Death of a Dissident - Alex Goldfarb [73]
“Oh, I see Berezovsky, Yumashev here,” he said. “Do you really know them? Are you the guy on TV? Well, well, we have a VIP here.”
“Putin had the power to decide whether to pass my file to the prosecutors or not,” Sasha said. “He always hated me. And there was a bonus for him: by throwing me to the wolves he distanced himself from Boris in the eyes of the FSB’s generals.”
Sasha believed that Putin had initiated his case personally immediately after their press conference back in November.
Putin never made a secret of what he thought of Sasha. In December 1998, he told Elena Tregubova, the Kremlin correspondent for Kommersant, “Personally I cannot exclude that these people really frightened Boris Abramovich [Berezovsky]. He had been a target for assassination before. So it was only natural for him to think that another attempt was in the making. I believe that these officers made a scandal simply to develop a job market for themselves…. I fired Litvinenko and disbanded his unit … because FSB officers should not stage press conferences. This is not their job. And they should not make internal scandals public.”
Years later, speaking in the Kremlin on February 5, 2007, Putin gave a slightly different version: Sasha was dismissed from the FSB “for abusing his position of service, namely for beating citizens during arrests … and for stealing explosives.” These were the charges brought against Sasha after his arrest.
But at that time, everyone believed that Putin had nothing to do with it; Sasha’s arrest looked like a subplot of Skuratov’s overall assault on Boris.
Boris learned about Sasha’s arrest in Paris just as his battle with Skuratov was entering its terminal phase.
On April 2, Putin staged a press conference to announce that the FSB had concluded that the porno tape was authentic. The broadcast was meant to tarnish Skuratov’s image, but it had just the opposite effect, perhaps because of Putin’s exceedingly pious expression; as one of my law enforcement friends observed, “This guy had never been in a hotel with two girls. Not even with one.”
On the same day, Skuratov issued arrest warrants for Berezovsky and Glushkov, alleging that they had siphoned $250 million of Aeroflot money through Andava. Berezovsky responded by saying that the charges were baseless and politically motivated. “The time when the country is run by people with naked behinds is past us,” he told the press. For the time being he was stranded in France with Lena.
On April 21 Boris returned to Moscow to face the music and clear his name. He agreed to cooperate with the investigation in exchange for revocation of the arrest warrant. On that day, Yeltsin suffered another setback when the Federation Council rejected his second attempt to oust Skuratov, albeit with a less humiliating vote of 79-61. Prime Minister Primakov pledged his loyalty to the president. The noose of Skuratov’s investigation was tightening around Tatyana’s neck. The “family” urgently needed Boris’s advice.
The first place that Boris visited upon returning to Moscow was Skuratov’s den, the state prosecution service. He was questioned for four hours, officially charged with “illegal entrepreneurship” and money laundering, and let go—for the time being. TV crews were waiting outside for a live news feed.
“The case against me was instigated by the prime minister in violation of the law,” he said into the camera. “Primakov is in collusion with Skuratov to undermine the president.”
As he drove away, his cell phone rang. It was Chernomyrdin, who had been asked by the president to mediate in the scandal. Primus had seen the news. He was expecting Boris at the White House. He wanted to explain himself.
When Boris emerged from an hour-and-a-half meeting with the prime minister, he was tight-lipped: “We did not declare our love for each other,” he told the waiting reporters. “We discussed the importance of not confusing politics with criminal justice.”
Years later, Boris explained to me what happened inside.
“I give you my word of honor that I have nothing to do with the Aeroflot