Is Journalism Worth Dying For__ Final Dispatches - Anna Politkovskaya [120]
Between the two wars Khanpash, as a “hero of Budyonnovsk,” became a leading consultant to President Maskhadov’s Press Service. He had his own television program on Maskhadov’s channel, The President’s Heart, later renamed, The President’s Path. That said, he was obliged to leave Maskhadov’s entourage even before the Second War, but when military operations resumed he was back, and again became a furious jihadist. It is astonishing, but right under the noses of the federal troops and every imaginable Russian intelligence agency, in the midst of heavy fighting when everybody else was running for cover, Khanpash managed to make a television program whose title can be roughly translated from the Chechen as, “My Homeland Is Where Jihad Is.”
Admittedly, neither then nor now did I believe that.
What do you mean? Your homeland is not where jihad is?
That was just the name of the program.
I heard Maskhadov has turned you away again recently?
Not Maskhadov, his representatives abroad, but I don’t trust them.
Rakhman Dushuyev in Turkey told me that he had received a cassette from Maskhadov saying the President no longer wanted me to call myself his representative, but I did not hear the cassette myself, or talk directly to Maskhadov. I recently had no trouble meeting Kusama and Anzor (Maskhadov’s wife and son) in Dubai. They accepted me. I ate and slept at their house.
Dubai, Turkey, Jordan, Strasbourg. You seem to be travelling all the time. How do you get visas?
I know all the Chechens. I travel to all countries and call on everyone to make peace and unite.
You travelled to Dubai from Baku?
Yes.
You turned up there after the terrorist act in Moscow in October and asked Chechens living there to help you? You told them you were one of the participants in the Nord-Ost hostage-taking who had survived, and now urgently needed contacts in the Arab world in order to escape pursuit?
How do you know that?
Chechens in Baku told me, and I read it in the newspapers. Your name is on the list of terrorists who were in Nord-Ost. Incidentally, are you suing over that?
No. Why should I? I just asked Yastrzhembsky, “How did that happen?”
What did he say?
“Just ignore it.”
The most recent upward spiral of Khanpash Terkibayev’s vertiginous political career in politics is indeed associated with the disastrous events of October 23–26, 2002, when the hostage-taking at the Nord-Ost musical caused the loss of many lives.
Had you known Barayev Junior for long?
Yes. I know everybody in Chechnya.
So did they have any explosives in there?
No, of course not.
After Nord-Ost, Khanpash really did become a confidant of Putin’s Presidential Administration. He held every authorisation he needed to enable him to move unobstructed from Maskhadov to Yastrzhembsky. He negotiated on behalf of Putin’s Administration with Deputies of the Chechen Parliament to get them to support a referendum. He obtained guarantees of immunity for the Deputies so they could come to Moscow. It was none other than Khanpash who, as leader of their group, took them to Strasbourg, to meet senior officials of the Council of Europe and the Parliamentary Assembly, where the Deputies did everything required of them at the behest of Dmitriy Rogozin, Chairman of the Duma Foreign Affairs Committee.
Naturally, the question arises, why did they choose Khanpash? What services had he rendered? How had he demonstrated his loyalty? Because without such proof he could not possibly have become involved in all this. We come now to a retelling of the most important part of our long conversation.
Khanpash appears to be the man for whom everybody involved with the Nord-Ost tragedy has been looking so diligently. He is the insider who made the terrorist act possible. Information in the possession of Novaya gazeta (which