REVIEW TOPICS:
Russia’s FSB charges self-exiled tycoon with coup plot
Two Russian journalists persecuted by FSB find political asylum in US
Russian prison authorities deny ex-FSB colonel Trepashkin held in poor conditions
Federal Security Service officer injured in Dagestan, suspects detained
Armenia’s National Security Service petitions to extend ex-Foreign Minister’s term of detention
Bulgaria’s Security, Military Police and, Military Counterintelligence Service Director has been appointed
National Protection Service of Bulgaria accused of unlawful gathering of information on politicians
Commission in charge of opening secret police files in Bulgaria still has no office space
Poland safe from terrorist Al-Qaeda attack for time being - Counterintelligence Service chief
Polish Catholic Church commission reports secret police ties
Russia’s FSB charges self-exiled tycoon with coup plot
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| Boris Berezovsky |
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The Federal Security Service (FSB) of Russia has charged self-exiled tycoon Boris Berezovsky with plotting the violent overthrow of President Vladimir Putin's government, news agencies are reporting, referring to the businessman's lawyer. The charges represent an escalation in the legal proceedings against strident Russian President’s critic, whose trial in absentia on fraud charges opened yesterday. Berezovsky's lawyer, Andrei Borovkov, said the new charges, which carry a sentence of 12 to 20 years, had been filed in June and stemmed from a number of statements his client had made to the press in interviews over the past year, Interfax reports.
The charge is very broad, including all of the incidents, Borovkov said the charge was linked to interviews that Berezovsky granted to The Guardian newspaper, Ekho Moskvy radio station and Agence France-Presse, calling for a violent overthrow of power in Russia. In his April interview to The Guardian, Berezovsky reportedly told a British newspaper he was bankrolling people close to President Putin who were planning a coup, adding: "We need to use force to change this regime." A spokesman for the FSB declined to respond to the lawyer's comments, saying no formal announcements had been made on coup plotting charges against Berezovsky, according to Thomson Financial. Berezovsky, who received political asylum in Britain in 2003, enraging Moscow, which continues to struggle for his extradition, has again denied advocating a "violent coup" in his homeland, following reports he faces additional charges for allegedly calling for the government to be overthrown, according to ITV News.
Federal Security Service officer injured in Dagestan, suspects detained
An officer of Dagestan’s department of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) was wounded here, the suspects were detained, news agency ITAR-TASS reports. The incident occurred at the hotel Jami last week-end, news agency expands, referring to the press service of Dagestan’s Interior Ministry. The press service has said young people stirred up a scandal and made several shots in a security officer and his companion, the bandits escaped. The suspects were detained hot on their traces at a private house in Khasavyurt, ITAR-TASS marks. Forged identity cards for workers of military and city prosecutor’s offices, two pistols Makarov with cartridges and 996,000 Russian roubles were confiscated from them. According to the preliminary reports, the masterminds paid this money to the detainees for the murder of the security officer, news agency adds.
Two Russian journalists persecuted by FSB find political asylum in US
Yuri Bagrov and Fatima Tlisova who were reporting from the volatile North Caucasus have been granted political asylum in the United States, daily Kommersant reports, referring to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists. The reporters said they had emigrated because of persecution of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB). This is the first time that Russian journalists have received political asylum in the United States. Radio Liberty correspondent Yuri Bagrov and the Regnum news agency’s North Caucasus editor-in-chief Fatima Tlisova have been granted political asylum in the United States. The journalists told a news conference on Sunday they had been “threatened, persecuted by the FSB,” which made their work in Russia “impossible”.
“The most terrible thing is that they had to flee simply because they were doing their job well,” says Nina Ognyanova, Europe and Central Asia coordinator at the Committee.
The two journalists have repeatedly caused indignation with Russian authorities. Yuri Bagrov worked for Radio Liberty and reported about a possible role of the FSB in abductions in Ingushetia on the North Caucasus. In an alleged retaliation, Bagrov was charged with forging documents. The journalist told Kommersant off the record that authorities would never forgive him for his reports and close friendship with another critical journalist, Prague-based Andrey Babitsky, from Radio Liberty.
Russian prison authorities deny ex-security service colonel Trepashkin held in poor conditions
Sverdlovsk regional penitentiary authorities have denied claims by a lawyer for former Federal Security Service Colonel Mikhail Trepashkin that his client is being held in a cell with inappropriate living conditions, news agency Interfax reports today. On June 22, after having been moved to Detention Facility No.1 from Prison 13 in Nizhny Tagil to attend the hearings of his appeal against his transfer from a penal settlement to a general prison, Trepashkin filed a request for placing him in a solitary cell for security purposes, a penitentiary official told Interfax. The facility corresponds to directives existing in Russia in this respect, he added.
Most popular Russian pop singer wanted to escape from Soviet Union, ex-KGB officer alleges
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Alla Pugacheva |
A former staff officer of the Soviet State Security Committee (KGB) told the Moscow-based daily Komsomolskaya pravda that the most famous Soviet/Russian pop singer Alla Pugacheva considered plans to escape to France from the Soviet Union, the paper writes. Despite of her vast popularity the singer found out that she did not make enough money for good living. In the beginning of the 1980s she used to go abroad for higher fees, and the KGB had started to watch the singer’s trips abroad even giving a code name, Lara, to her in their surveillance reports. When in 1983 — early 1984 the KGB officer, who came to the newspaper office, worked in Berlin, Pugacheva was also in the GDR on tour. The singer‘s translator revealed to him that Pugacheva hold strange negotiations with a French manager who had arrived to Germany. The Frenchman had allegedly described his plan: Puhacheva as a tourist arrives to the West Berlin and then departs by plane to Paris. The translator told the KGB man about the conversation and the officer informed his superiors in Moscow. The planned action was considered in the Soviet Union a high treason «in the form of flight abroad». In a month’s time Pugacheva was summoned to the chief of the 5th directorate of the KGB, Lieutenant-General Filip Bobkov. Their conversation lasted for two hours. Pugacheva reportedly admitted all facts and told the general that she would “never sell her Motherland” and her talk to the French manager was “a minute of weakness”. The ex-officer stated that the facts were fixed in operative materials and were stored in the KGB archive in Moscow. Journalists of the newspaper were unable to get an access to the KGB archives and to check up the story of the ex-officer. However, it is no wonder, that the KGB conducted steadfast supervision over the life of the pop singer, as her brother, Yevgeny Pugachev, worked with the security services, Komsomolskaya Pravda concludes.
Bulgaria’s Security, Military Police and, Military Counterintelligence Service Director has been appointed
The Director of the ‘Security, Military police and Military counterintelligence’ has been already defined by the Minister of Defense Veselin Bliznakov, Focus news agency reports. Bliznakov told journalists that the new Director would be reported to the Prime Minister Sergey Stanishev later today, but refused to name the person, news agency informed. Last week Minister of Defense of Bulgaria dismissed Orlin Ivanov from his position of Director of the Security - Military Police and Military Counterintelligence Service, due to Ivanov’s private matters, as the Minister told journalists before the meeting of the Cabinet in Sofia.
National Protection Service of Bulgaria accused of unlawful gathering of information on politicians
According to an article in the daily 24 Chasa, the National Protection Service of Bulgaria is collecting unlawfully information on politicians it provides security for. The paper quotes Lieutenant- Colonel Nikolai Markov who says that such information includes persons whom the guarded politicians "talk to or dine and wine". The information is then sent to the authority which controls National Protection Service, this source says. The paper recalls that by law National Protection Service is subordinated to the President of Bulgaria. "The purpose is to collect information which can be used to exercise political control. It concerns all politicians of interest to the President and goes to him by an unwarranted procedure," Lieutenant- Colonel Markov reportedly said.
Daily Standart News carries an interview with Lieutenant- Colonel Markov in which he says that state bodyguards "have been turned into informers". According to him, the information is collected by National Protection Service's Colonel Peter Marinchev whom he calls "the National Protection Service’s Gray cardinal". In its turn, daily Trud quotes National Protection Service officials saying that Lieutenant- Colonel Markov's allegations are completely groundless and undermine the prestige and dignity of National Protection Service. They say they would take the case to the prosecuting service.
Daily Sega runs a story on the allegations under the headline Fired Bodyguard Accuses National Protection Service of Keeping Secret Files of Politicians. A few more headlines are also typical: National Protection Service Accused of Keeping Politicians under Surveillance by the Dnevnik, and Row as Present for Purvanov's Anniversary by the Standart News.
Commission in charge of opening secret police files in Bulgaria still has no office space
Daily 24 Chasa reports of a misunderstanding over a government decision to provide offices for use by a commission in charge of opening secret police files. The government announced last week that it had decided to give two floors of a building in central Sofia to the new commission to use as its offices but Regional Development and Public Works Minister Asen Gagaouzov said there is no such thing as it had been proposed that the whole building should be used by the Administrative Court.
Meanwhile the head of the commission responsible for opening the archives of the communist-era special services, Evtim Kostadinov, says in an interview to the daily Trud that the commission will portray no one as a collaborator of the former state security. If someone turns out to be named a collaborator, he or she may take the matter to court and require an expert examination. “Working to our commission is a special laboratory which can make graphological examinations and establish the time of production of the paper written on which are the contested data,” Kostadinov says, adding that the work of the commission is aimed at establishing the truth, rather than “producing agents”.
Poland safe from terrorist Al-Qaeda attack for time being - Counterintelligence Service chief
Poland is currently safe from a terrorist attack from Al-Qaeda, country’s Head of the Military Counterintelligence service Antoni Macierewicz said on the public radio yesterday, online paper Wirtualna Polska reports. "The activity of such circles has been noted in Poland," Macierewicz is quoted as saying on Polish Radio's Sygnaly Dnia program. "It is true that such a situation exists, but there is no reason to worry at the present time." The comments followed after United Kingdom declared a status of high terrorist alert following the discovery of a bomb in London and the explosion of a car bomb in the Scottish city of Glasgow over the weekend.
However, he made a reservation that no predictions are absolutely certain with regard to such a phenomenon. Macierewicz denied press speculations that the Internal Affairs Ministry had unofficially dissolved a special department dealing with terrorism, Polish Radio says. He assured the body has been working without interruption, being only reorganized to allow for more effective cooperation of the various services and forces entrusted with countering terrorist activity. The chief of Poland’s Military Counter Intelligence also revealed that there has been a noted intensification of Russian intelligence moves in Poland. He interpreted this as Moscow’s reaction to the tightening Polish-US alliance in general, according to Polish Radio.
Polish Catholic Church commission reports secret police ties
Documents in secret police files showed about a dozen bishops still alive had ties to Poland's communist-era secret services, news agency Associated Press reported, referring to a Roman Catholic Church commission. The agency said a top bishop had warned that the documents might not be an accurate guide on how much the bishops had cooperated. After six months of work, the commission said that among Poland's 132 bishops about a dozen were registered by the security services of communist Poland as 'secret collaborators' or 'operational contacts.' One was registered as an "agent" of the intelligence service, the commission concluded. Archbishop Slawoj Leszek Glodz, reading from a statement, told reporters the documents in the secret police archives "are incomplete and chaotic" and "do not allow to reliably determine the scope, intensity or harm" of any cooperation by the bishops with the security services. He said there was no evidence in the archives that the dozen bishops had signed written agreements to collaborate with the secret police; unlike other informants, clergy were not required to provide such signatures. Associated Press adds that historians, however, discovered such documents signed by Archbishop Stanislaw Wielgus of Warsaw. Poland's Roman Catholic bishops asked the special church commission to review their communist-era files in January, after a scandal in which Wielgus resigned just before his installation over disclosures he had cooperated with the former secret police. The revelations have forced the church, revered in Poland for its resistance to the communists, to confront an issue believed to have compromised a minority of clergy. There was no evidence of any ties between the rest of Poland's bishops and the secret police, Glodz said, adding that the commission's initial report would be forwarded to the Vatican for evaluation. The commission was expected to finish a full report later this year.
Armenia’s National Security Service petitions to extend ex-Foreign Minister’s term of detention
Yesterday the Courts of the First Instance of the Kentron and Nork-Marash municipalites of Armenia sustained the motion of the country’s National Security Service to extend the detention of former Foreign Minister Alexander Arzoumanian, who was arrested on May 7, 2007 on charges of money laundering, until September 7, Hetq Online reports. The motion to the Court of First Instance of the Kentron and Nork-Marash Municipalities was presented by the Investigative Board of the National Security Service (NSS) on June 27.
Hovik Arsenyan, a lawyer representing the former Foreign Minister, asserts that in the proceedings regarding the case initiated by the NSS Investigative Board under which Arzoumanian is charged with money laundering, no corpus delicti has ever been presented. Arsenyan mentions that, “the NSS Investigative Board has circulated a memorandum stating that investigators have been sent to Russia to uncover the source of the funds, the purpose of the transfer, and other related matters. This goes to show how fabricated the charges really are and that the whole affair is founded solely on assumptions. Had the NSS obtained the evidence necessary to prove that businessman Levon Markos sent the funds, they wouldn't have sent their investigators out nor would they have accepted our petitions.” When again asked if he wanted to offer testimony in court regarding the charges brought against him, Arzoumanian responded that he had heard of Sashik Agazaryan's statement regarding the funds through the media and that his defense team had petitioned the court to have Aghazaryan brought in for questioning. Arzoumanian concluded by saying that if the NSS interrogated Aghazaryan the groundless nature of the case would be revealed. On June 20, the NSS prohibited Arzoumanian from seeing anyone but his lawyer. Arsenyan says that the law allows such visits once every 15 days but that the examining court doesn't feel obliged to reverse this decision, Hetq Online adds.
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