Death of a Dissident - Alex Goldfarb [107]
With Dorenko gone and the newsroom under control, the Kremlin turned to ORT’s board. By then Boris had announced that he would give his 49 percent in trust to a group of prominent journalists, all of whom were serious men of integrity. But then Glushkov was arrested, on December 7, 2000. With a hostage at Lefortovo, Boris had no choice. He knew he had to compromise.
The Kremlin sent a messenger in mid-December in the person of soft-spoken Roma Abramovich, who flew from Moscow for a weekend on the Côte d’Azur. His villa was a ten-minute drive from Château de la Garoupe. When he drove over for a talk with Boris and Badri, his posture was that of “an honest broker, who was looking out for everyone’s best interests,” recalled Boris.
“I come with a message from Volodya [Putin] and Sasha [Voloshin, Putin’s chief of staff], at their explicit request,” said Roma. “You understand, of course, that if they wanted, they could take your share in ORT away and you’d get nothing. But to make it easier for all, we agreed that I would buy you out, on their behalf. I am offering $175 million. It’s a good deal.”
Boris and Badri looked at each other in shock; it was a fraction of ORT’s real value.
“No deal,” they said.
“Well, Volodya and Sasha say that they would let Kolya go, as part of the deal.”
“Can you guarantee that?”
“Volodya and Sasha say so.”
And they accuse me of ransoming hostages, Boris thought. They shook hands on $175 million, and by mid-January 2001 the transaction was complete. Roma allowed the Kremlin to nominate five new board members. Yet Kolya remained in prison.
Grozny, Chechnya, February 24, 2001: A mass grave containing about two hundred bodies is discovered next to Russia’s army base of Khankala. According to reports on NTV, many bear signs of torture. Some of the dead are identified as civilians who had disappeared in different regions of Chechnya. In Moscow, Novaya Gazeta publishes an article by journalist Anna Politkovskaya, claiming that Russian soldiers were keeping randomly picked civilians as prisoners in a pit, demanding $500 ransom for their release. While covering the story, Politkovskaya is briefly detained by Russian soldiers, creating a media uproar in Moscow. She is later released.
There are conflicting versions of what exactly happened in Moscow outside the Scientific Hematological Center on April 11, 2001. Nikolai Glushkov, officially in custody, was hospitalized there for treatment of a blood condition. Technically, he was under guard by an FSB detail. But the security was obviously lax: on occasion his guards would allow him to go home for an overnight stay, for a modest monetary incentive.
According to the prosecutors, in the early evening of the 11th, Glushkov left the hospital ward wearing his gown and slippers and walked to the gate, where his former Aeroflot associate Vladimir Skoropupov waited. As Glushkov was about to get into Skoropupov’s car, a squad of FSB plainclothes officers appeared out of nowhere, arrested both men, and charged them with attempted escape from custody. On the next day, the former head of ORT security, Andrei Lugovoy, was detained in connection with the alleged escape attempt. Two months later, former ORT COO Badri Patarkatsishvili fled to Georgia, making use of his Georgian citizenship. The whole group was indicted in the escape plot.
Glushkov, however, offered a different version