FSB Critic Jailed for Four Years
By Anatoly Medetsky
Staff Writer
MOSCOW - Lawyer Mikhail Trepashkin was sentenced to four years in prison on Wednesday in a move that he and human rights advocates decried as retribution for his investigation into allegations linking the Federal Security Service to the 1999 apartment bombings that helped to prompt the second war in Chechnya. After a seven-month closed-door trial the Moscow Military District Court found Trepashkin, a former FSB lieutenant colonel, guilty of divulging state secrets and illegal possession of ammunition. The charges are based on a search that turned up 26 cartridges in Trepashkin's apartment in January 2002 and a report from a former FSB agent that Trepashkin showed him classified documents he had kept from his time in the service. Trepashkin, wearing a blue tracksuit emblazoned with the word "Columbia," showed no visible reaction from the defendant's cage as the verdict was read out. Trepashkin's lawyer, Valery Glu-shenkov, said he would appeal the verdict and seek a full acquittal. Prosecutors had demanded Trepash-kin be jailed for five years. Speaking in a quiet, subdued voice from the defendant's cage to reporters, who were allowed into the court a few minutes before the judge pronounced sentence, Trepashkin said: "I don't expect anything good. The case was filed on someone's orders and doesn't stand up to criticism from a legal point of view." "It's linked to my work with Sergei Kovalyov's commission," he said, referring to the Terror 1999 commission investigating the 1999 apartment bombings on Ulitsa Guryanova and Kashirskoye Shosse and the 2002 Dubrovka Theater hostage-taking, headed by the then-State Duma Deputy and human rights advocate. "If I hadn't got involved, there wouldn't have been any case [against me]." With his security service background, Trepashkin was an important member of the commission who could provide valuable information through his contacts and experience, said Alexander Podrabinek, editor of the Prima News human rights news service, after the sentencing. Trepashkin had a theory that the FSB could have had a hand both in the 1999 apartment bombings and the Dubrovka hostage-taking blamed on Chechen rebels, an allegation the FSB had denied. The apartment bombings were part of the reason why then-Prime Minister Vladimir Putin ordered federal forces back into Chechnya in 1999, a resumption of the war that sent his popularity ratings sky-high. Despite the FSB's denial, Wednesday's verdict shows that "the authorities are clearly afraid of an open and independent investigation of the 1999 bombings and Dubrovka," Podrabinek said. "Now we have yet another political prisoner," said Lev Ponomaryov, head of the For Human Rights movement. Podrabinek said that the commission's investigation had wound down after Trepashkin's jailing. "It's not ruled out that we will never find out what actually happened," he said. The sentencing is also a signal to others to avoid questioning the official statements on the commission's allegations, a "signal that we hope won't be heard," Podrabinek said. Trepashkin's misfortunes began after he first publicly voiced the apartment bombings allegation, even before joining Kovalyov's commission, on Ren-TV television in late 2001. Shortly after the interview aired, police found the ammunition in a sewingbox in clear view on a shelf in Trepashkin's apartment, Glushenkov said. The lawyer said the ammunition was planted.
|
Перевести на русский
Print this article
Issues Archive
Issue in PDF
Issue in RSS