Nexus - 1402 - New Times Magazine-pages

Page Content (OCR)

terrorism, aimed at its own nation, killing 300 innocent citizens. description had disappeared from the files. The suspect turned out This is not just a conspiracy theory emanating from Russian to be one of his former FSB colleagues. He also found a witness dissidents or critics of Putin's regime. who testified that evidence was doctored to lead the investigation Shortly after the final attack (when a truck bomb exploded on 16 away from incriminating the FSB. September outside a nine-storey apartment complex in the city of On 22 October 2003, a week before the hearings commenced, Volgodonsk, killing 17 people), FSB operatives were caught by Trepashkin was arrested after what appeared to be a traffic stop local police and citizens in the city of Ryazan planting a bomb with when, he claims, FSB agents stationed on the side of the road a detonator in the basement of an apartment building at 14/16 tossed a satchel with a stolen handgun into his vehicle. Trepashkin Novosyelov on the night of 22 September 1999.° An alert resident was imprisoned, unable to attend the hearings and thus smoothing of the building noticed strangers moving heavy sugar sacks into the the path for an easy conviction of the two Muslim suspects. basement from a car. Explosives experts found that the bomb However, the Trepashkin story made it into the Western media and tested positive for hexogen and all roads from the town were on 20 May 2004, an article in the Los Angeles Times gave an brought under heavy surveillance, but no leads were found. A overview of his tribulations, adding that the central suspect was telephone service employee tapped into long-distance phone calls FSB agent Vladimir Romanovich. According to Trepashkin, and managed to detect a conversation in which an out-of-town Romanovich was an FSB contact charged with infiltrating person suggested to take care and to watch for patrols. That Chechen criminal groups in Moscow. As evidence, Trepashkin person's number was found to belong to an FSB office in Moscow. referred to Romanovich's mysterious release from custody after an On 24 September, Nikolai Patrushev, the head of the FSB, stated arrest by the organised crime squad several years before. that the bomb had been a dummy and that the entire operation was Trepashkin added that Romanovich was recognised by the a training exercise.° The original chemical test was declared landlord at one of the apartment buildings. The landlord, Mark "inaccurate" due to contamination of Blumenfeld, confirmed that he had the analysis apparatus from a previous worked with the FSB on a sketch of the test. As a consequence, the General man he'd seen, only to be cast aside Poet oes ce thecnmnal | 1984 and 1985, mens compa om oe But despite these official denials, 28 "terrorist" attacks were whom officials had identified as one of Yor ange scores" committed by the CCC, ff mstermin ehin! te boning was real.’ Tkachenko also said that the allegedly In the hope of car crash in Cyprus."* explosives, including a timer, power i " atl In 2003, Yuri Shchekochikhin, source and detonator, were genuine engaging the proletariat another MP who was on_ the military equipment. He added that the In its revolution. independent 9/99 commission, died in gas analyser that tested the vapours mysterious circumstances and _ is coming from the sacks unmistakably believed to have been poisoned. indicated the presence of hexogen— Shchekochikhin was taken ill suddenly not sugar, as the FSB officially claimed. and developed awful symptoms: his The police officers who answered the original call and discovered skin peeled, he was covered in boils, his hair fell out and he the bomb also insisted that the incident was not an exercise and eventually suffered respiratory failure. His colleagues were unable that it was obvious from its appearance that the substance in the to investigate his death because they were told that the autopsy bomb was not sugar.* results were secret and would not be released even to his relatives. Litvinenko's prolonged fight for life following the ingestion of | Shchekochikhin was also an editor at Novaya Gazeta, the radionuclide polonium-210 in November 2006 was popularly independent newspaper where Anna Politkovskaya, the fierce depicted as Putin's revenge against this whistleblower. But Kremlin critic, worked until she was gunned down in October Litvinenko was not the only or first person to die. Sergei 2006, weeks before Litvinenko died in a London hospital."* Yushenkov, who shared his interest in the 9/99 bombings, was gunned down at the entrance of his Moscow apartment block on 17 ~~ NATO's secret war in Belgium April 2003. In this case, there may not be a direct relationship Whereas in the aftermath of Litvinenko's mysterious death in with the 9/99 bombings, as Yushenkov was a member of — November 2006 people were willing to entertain that Putin could parliament and the ninth member of parliament to be shot dead in order attacks against his own citizens, "surely" Putin's Western as many years, none of the cases ever having been solved. Still, equivalents, George W. Bush and Tony Blair, would be unable to? one member of the Liberal Russia party, Yuly Rybakov, And as such, a "conspiracy theory" hits its major hurdle: the speculated in the Moscow Times newspaper that Yushenkov could willingness to accept one scenario, yet reject an identical scenario have been killed for his attempts to show that the security services elsewhere—closer to if not at home. are guilty of the 9/99 bombings." Let us therefore begin in Belgium. In 1983, the Cellules Yushenkov had been responsible for inviting Mikhail Communistes Combattantes (CCC) was founded in Belgium and Trepashkin," a Moscow attorney and a former FSB agent, to assist claimed to be the only Marxist revolutionary organisation that with an independent investigation of the 9/99 bombings. After | would wage an armed fight against the capitalist system. In 1984 Yushenkoy's death and the collapse of the official investigation, and 1985, 28 "terrorist" attacks were committed by the CCC, two Russian-American sisters Tatyana and Alyona Morozova, allegedly in the hope of engaging the "proletariat" in its revolution. whose mother was killed in the 9/99 bombings, hired Trepashkin The figure of 28 is actually a record number when it comes to to represent them.” While preparing for the trial of the two armed terrorist attacks by one group in Western Europe.’ The Russian Muslims who were officially charged with the attacks, CCC targets were, like 9/11 but unlike the 7/7 London bombings, Trepashkin uncovered a trail of a mysterious suspect whose flagships of the Western economy and American hegemony: no committed by the CCC, allegedly in the hope of engaging the "proletariat" in its revolution. NATO's secret war in Belgium Whereas in the aftermath of Litvinenko's mysterious death in November 2006 people were willing to entertain that Putin could order attacks against his own citizens, "surely" Putin's Western equivalents, George W. Bush and Tony Blair, would be unable to? And as such, a "conspiracy theory" hits its major hurdle: the willingness to accept one scenario, yet reject an identical scenario elsewhere—closer to if not at home. Let us therefore begin in Belgium. In 1983, the Cellules Communistes Combattantes (CCC) was founded in Belgium and claimed to be the only Marxist revolutionary organisation that would wage an armed fight against the capitalist system. In 1984 and 1985, 28 "terrorist" attacks were committed by the CCC, allegedly in the hope of engaging the "proletariat" in its revolution. The figure of 28 is actually a record number when it comes to armed terrorist attacks by one group in Western Europe.’ The CCC targets were, like 9/11 but unlike the 7/7 London bombings, flagships of the Western economy and American hegemony: 18 = NEXUS In 1984 and 1985, 28 “terrorist attacks were www.nexusmagazine.com FEBRUARY — MARCH 2007