REVIEW TOPICS:
President of Lithuania does not exclude existence of CIA prisons near Vilnius at one time
Security Service of Ukraine head does not think declassification of archives would lead to lustration of officials
Berezovsky wonders whether there is involvement of Russian FSB in Ukraine’s children centre scandal
Russian Federal Security Service written off acts of terrorism of 1999 on deceased
Criminal group involved in killings in North Ossetia with at least some connections to Russian security services uncovered
State security committee converted in Kyrgyzstan against background of increasing national security threats
Story of Southampton’s mayor’s son accused of working as agent for Czechoslovak StB intelligence agency recalled
President of Lithuania does not exclude existence of CIA prisons near Vilnius at one time
The President of Lithuania Dalia Grybauskaite stated that she had "indirect suspicions" about the existence of a secret prison of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Lithuania earlier, news agency BNS reports from Vilnius. She marked that an investigation by parliament, which found no secret prison, had been only a formality.
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| Dalia Grybauskaite |
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"I do not have an intelligible answer. I was in Brussels [as an European Commissioner] when this could have been happening. I do have indirect suspicions. It is not only myself but also the international community," Grybauskaite told reporters at a press conference in the Lithuanian capital today. "Both Lithuania and the United States should give answers to these questions," she said.
According to President Grybauskaite, if the reports regarding the existence of the CIA prison for terror suspects in Lithuania at one time would be confirmed, Lithuania should take responsibility and apologize for the past decision or it could risk becoming a target for terrorism. The claims on the CIA prison surfaced in August and have been denied by the Lithuanian government and former top officials.
Grybauskaite took office of the Lithuanian President in July after having served since 2004 as Lithuania's member of the European Union's executive in Brussels.
The US TV station ABC, citing unnamed former CIA officials, claimed Lithuania hosted a prison for "high-value" Al-Qaeda suspects. The facility was allegedly closed in 2005.
AIA reported yesterday about the revelation in Latvia, Lithuania's neighbouring country, that a year ago, when combining the two prisons located in the city of Daugavpils, it was revealed that 50 prisoners who had received all necessary for spending their sentence in one of the city's prisons were not registered in any of them.
Daily Seichas wrote that between 2001and 2005 a secret CIA prison was allegedly arranged in abandoned Soviet army bunkers in the vicinity of the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius . Prisoners on terrorism charges who were "hidden" there disappeared later. The paper concluded that they were moved from Vilnius to the White Swan prison in Daugavpils in strict privacy.
Agence France Presse has noted today that Washington wants its allies to take in detainees from Guantanamo as part of US President's plan to close the controversial facility. Lithuania which in February announced it had been asked to take in two inmates warned last week that it would not accept any until it was cleared of the CIA allegations.
Security Service of Ukraine head does not think declassification of archives would lead to lustration of officials
According to the Chairman of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) Valentin Nalyvaychenko, declassifying of archive materials of the Ukrainian security services will not lead to lustration of the state authorities’ personnel, online paper e-Krym reports. "The totalitarian regime existed in our territory for quite a long time, and the employees who have been working now in the archives, have seen not only the ordinary criminal case, but also falsified cases, they have revealed a lot of forged documents. A great amount of evidence was obtained by torture and was literally knocked out of the living people", marked Nalyvaychenko at a round table discussion in Yalta.
The Chairman of the Security Service of Ukraine said that in Kiev, in one of the buildings belonging till the late 1980's to the KGB and before to the NKVD, in the basement there was a space where thousands of people were shot. Above it was another room, which was called by the NKVD members "a room of laugh”
"It was completely lined with mattresses and people were simply beaten there to death, the necessary testimony was beaten out of them. Everybody understands what the price of those evidence was and it would another crime to publish them now," emphasized Nalyvaychenko.
According to the news agency e-Crimea, Nalyvaychenko called the Crimean journalists to invite the citizens to the archives of the SBU directorates in the Crimea and Sevastopol. According to him, "access to the archives is available to every citizen who would like to see the archive materials and who are interested in viewing them.”
Berezovsky wonders whether there is involvement of Russian FSB in Ukraine’s children centre scandal
Russian former oil and media tycoon Boris Berezovsky who lives in self-exile in London stated that there were attempts to tie him with the scandal at Artek children recreation camp and it was initiated by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB). Berezovsky said this in an
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Boris Berezovsky |
interview to the daily newspaper Segodnya.
Berezovsky explained that he had an impression that people who were trying to tie him with the scandal had been linked to the FSB because it was a typical KGB-style manner to blame him for all the wrongs. ” This is a standard technique performed during those nine years, during which I do not live in Russia”. Berezovsky noted that this lead him to believe that these people were working together with the FSB. “I was repeatedly told earlier that some Ukrainian politicians were working closely together with this secret service. And it was their behavior during the scandal which was proof of this assumption," the paper is quoting Berezovsky as saying.
At the same time he confirmed that he was acquainted with the civil husband of Yelena Polyukhovich, Artem Degtyaryov, who heads the Ukrainian branch of the International Foundation for Civil Liberties. Berezovsky noted that he was told by Artem Degtyaryov about the problem with children of Yelena Polyukhovich, but he had offered no specifics. Berezovsky said he regretted not paying attention to the problem. He did not penetrated into the story and then he learned about it from the press.
The parliament member from the bloc Our Ukraine - People's Self-Defense, First Deputy Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Justice Yury Karmazin is going to ask the law enforcement bodies to question Boris Berezovsky on the case of corrupting the children at the International Children Centre Artek.
Russian Federal Security Service written off acts of terrorism of 1999 on deceased
The Federal Security Service of Russia assigned responsibility for the attacks in 1999 in the Moscow hotel Intourist and the metro station Okhotny Ryad on Shamil Basayev who was killed still back in 2006, online paper Nasha Abkhaziya reports.
The Moscow City Court has received a criminal case against the Chechen native Khalid Khuguyev who was known as a financier of the late Shamil Basayev and the Daghestani Magomadzair Ghadzhiakayev. According to investigators, Shamil Basayev was trying to get a share of income from the charity program Frontline Children of Chechnya, under the patronage of the famous Soviet and Russia singer Iosif Kobzon. According to investigators, when he was refused, Basayev ordered to blow up Kobzon’s office at the Intourist hotel.
Criminal group involved in killings in North Ossetia with at least some connections to Russian security services uncovered
The investigative committee of the Russian prosecutor-general’s office announced last week that a criminal group had been uncovered, which had carried out a number of high-profile killings in North Ossetia in 2007-2008, The Georgian Daily reports.
The online paper adds that earlier in October, two suspects allegedly involved in the crimes in North Ossetia were arrested in the Crimea, Ukraine and deported to Russia. According to Gazeta.ru reports, the suspects were preparing to assassinate a political leader in Ukraine. It remained unexplained who they were targeting and why the Ukrainian police preferred to hand the suspects over to Russia rather than interrogating them in Ukraine.
One of the two suspects, Robert Tabuyev, is not an ordinary person charged with murder: he is the former head of the South Ossetian security services, still called the KGB after their Soviet predecessor. Tabuyev was dismissed from his office in 2003. Bearing in mind the close relations between the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) and the South Ossetian KGB, it is justified to equate Robert Tabuyev to an FSB officer. The statement by the investigative committee provides an oblique confirmation of that: despite numerous media reports, for some reason it failed to mention Tabuyev’s name among the twelve suspects.
The same extremist group made threats against a powerful political figure in North Ossetia with a Muslim background –Arsen Fadzayev, a member of the Russian State Duma.
Now it appears that a criminal gang with at least some connections to the Russian security services carried out the assassination of the Vladikavkaz mayor in November, 2008, and it may be justifiable to suggest that this group had links to a suicide bombing in the city taxi minivan as well, according to North Caucasus Weekly. The online paper marks that a number of analysts have reported cooperation between the Russian security services and organized crime. The case of the Ossetian killers’ squad appears to be one of those instances.
It is even more mysterious why they chose to blow up the minivan, if they indeed were connected to this crime as well. Whether this incident implicates corrupt members of the Russian security services or was an undercover operation that went wrong, one thing is clear: that under the current circumstances of the security services being completely out of civil control, they pose a grave danger to society.
The high profile killings supposedly were meant to destabilize North Ossetia and make it easier to establish a new political order.
The logic of internal political warfare, as well as the fluidity of external circumstances, makes it likely that there will be at least moderate violence in South and North Ossetia, despite the current appearance of relative stability, The Georgian Daily concludes.
State Security Committee converted in Kyrgyzstan against background of increasing national security threats
News agency AKI-press has been reporting on the speech of the President of Kyrgyzstan Kurmanbek Bakiev at the national conference on October 20, at which he introduced the reform of public administration.
The Presidential Institution (administration) includes among others the State Advisor to the President of the Kyrgyz Republic on coordination of the security forces, advising on matters of defense, security and law enforcement.
The State National Security Committee has been converted to the State National Security Agency and is derived from the structure of the Government.
President Bakiev pointed out that threats to national security are increasing, AKI-press marks. „Obviously we are not always able to adequately and timely respond to the challenges”, Bakiyev stressed. The President believes that the situation can be changed by reforming the system of state security, AKI – press underlines. Bakiev stressed that Kyrgyzstan needed a modern, compact, efficient secret service with the necessary social functions, but not in law enforcement agencies with intelligence functions. Bakiev emphasized that the forms and methods of intelligence must be changed and its functions should be refined.
Story of Southampton’s mayor’s son accused of
working as agent for Czechoslovak StB intelligence agency recalled
The Southern Daily Echo recalls the case of the son of Southampton’s sixth female mayor, John Stonehouse. The young Labour Party activist went on to study at the London School of Economics before spending three years as a manager of African co-operative societies in Uganda during the 1950s.
His ultimate ambition was becoming Prime Minister, the paper marks. By the age of 32, he was parliament member for Walsall, and he was Secretary to Minister of Aviation before he was 40.
It was during this time, the 1960s, that the Cambridge historian Professor Christopher Andrew claims Stonehouse worked as an agent for the Czech StB intelligence agency. He would certainly have had access to sensitive information.
By 1967 he was Minister of Technology, then was switched to the position of Postmaster General. The fact he was also made a Privy Councillor at this time suggests MI5 were not suspicious, The Southern Daily Echo notes.
In 1969, the first allegations that Stonehouse was a Czechoslovak agent emerged for the first time. They were successfully defended, but when Harold Wilson’s Labour lost the 1970 general election, Stonehouse found there was no place for him in the Shadow Cabinet. His fellow Labour parliament member Will Owen is also named as an agent for the Czechoslovak StB, and Professor Andrew even reveals that MI5 held a file on Wilson himself.
Investigations by the Department of Trade and Industry in his business prompted his dramatic disappearance. He obtained two fake passports, left his clothes on a Miami beach and fled to Australia via Hawaii, leaving his wife in shock and three children believing their dad was dead. His financial transactions soon attracted the suspicions of the Melbourne police, who believed the distinguished Englishman was Lord Lucan. He was arrested in 1974 and after the longest fraud trial in British history he was sentenced to seven years and divorced by his wife of 26 years. Three heart attacks later, he was released midway through his jail term and died of in 1988, aged 62.
For those who knew Stonehouse as a Southampton schoolboy, his life of espionage is hard to comprehend, the newspaper concludes.
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