REVIEW TOPICS:
Germany relieved Dmitry Kovtun of responsibility for participation in Litvinenko murder - lawyer
Romanian Intelligence Service director does not see any signs of electoral fraud plans
Russian Federal Security Service to coordinate proceedings in EU-Russia classified data exchange deal
Bulgarian parliament adopted State Agency for National Security Act
Five gunmen destroyed, Arab mercenary wounded in Russian FSB, Interior Forces operation in Chechen Republic
Russian Federal Security Service arrested suspected members of human trafficking ring
East German secret police viewed 1976 Montreal Olympics as means to improve GDR international standing
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| Kovtun, Lugovoy at press conference |
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Germany relieved Dmitry Kovtun of responsibility for participation in Litvinenko murder - lawyer
The Office of Public Prosecutor of Germany has dismissed all charges against the Russian businessman Dmitry Kovtun who has been a figurant in the case of poisoning murder of the former Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) officer Alexander Litvinenko, Russian news agency Interfax reports.
It has been suspected that Kovtun was an accomplice of Andrei Lugovoy, the UK’s key suspect of participation in the murder.
Litvinenko’s friends and relatives were telling that within several months officers of the Russian embassy in London had conducted his shadowing and listening. Interception of his conversations by a mobile phone and electronic messages was conducted. Litvinenko’s fellows directly accused the Kremlin of attempt on the former FSB officer’s life.
Lugovoy’s lawyer Andrei Romashov told the news agency Interfax today that Kovtun had confirmed him that Germany had dismissed all charges. The lawyer explained that Kovtun was accused in Germany "in illegal transportation of radio nucleins".
News agency RIA Novosti reported that Kovtun’s lawyer Wolfgang Wehlov confirmed the news, too. "The criminal case is finished in Germany", the lawyer marked. According to German mass media, traces of polonium-210 which, according to the version of the British investigators, has been used to poison Litvinenko, have been found out in Kovtun's house in Germany.
The lawyer noted that usually a justificatory verdict can be born only after court proceeding which in this case did not begin at all in Germany. "The case hasn't reached the state of bringing of charge", Wehlov is cited by RIA Novosti. "Today I received the document [on the termination of legal proceedings] in the Office of Public Prosecutor", expanded the lawyer, having added, that this is a question only of the case concerning Kovtun in Germany.
Dmitry Kovtun was born in family of career militaries. Upon graduation from the secondary school, in the early 1980s, he entered the Moscow Command School named after the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Federation, considered in those years one of the best in the USSR. In the same years Andrei Lugovoy who has lived in the same apartment house with Kovtun also was studying at the same school. When in 1986 Kovtun graduated from the military school he was directed for service to Czechoslovakia, then to East Germany. After disintegration of the USSR he remained in Germany, married a German citizen and received residence permit. Kovtun has lived in Germany for 12 years, he was engaged in business there; Lugovoy became his business partner. They both reportedly met with Litvinenko in a London hotel on the day of his eventual poisoning.
Kovtun is cited by the online edition of daily Vzglyad today that for investigation of this criminal case in Germany «from submission of the Englishmen» a special "Cobra"-type division under the name of the Third Person has been created. «This numerous unit all this time was searching for the third, mythical person who was allegedly seen together with me in Germany,” Kovtun noted. According to mass media, Kovtun has earlier been an employee of the Russian Federal Security Service, though he denies it.
Andrei Lugovoy graduated from the Supreme Council of the Russian Federation Military School in Moscow in 1987 and was assigned to the Kremlin division of the 9th directorate of the KGB of the USSR, according to daily Kommersant. In 1992, he was transferred to the Main Department of Protection. In 1992 and 1993, Lugovoy worked as deputy head of the security guard for the then Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar. in 1996, he resigned from the Federal Protection Service. From 1997 to 2001, he was head of the security service for ORT TV channel. In June 2001, Lugovoy was charged with arranging the escape from custody of Nikolai Glushkov, First Vice General Director of the Aeroflot Company, one of the suspects in the so-called Aeroflot case. He received a prison sentence but was quickly released. Then Lugovoy went into business, and was an owner of a private security agency in Moscow. After Litvinenko's murder he was elected a Russian parliament member from the Liberal Democratic Party.
Lugovoy has repeatedly stressed that the Crown Prosecution Service has no evidence to prove his guilt. He has also said that he had proposed a meeting with Scotland Yard experts, but they never contacted him.
Romanian Intelligence Service director does not see any signs of electoral fraud plans
The Director of the Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI) George Cristian Maior stated that no possibility existed of fraud in the upcoming presidential elections, with the latest allegations related to a possible fraud plan representing only such elements of a 'purely political' discourse, news agency Agerpres reports from Bucharest.
Maior told a television broadcast that “the SRI found no clues to lead into a fraud plan existing. It is only about politicians who bring into talks such possibilities, while from the viewpoint of the Intelligence Service, which first mission is to defend the Constitution, no sign of such plans existing was found. It is absolutely impossible we found nothing if such plans would exist.”
At the same time, the SRI head said there were discovered certain leaks from the General Directorate for Intelligence and Internal Security (DGIPI) with the Ministry of Interior, with documents having been published “on some blogs on the Internet”. Maior stressed that there was need of investigation into “the source of these documents and to track the leak”.
He said that at least two or three documents which came from an intelligence service existed there, “and that are now available on blogs on the Internet”. Maior referred to a secret document belonging to the Interpol, in the case of which the SRI know the source and to letters of businessman Hayssam, which are also on the blogs, carrying the stamp of the DGIPI service of the Ministry of Interior. These documents came from this department, Maior marked.
The Ministry of Interior Vasile Blaga late in October announced that he notified the Prosecutor's Office about certain leaks of information from the DGIPI, Agerpress adds.
Russian Federal Security Service to coordinate proceedings in EU-Russia classified data exchange deal
The European Union and Russia are on the verge of signing an agreement on exchanging classified information, news agency AFP reports. The agreement, six years in preparation, is expected to be signed at the next EU-Russia summit on November 18 in Stockholm, Sweden.
On the Russian side, it is the Federal Security Service (FSB) that will coordinate proceedings, while the EU's High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy, currently Javier Solana, will act on the union's behalf.
According to the agreement, each party, Russia and the EU, can decide on the release of classified information to the other party on a case-by-case basis according to its own security interests. Nothing in the agreement is to be regarded as a basis for mandatory or generic release of classified information, daily Javno cites the unofficial document on the agreement.
Moscow and Brussels will have to ensure that security classification or classification markings on the documents provided by their partner are not changed. They also agree to common basic principles on protecting the information, including which officials might have access to it and how security clearance will be granted. The agreement will enter into force one month after they have carried out the necessary internal procedures for it to function correctly, AFP marks.
Bulgarian parliament adopted State Agency for National Security Act
Bulgarian Parliament adopted today at second reading the State Agency for National Security (DANS) Act, which reshapes the institution to focus on counter-intelligence and analytical activities, Sofia News Agency reports.
According to critics of the DANS, the agency was created in January 2008 as the brainchild of the former Socialist Prime Minister, Sergei Stanishev, and was set up by pooling three previously independent law enforcement institutions in order to take away certain functions from the Interior Ministry, which in 2005-2008 was headed by Rumen Petkov, Stanishev’s opponent within the Bulgarian Socialist Party.
The DANS has been tainted by several scandals including the Galeria case in which its agents spied on leading Bulgarian journalists, and the cases with leaked top secret intelligence reports, Sofia News Agency marks.
The current changes curb the functions of the DANS. The new Act on the agency Act is based on avoiding the duplication and contradiction in the functions of the DANS and the Interior Ministry. The Agency’s prerogatives are reshaped to shift its focus on national security threats only.
The new legislation limits the functions of the DANS employees. The agency can no longer use undercover agents, controlled supplies, and trusted deals. It further prohibits collaborators or undercover agents of other security services from taking jobs at the agency. Its staff can only arrest persons who encroach upon the security regime of the institution’s establishments. In such instances, the DANS agents are obliged to inform the police, and turn over the detainees to them. The law also bans the agency from using auxiliary devices such as chemical substances and service animals. It formulates clearly the conditions for the exchange of information between the DANS and the Interior Ministry.
Within three months of the entering into force of the new law, the Council of Ministers is obliged to amend the statute book for the application of the DANS Act, news agency adds.
Five gunmen destroyed, Arab mercenary wounded in Russian FSB, Interior Forces operation in Chechen Republic
A group of gunmen, supposedly headed by an Arab mercenary Yassir, was blocked in the outskirts of the Serzhen-Yurt village, Shali district, of Russia’s Chechen Republic by the security forces this morning, radio Ekho Moskvy reports, referring to news agency ITAR-TASS.
Five gunmen were destroyed in a shootout, according to Chechen law-enforcement official talking to ITAR-TASS today. According to preliminary information, Yassir has been wounded. He has been involved in preparing and masterminding the attacks by suicide-bombers in Chechnya, according to the official.
The remaining gunmen are trying to escape in a wooded highland area; the operation to neutralize them, involving agents of the Federal Security Service (FSB) and Interior Ministry, has been continuing, ITAR-TASS reports.
Russian Federal Security Service arrested suspected members of human trafficking ring
The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) has arrested eight suspected members of a human-trafficking ring, news agency RIA Novosti reports. Members of the group that sold “hundreds of girls” into sexual slavery in Italy, Spain and Greece and was headed by a woman from the Kostroma region in central Russia, earned at least €2,000 per girl, according to the Russian Prosecutor General’s office.
Another six members of the ring were “caught red-handed” and arrested abroad, the state-run news agency notes, referring to the Federal Security Service which expanded that an additional 20 people had been identified as part of the group.
East German secret police viewed 1976 Montreal Olympics as means to improve GDR international standing
A chance discovery in the Berlin archives of the East German Communist-era secret police, Stasi, led University of Waterloo history professor Gary Bruce to a 95-page file on the spy service's operations at the Montreal Olympic Games, CTV News reported.
A Stasi officer's final report on the Games contains an apparently none-too-subtle reference to the drug program under the subheading Destruction of the Rest of the Special Medicine, according to CTV. Professor Bruce told that eight of the report's nine pages were missing, but he has no doubts about the memo's subject matter.
The documents make it clear that Stasi chief Erich Mielke saw the Olympic Games as a means to improve East Germany's standing in the world by ensuring all went well on the athletic field and that nothing went wrong away from it. He put the fabled Markus Wolf, head of the Stasi's foreign espionage wing, in charge of Operation Finale, a tightly controlled effort to monitor the GDR athletes in the years leading up to the Olympic Games as well as during the 16-day sporting festival.
Officers from the Stasi and other East Bloc security services met at KGB headquarters in Moscow before the Games to co-ordinate efforts, according to Bruce. The KGB worried the Ukrainian and German emigree "colonies" in Montreal might bombard athletes with anti-Communist pamphlets.
The archival records show there were 67 informants among the 511 East German Olympic team members -- a ratio of more than one in every 10 athletes. Some members of the East German delegation, including a translator, were actually Stasi officers.
Stasi spies were also concerned the media in Montreal would ask about drug use, and later expressed disappointment with the numerous references in Canadian newspapers to East German athletes being doped, CTV noted.
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