REVIEW TOPICS:
Federal Security Service expelled Israel’s diplomat from Russia, embassy denies spying as reason
Foreign intelligence head of Romania’s Communist secret service Securitate Nicolae Plesita has died
Czech court tightens former Communist secret service agent's prison sentence for economic crime
Evaluations of threat of new Muslim party in Bulgaria are contradictory, DANS continuing probe of founders’ ownership
Security services of Kazakhstan continuing attempts of recruiting journalists and threatening them
Azerbaijan Ministry of National Security invites bids for communication equipment
Federal Security Service expelled Israel’s diplomat from Russia, embassy denies spying as reason
Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) has expelled the first secretary of Israel’s embassy in Moscow, 58 y.o. Shmuel Polishchuk from Russia, daily newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda reports. Polishchuk serves in Nativ, an organization responsible for contacts with Jews of the CIS countries and Baltics. The paper writes that the diplomat too vigorusly has called Russian Jews to immigrate to Israel. Polishchuk, a native of Ukraine, immigrated to Israel in 1979.
Nativ is a body that operates under the Prime Minister's Office and its official capacity is to encourage aliya from Russia. In the past, Nativ was part of the intelligence community, The Jerusalem Post expands. The body was established in 1952 and in the first years of the state's existence worked clandestinely most of the time.
Russian authorities accused Polishchuk of espionage and he was forced to urgently leave Moscow, The Jerusalem Post marks. The Russian daily writes that Polishchuk was accused of excess of his service powers.
He was detained last week and delivered to the FSB headquarters directly from a business
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meeting. The security service officials recommended Polishhcuk to immediately leave Moscow, according to Komsomolskaya Pravda. The paper says the diplomat was not announced persona non grata as his departure has been formally recognized voluntary. Israel’s newspaper Ma’ariv reported that Israel had pressured Russia to prevent official expulsion of Polishchuk and even threatened a counter move.
Ma'ariv writes that the two sides managed to hush up the scandal and reports about Polishchuk’s expulsion from Russia have appeared only today. According to Komsomolskaya Pravda, it is not excluded that Israel did not wish to spoil the meeting between the Foreign Minister of Israel Avigdor Liberman and the Russian Vice-Premier Viktor Zubkov, and intentionally delayed publicisizing of the news.
According to news agency Interfax, Russian Foreign Ministry confirms that the official of the embassy of Israel Shmuel Polishchuk has left Russia for illegal activity. The official spokesman of the Russian Foreign Ministry Andrei Nesterenko announced at a briefing in Moscow that on September 24 the Israeli diplomat was detained red-handed and left the Russian Federation for illegal activity.
In his turn, the press attache of Israel’s embassy in Moscow Alex Goldman-Shaiman told news agency Interfax that the diplomat left Russia because of „questions of administrative character”. He denied media reports that the diplomat had been expelled from Russia due to suspicion of spying activities.
Foreign intelligence head of Romania’s Communist secret service Securitate Nicolae Plesita has died
General Nicolae Plesita, 80, the former head of the foreign service of Romania's communist-era Securitate secret police, has died without regretting his involvement in crimes committed against dissidents, Romanian media are reporting. Plesita was one of the most faithful servants of the most feared Securitate, known for his sadism ‘to squeeze’ evidence during endless interrogations.
Nicolae Plesita died peacefully in a hospital of the Romanian Intelligence Service, surrounded by relatives and friends, however for many people his death may have awakened some painful memories.
Born April 16, 1929, Plesita was recruited to the Securitate as a teenager. In 1948, he officially became an employee of the security service. Ten years later, he got the Romanian People's Republic Star medal after after he helped eradicate organized anti-communist resistance groups fighting in the Transylvanian mountains.
Between 1962 and 1967, he supervised the region of Cluj region where he headed five departments of security and became Major-General. Plesita’s biography shows that he climbed up to position of the First Deputy Interior Minister and the head of Foreign Intelligence, after he helped, for example, in the suppression of the Jiului Valley miners' strike of July 1977 whose unrest posed a threat to dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.
Plesita was a harsh critic of General Ion Pacepa, a top ranking Securitate officer who
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defected to the United States in 1978. He gained notoriety for arranging shelter in Romania for Venezuelan-born terrorist Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, known as Carlos the Jackal. Ceausescu hired Ramirez to assassinate Pacepa but he failed, The Associated Press marks. He worked with Carlos "the Jackal" also to annihilate the Romanian section of Radio Free Europe. Plesita, former head of the DIE, was charged with terrorism for allegedly coordinated attack on Radio Free Europe building in Munich in February 1981, when part of the building was blown up but, in error, the Czechoslovak section was affected instead of Romanian one. The investigation was discontinued in the period 2000-2004, and the process was repeated by a civil court. Former Communist torturer was declared innocent in that case in March 2009.
Between 1980 and 1984 he was appointed head of the Centre of Foreign Intelligence and Security and the alternate member of the Communist party Central Committee. He was sent to Gradiste Securitate School as disciplinary move in, and in 1990 he retired as a two-star General. In post-communist Romania, Plesita continued to attract attention with his revelations from the Communist period, and showed no remorse for having crushed anti-communist dissent.
He had a pension of about ten times larger than an ordinary pensioner, worthy of a man who "has done his duty" to the country, as he liked to say when he was given the chance, Stiriazi.ro marks.
Plesita died in Bucharest in a Romanian Intelligence Service hospital, where he was being treated for various illnesses including diabetes, the Agerpres and Mediafax news agencies reported, citing family members. His funeral service was held at the Church Hill of Curtea de Arges, Capu district, according to Realiatatea. Iulian Vlad, the last Securitate chief, and a number of other former Securitate officers attended Plesita's funeral, Realitatea TV reported. Agents of the current Romanian Intelligence Service stopped reporters and others from attending the funeral, citing the family's wishes.
Evaluations of threat of new Muslim party in Bulgaria are contradictory, DANS continuing probe of founders’ ownership
The leader of the Order Lawfulness and Justice Party of Bulgaria Yane Yanev sent a letter to the parliament asking whether the State Agency for National Security (DANS) had received a tip-off about possible anti-constitutional actions by the people who initiated the establishment of the Muslim Democratic Union and what measures the DANS undertook in response, Sofia-based daily Trud reports.
The paper cites Defence Minister Nikolay Mladenov as saying that there are no conditions for radical Islam in Bulgaria.
In its turn, the Standart News writes in a comment that it is ridiculous to blame the Yuzeirov brothers with inclinations to fundamentalism: the two do not have a good command of Turkish, let alone Arabic. They are hardly able to read the entire Koran, let alone transform the local Roma into "martyrs of faith". What is more, writes the author, all attempts to create a political force to represent minorities
have so far proved futile and have been cast as provocations serving as a justification of the extreme premises of the nationalists.
AIA reported earlier this week that the Yuzeirov brothers had founded a new Muslim party, Muslim Democratic Union, a move stirring large public and media outcry in Bulgaria, according to the news agency BTA.
The State Agency for National Security of Bulgaria Targovishte regional directorate has been probing the purchase of lands by notorious brothers Ali and Yuzeir Yuzeirovs, Sofia News Agency reports.
Czech court tightens former Communist secret service agent's prison sentence for economic crime
The High Court in the Czech city of Olomouc increased the prison sentence given to Pavel Minarik, former agent of the Communist state security service (StB), for an insurance fraud from 4.5 years to six years in an appeals trial, server Aktualne.cz has reported.
According to the charges, Minarik's company exported overpriced optical fibres that he insured for tens of millions of crowns to Ukraine in 1996, Aktualne.cz writes. His accomplices then set the consignment on fire in a simulated car accident behind the border in order to claim insurance money from the Kooperativa insurer. Minarik then received 6.5 million crowns in compensation from Kooperativa. He rejected the insurer's offer to provide new fibres for him and pleaded not guilty. After 1989 Minarik launched business along with his two friends, former colleagues from the Soviet KGB.
Minarik became ill-famed as a StB agent in connection with his plan to carry out a bomb attack on the US Congress-funded Radio Free Europe radio station where he worked undercover from 1969 to 1976.
Security services of Kazakhstan continuing attempts of recruiting journalists and threatening them
AIA already wrote that the security services of Kazakhstan had been trying to recruit the journalists of Internet-portal.kz and daily newspaper Vzglyad. Online paper Zonakz.net expands on the problem in its latest issue.
“Our employees are exposed to pressure of security services, they have been chatted up by the secret agents, director of Open Company Stan Produktion, Baurzhan Musirov, is quoted by Zonakz.net as saying.
Two employees of security services reportedly tried to intimidate the journalist of the Internet-portal Stan.kz Natalya Panova with possible use of physical violence. The stranger told Panova that “ the duties of citizens foresee help to power structures”. When the journalist refused to report on the editorial office to the security forces, she received threats.
In the same day, two suspicious persons were watching an apartment of Yekaterina Belyayeva, editor of the weekly Vzglyad. Those men were obviously "disturbed", therefore the neighbours warned them that they would call the police. The two men answered that they were simply waiting for journalist Belyayeva, but then retired.
A plain-clothed man who introduced himself as a local policemen declared that he needed to talk to Yekaterina Belyayeva. She agreed to talk to him only through the closed doors. The stranger refused to tell more about himself and to give the phone number of the local police station to find out whether there is such an employee. Belyayeva believes that her person has risen interest among the secret services after protest action against political prostitution in Arbat, online paper Zonakz.net writes. She considers that the Kazakhstan’s security services have been continuing to pursue her for heterodoxy.
Employees of the Vzglyad and Stan regularly observe for longer periods of the day characteristic vehicles with 2-3 people inside at the editorial office buildings. The editor-in-chief of the Vzglyad, Igor Vinyavsky, marked that among the employees of the weekly it was forbidden to tell anybody the home telephone numbers and addresses of the employees. Even in the editorial office not everyone knows about the new place of residence of Belyayeva. Therefore casual people simply could not learn her address, Zonakz.net expands.
The journalists of the Vzglyad and Stan have called diplomatic missions of the OSCE member-countries to report to the heads of states that in Kazakhstan there is a massive campaign of pressure upon members of mass media going on. They demand from the security services to stop war with heterodoxy and engage in their direct business, maintenance of national security, online paper notes.
Azerbaijan Ministry of National Security invites bids for communication equipment
The Academy named after Heydar Aliyev of the Ministry of National Security of Azerbaijan has announced a method quotation tender procedure for purchase of communication equipment, ABC.az reports.
The tender commission declares that the applicants are to carry out participation payment till October 6, 2009 and get technical specifications for participation in the tender procedure.
In the application the claimants should indicate company’s name, address, ZIP code, telephones, name and surname of company’s head, and a document confirming participation payment. The bids are accepted till October 7, 2009. The procedure of unsealing of the bids will take place on October 8, 2009, ABC.az expands.
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