Is Journalism Worth Dying For__ Final Dispatches - Anna Politkovskaya [51]
The official version, sent to London over Fridinsky’s signature on the eve of today’s hearing, is that Khankala was never involved, that there was no torture, that Dushuyev had invented everything. He came to the Prosecutor’s Office in Chechnya on December 1, 2002 of his own volition, wishing to confess his guilt in having participated in an illegal armed group, and the topic of Zakayev came up only by chance during his questioning.
“Well why, in that case, in the record which you compiled is there very little about what Dushuyev did, and a whole page about what Zakayev did, based moreover on hearsay? You were supposed to be investigating Dushuyev’s crimes, were you not? This seems strange.”
Investigator Krivorotov again changes tack and heads for the thickets of the Criminal Procedure Code.
“Fine. But did you know about Zakayev’s extradition case?”
“Yes. I realized that the record of Dushuyev’s interrogation would be used in the criminal case against Zakayev.”
“Then why in that record is there no indication that the witness was himself under investigation?”
“What would have been the point of that?”
“You knew that Dushuyev would be filmed by a television crew? In the FSB building?”
“I supposed so. The relevant request had been received from the FSB Press Department.”
“In writing?”
“Verbally.”
“Dushuyev had been detained and was in your custody, and you handed him over to members of the FSB, and they took him to their own premises for filming. Is that correct?”
“Yes.” Krivorotov is losing patience. He again wags his finger at the court. “It is Dushuyev’s right either to talk to the press or not.”
“It did not occur to you that this filmed interview, where Dushuyev, on the basis of hearsay, accused Zakayev of serious crimes, of illegal arms trading, might harm Zakayev’s case?”
“I don’t understand the question.”
“Does it not seem strange to you that Dushuyev was your suspect but that the FSB had access to him when it wanted? How did the FSB even know that Dushuyev was with you? Did you report that to the FSB? And if so, why?”
“No. I did not report it.” For the first time Krivorotov looks as though he is telling the truth. “When Dushuyev came to the Prosecutor’s Office with his admission of guilt, he was accompanied by FSB officers, and accordingly I released him to the FSB for filming.”
QED. Thus did Investigator Krivorotov slip on a banana skin. This admission was fraught with consequences: it meant that all the official documents, including those signed by Deputy Prosecutor-General Fridinsky, were untrue. The court could place no reliance on them because they had been found to contain lies. Moreover, it was evident from them that Dushuyev was right when he claimed that the Prosecutor’s Office in Chechnya did not work independently, that it knocked together whatever procedural papers were required, and thereby in effect legitimised the torture to which people were subjected by the FSB.
“I do not consider it substantive where Dushuyev came first, to the FSB or to us.” Krivorotov has suddenly realized what he has said. He explains that the majority of those arriving with an admission of guilt go first to the FSB, and then the FSB brings them to the Prosecutor’s Office to formalise their confession. But the more he goes on, the more obvious is the lawlessness perpetrated in Chechnya with the blessing of the Prosecutor’s Office.
“Do you really not know that people are tortured by the FSB in order to obtain the evidence they want?” Although Barrister Fitzgerald is calm, it is evident that he already knows he has won. It had seemed at times, at the hearings on Monday and Tuesday, that this was a dead end. One side said one thing, the other the exact opposite, and how could it all be reconciled? How could one find the highest common factor which alone would make the dead-end submissions comprehensible to the judge, and hence also relevant to the issue of deciding on extradition?