not ask too many questions. I agreed. According to the coroner’s report, she had died in the theater hall. It was determined later that she had died in the hospital without receiving medical assistance.

For assisting in the search for my wife, my brother was discharged from his job at FAPSI.

After the assault, I was questioned by two young investigators, one from the FSB, and another from the attorney general’s office. They only included in their report that which they found useful to themselves. I told them at the time that they were doing nothing useful. They tried to bring me in for questioning again, but I consulted with my embassy and refused.

I have never received an official letter, or condolences, from the Russian government or Russian embassy. When colleagues from the Dutch company, where my wife worked as engineer, tried to attend her funeral in Moscow, the Russian embassy did not grant them a visa until the last minute, and only after her colleagues had threatened to sic the Dutch press on the embassy.

While I was participating in Zaur’s trial, the Russian embassy rejected my entrance visa, and did not grant one until NTV, and the Russian and Dutch press reported that "the chief witness cannot get a visa."

I later participated in other ‘Nord-Ost’ trials. Twice I was served with subpoenas. The court consequently refused to compensate me for the expenditures connected with my trips to Russia to participation in these sessions. This judicial lawlessness is but another example of what is going on with the ‘Nord-Ost’ affair in Russia.

The text was personally written by me on January 19^th, 2006.

Oleg Alexandrovich Zhirov, age 41

Citizen of the Netherlands,

-----------------

The Netherlands

As the proof of what I have written, I present the documentary by Dutch journalist Peyter Damekura, "Russia Held Hostage" and videos from Dutch television, made on October 23-26, 2002.

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