REVIEW TOPICS:
Russian President instructs FSB to keep him in touch of probe into train blast
Explosives at stations should be looked for on smell – Russia’s ex-FSB chief
Criminal case of Russian oppositionist forged by FSB, National Bolsheviks say
Kazakhstan to keep talking with Austria over extradition of ex-security agency vice-chief
More rumours than facts on eavesdropping scandal in Committee of National Security of Kazakhstan
Czech security services receieved additional material from former communist counterintelligence data basis
Former Romanian Patriarch’s file discloses his collaboration with Securitate
Romania’s CNSAS fails to reach consensus over security checks on high clergy
Finland and Sweden debate about Stasi files and their citizens as informants
Russian President instructs FSB to keep him in touch of probe into train blast
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| Derailed train today |
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Russian President Vladimir Putin called to Federal Security Service (FSB) Director Nikolai Patrushev, who reported to the president about the organisation and progress of the investigation into a terrorist act on the railway in the Novgorod region, news agency ITAR-TASS reports, referring to Putin’s spokesman Alexei Gromov. The spokesman reportedly noted that Vladimir Putin instructed the FSB director to keep him constantly in touch of the investigation.
In his turn, Patrushev spoke today at a meeting of the National Antiterrorist Committee in Moscow. The derailing of a train in Novgorod region and the growing number of attacks on officials in the North Caucasus indicate that the threat of extremism and terrorism in Russia has not been completely eliminated, news agency Interfax cites the Federal Security Service Director. However, Patrushev said in 2006-2007 Russia significantly reduced the degree of the terrorist threat and the number of terrorist acts.
Russia's top security official ordered additional security measures today in the wake of a suspected bomb attack on a train traveling from Moscow to St.Petersburg last night. A criminal case on terrorism was opened, Patrushev confirmed.
The Moscow-St. Petersburg train was derailed half way between the two cities on the country's busiest rail route, leaving 60 injured with 30 hospitalized. The incident left a crater in the track, and prosecutors are considering a terrorist attack as a possible cause of the accident.
Nikolai Kovalev, head of the committee for veterans' affairs at the State Duma and former chief of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), said last night's accident could be connected to a military operation in Ingushetia, a troubled republic in the North Caucasus, where almost 2,500 Interior Ministry officers have been deployed to fight militants. "That could have been an attempt to divert attention to another location - a method frequently used by terrorists," Kovalev said in an interview with news agency RIA Novosti. His opinion was shared by Gennady Gudkov, a member of the security committee at the lower house of Russia's parliament, who said the explosion could be a reaction to an anti-terror operation in Ingushetia.
However, Mikhail Grishankov, first deputy chairman of the State Duma security committee, said it was too early to speculate. "That was a strange crime, and it is too early and complicated to discuss it. We should wait for the expert report," RIA Novosti cites him.
The news agency reported late afternoon that photofits had been compiled on two people suspected of setting off a bomb that caused a train derailment, according to security agencies.
Ex-FSB chief Kovalev: explosives at stations should be looked for on smell
Chairman of the Russia State Duma committee for veterans' affairs and ex-director of the Federal Security Service (FSB), Nikolai Kovalev, says that to effectively prevent acts of terror special operations are indispensable at stations and in sites of mass congestion of people, enabling identification of explosives on smell, online site of the Russia’s governing party Yedinaya Rossiya (Unified Russia) reports.
Ina n interview to news agency Interfax, making comments on recent railroad tracks explosion in the Novgorod area, Kovalev said that " for more effective control over movment of explosives it is necessary to carry out system of smell identifications at railway stations and other palces a mass congestion of people".
Kovalev has added that he had insisted on indispensability of such measures already ten last years.
"Terrorists have not occasionally chosen the place of the crime – it is the basic railway route connecting two main cities of the country. Thus they intended to show their importance and to show that terrorism from North Caucasian region can move on even to the central part of the country", said Kovalev. He emphasized that according to experience, large acts of terror usually serve as „a signal to activization of attempts of carrying out of fineer acts of terror”.
Criminal case of Russian oppositionist forged by FSB, National Bolsheviks say
One more Russian oppositionist, National-Bolshevik activist in Novosibirsk, Nikolai Baluyev, has been sent to psychiatric clinic on compulsory treatment, radio Ekho Moskvy reports.
Authorities accused him of storage of weapons and preparation of acts of terrorism. According to the radio, security forces claimed that the National-Bolshevik had planned carrying out explosions at a building of regional directorate of the Federal Security Service (FSB) of Russia, local hydroelectric power plant and other significant sites. Today the court has made a decision to send Nikolai Baluyev on compulsory psychiatric treatment, Ekho Moskvy marks.
Alexander Averin, Press-secretary of the National-Bosheviks, is assured that this case is completely forged, radio expands. Averin told the radio that the court decision on direction of Nikolai Baluyev to forced psychiatric treatment would be appealed against in higher instance. He reiterated that the cases related to Novosibirsk National-Bolsheviks Baluyev and Vyacheslav Rusakov "had been initially forged by the FSB". He stressed that "it is caused only by service eagerness of the FSB employees, wishing to receive higher grades. Baluyev is simply chosen a whipping boy – he has not been justified only for the FSB employees who already have received ranks and awards, to not take back their words about liquidation of a terrorist organization in Novosibirsk.”
Kazakhstan to keep talking with Austria over extradition of ex-security agency vice-chief
Kazakhstan’s request to extradite from Austria Rakhat Aliyev, the former son-in-law of the President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, has been rejected, news agency Kazinform reports, referring to the press-secretary of the Ministry of Interior of Kazakhstan Bagdad Kzhakhmetov.
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Rakhat Aliyev |
He said chances the final and irrevocable decision on refusal of Aliyev’s ex-tradition was taken by Land’s court of Vienna that corresponds to Kazakhstan’s regional court level and „we still have a chance to address higher instances“. He said Kazakhstan was going to continue work with the Austrian partners on use of all available opportunities for a legal decision of this question. Aliyev himself told journalists that he was going to visit in the near future London where his sister was situated.
Rakhat Aliyev, a former husband of Dariga Nazarbayeva and the senior son-in-law of the President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev, is accused in Kazakhstan in raider activities and kidnapping.
Born on December 10, 1962, in Alma-Ata, Rakhat Aliyev is a son of the known surgeon and academician, a former Minister of Health of Kazakh SSR, and also has graduated a local university of medicine. After short career as a doctor, in 1997 he graduated from the higher law school and trained in the FBI Academy in the United States. In October, 1998, Aliyev became Tax police Committee chairman and the first vice-minister of public revenues of Kazakhstan. In September, 1999, he was appointed the Committee of National Security (KNB) directorate chief in Alma-Ata and Alma-Ati area, in July, 2000, he became a KNB’s vice-charman, and in May, 2001 - first vice-chairman of the KNB.
According to online agency Zona.kz, in autumn of 2001, Aliyev provoked a political crisis in the country: a conflict between heads of security services and some large businessmen led to consolidation of anti-presidential forces that has been regarded by the authority as attempt of "oligarchical coup d’etat". In November, 2001 Aliyev was appointed the deputy chief of the Presidential Protection Service. In spring of 2002 he was sent to a long diplomatic business trip to Vienna as the ambassador of Kazakhstan in Austria and the country’s representative in the OSCE and other international organizations. In July, 2005, Aliyev returned home and became the first deputy minister of foreign affairs, and in August, 2005 - also a special representative of Kazakhstan on cooperation with the OSCE. In September, 2006, Aliyev suggested to recognize that the Kazakh society is constructed on patrimonial system and to establish a constitutional monarchy. In February, 2007, Aliyev was appointed ambassador of Kazakhstan in Austria and representative in the international organizations in Vienna.
Oppositionists in Kazakstan demand explanations from the Minister of Interior Baurzhan Muhamedzhanov and General Public Prosecutor Rashid Tusupbekov, online agency Zona.kz reports. They say if their subordinates all over again could not detain Rakhat Aliyev when he was in the territory of Kazakhstan, and then failed to properly legalize corresponding papers to convince the Austrian justice of validity of ex-tradition of former higher officials those persons should retire.
Commenting conclusion of some foreign mass media that Rakhat Aliyev is the main opponent of Nazarbayev’s regime, one of leading Kazakh oppositionists, Tulegen Zhukeyev, told Zona.kz that the people in the West are not so naive to believe that the recent chief of secret services, known for his sadistic bents, has turned into a fighter against the ruling regime.
More rumours than facts on eavesdropping scandal in Committee of National Security of Kazakhstan
Information agency Press-uz.info, referring to Kazahstan daily Respublika, reports that employees of Committee of National Security (KNB) have been eavesdropping conversations of the country’s high-ranking officials.
The paper comments that after tragical death of opposition politician Altynbek Sarsenbayev and some of his colleagues, incidents where employees of the KNB special division were involved, the security service has not restored the reputation yet. However, already it is rumoured that a plot against President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, has been revealed inside the KNB. It is also spoken that about a hundred of employees of the so-called Special Information Service of the KNB have been arrested, paper marks. The Special Information Service is engaged in eavesdropping, including telephone conversations, and carrying out the control over the Internet.
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| Shabdarbayev always behind President |
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The KNB service’s staff members have allegedly followed conversations of the higher leadership and under the order of their superiors. Therefore, rumours say, since certain time, all conversations of the top leadership of Kazakhstan, including the most confidential conversations, have been recorded. Chiefs of the Special Information Service of the KNB are said to be among the arrested, and the service’s head caught red-handed has reportedly even tried to commit suicide. A number of rank-and-file employees of the service have disappear and are searched for now. However, it is not clear, in whose interests interception of phone conversations was conducted. Someone sees Rakhat Aliyev behind the scandal, others try to learn, whether those who supervised Kazakhtelecom have had some relation to the incident.
There is no official information on who has stopped illegal curiosity of the KNB service’s employees – the Presidential Protection Service or the KNB itself, but the order on the detentions was allegedly given by the KNB chairman Amangeldy Shabdarbayev.
Taking into consideration that since spring it is being rumoured that in the fall Shabdarbayev is to be dismissed, exposure of spies in his own department would be highly evaluated by the country’s leadership, Press-uz.info writes.
It is considered that the KNB is, in fact, paralysed by struggle of three clans – those who support Shabdarbayev (the people who have come to the KNB from the Presidential Protection service) , those who consider themselves true professionals (say, ex-chairman of the KNB Nartay Dutbayev) and the appointees of the new secretary of the Security Council.
News agency adds that Shabdarbayev’s former deputy, chief of the Customs committee of Ministry of Finance, General Kozy-Korpesh Karbuzov, in a narrow circle of department officers has reportedly accused the KNB employees in covering smugglers on the Chinese-Kazakhstan border and has demanded from his subordinates to stir up operatively-search activity and to not be afraid to catch "security officers" red-handed.
Czech security services receieved additional material from former communist counterintelligence data basis
Czech military experts have successfully reconstructed databasis of the former Czechoslovak military counterintelligence (VKR), that was a component of the notorious communist secret policie (StB), daily Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD) reports today. Following three months of analytic work thousands of incidentally found documents, that originally were stored in 202 sacks intended to be liquidated, have been obtained.
Among the found documents there are lists of agents apointments, tens of files on cooperation agreements with thousands of reports of collaborating persons, the paper expands. Alltogether there are more than 30.000 pages, according to spokesman of the military counterintelligence Ladislav Sticha who is cited by Mlada fronta Dnes.
It was former Minister of Defence Antonin Baudys, who did not allow destroying the documents in 1994 when he was suggested to sign a directive on liquidation of 202 sacks with "unimportant registers".
According to former chief of military counterintelligence Miroslav Krejcík, who gave directive to reconstruct the documents, it is necesary to find out whether interests of the Czech Republic have not been treatened in any way, paper says. The sensitive information might have immediately reached people who are unreliable according to latest security vetting. The National Security Service, NBU, will start to check legitimity of the issued security vetting papers on the basis of the new information from the military counterintelligence, Mlada fronta Dnes adds.
Former Romanian Patriarch’s file discloses his collaboration with Securitate
In Romania, the former Romanian Patriarch’s file discloses his collaboration with the Communist political police structures, the Securitate, media outlets are reporting.
Daily Cotidianul is the paper that vastly reads about the former Romanian Patriarch’s involvement in the communist police structures, the Securitate. The newspaper presents the analysis of a historian who says saw the ex-Patriarch file at the Romanian Intelligence Service. Moreover, the historian argues that the ex-Patriarch Teoctist collaborated with the Securitate structures before he became a bishop or a Patriarch. Thus, he alludes to the fact that the Patriarch’s career depended upon his collaboration.
The issue is important in the light of the current elections for the new Romanian Patriarch. Newspapers allegedly started inquiring about the relationship between the Church and the political practices of the society. Moreover, there were set up projects to disclose the priests and bishops who collaborated with the communist police structures.
AIA already reported that the Romanian Civic Forum (FCR) demanded CNSAS - the body researching the archives of Ceausescu's political police, Securitate - to verify whether the candidates for the future Patriarch seat, supreme position in the Romanian Orthodox Church (BOR), were communist secret police informers before 1989 or not.
Romania’s CNSAS fails to reach consensus over security checks on high clergy
The members of the CNSAS (National Council for Research on the Communist Secret Service Archive) have failed to reach consensus regarding the checks on the high clergy in the Romanian Orthodox Church, although a new Patriarch is to be elected in less than a month,daily Ziua writes today.
CNSAS had expected a quiet summer, but the Romanian Patriarch's death did away with the idea, the paper marks. The sides in the CNSAS have taken up recriminations again. The issue at stake is the checks on the past of the Holy Synod members and on the candidates aspiring to head the Romanian Orthodox Church. The uncertainty and confusion prevailing in the CNSAS is a clue that a confrontation will emerge and intensify soon, as the election of a Patriarch is approaching.
The first to make an enflaming statement was Mircea Dinescu in his recent announcement that the Holy Synod members would be checked and questioned by September 12. It seemed to be a CNSAS decision, but surprise emerged. Several CNSAS members claimed having got no idea about such a decision and described Mircea Dinescu's words as untrue. Ziua cites CNSAS member Laurentiu Tanase: "If during the next CNSAS meeting there come out cases on the Church officials, there will be doubt on the person who ordered it and changed the priorities of the CNSAS."
According to the status of the Romanian Orthodox Church, the candidates to run in the election of a future Patriarch are decided on in the very day of election by the Electors' College. Such selection of candidates gives hard times to the CNSAS, as the institution will have to check on all the members of the Holy Synod. Although several CNSAS members are on leave or have gone through personal family problems, the officials decided that several heads of the Romanian Orthodox Church would be checked on. CNSAS sources claim the decision was made in a hurry and due to the insistence of Mircea Dinescu and more members. It is to be mentioned that the technical staff is on leave this month and several CNSAS members didn't attend the meetings, Ziua adds.
Finland and Sweden debate about Stasi files and their citizens as informants
In Sweden and Finland, secret service files and lists of names have triggered a debate about Swedish and Finnish citizens who worked as informants for the communist German Democratic Republic's notorious state security service Stasi.
In daily Hufvudstadsbladet (Finland) Björn Sundell calls for the list of Finnish informants http://www.axisglobe.com/article.asp?article=1362 to be made public. "In this particular aspect it's like a dictatorship here in Finland. Researchers have virtually no access to the archives, and with each year that passes fewer applicants receive permission to search the files. We citizens aren't even being given the chance to find out what is written about us in the secret files. In Finland, the individual is denied the right to inspect his personal data. In this area it seems the security of the state or the manic efforts of the secret services to protect their own position take priority over all other ideals, even as far as historical material from the times of the Cold War is concerned."
In Stockholm the Swedish secret police, Säpo, has confirmed the existence of files on around 50 Swedish Stasi informants. However, the names of the informants are not to be made public. Lisa Bjurwald asks in one of the leading Swedish daily paper Svenska Dagbladet: "Is it really appropriate... to expose people in such a way? At the same time I can imagine that this kind of material is highly interesting for research purposes. These reports reflect the hidden aspects of a society at that time... Because their crimes fall under the statute of limitations, those Swedes who collaborated with the communist reign of terror will probably never be brought to trial. But this doesn't necessarily mean one must refuse all calls for them to be called to account in other ways."
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