REVIEW TOPICS:
Key suspects in Litvinenko poisoning murder interviewed by Moscow radio
Russian secret services become worried about new cartographical service
It was just greed why top Israeli intelligence officer joined KGB – newspaper
General Skipalsky willing to unite Ukraine’s former security services and armed forces members
Former head of Poland’s presidential administration accused of leakage of information on 2008 incident in Georgia
Florin Nencu, one of former Romania’s Securitate members and then SRI officer, under scrutiny of CNSAS
Former Internation Olympic Committee President Samaranch was KGB’s secret agent – new book
Key suspects in Litvinenko poisoning murder interviewed by Moscow radio
Russian businessman Dmitry Kovtun and member of the Russian parliament Andrei Lugovoy spoke to radio Golos Rossii, following the last week’s ruling of the Office of Public Prosecutor of Hamburg, Germany, that charges against Kovtun, suspected of illegal dealing with
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| D.Kovtun. A.Lugovoy |
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radioactive substances, have been dropped. Since 2006 both men are the key suspects in the case of murder of the former Russian FSB officer and regime critic Alexander Litvinenko in London.
Asked whether Kovtun is ready to leave for London and to testify on the case, he replied that he was not ready to tell this yet. He said he was thinking whether „any additional complications could arise” with his arrival. Kovtun stressed that he did not want to face provocations, such as enclosed container with substance similar to polonium, for instance. He said he did not see any sense of it.
Kovtun repeated that „a various sort of provocations is possible from the people interested that the situation developed according to this sad, destructive script”. He pointed out that there were quite many such people who had connections and means „and they can undertake any action to complicate our already not so cloudless relations with Britain”.
Andrei Lugovoy noted that the British side „should show to the public and courts all those materials which at them are collected on this case”. He said that any scientist knew the fact that polonium is very easily transferable from one object to another. „However, it is impossible to identify (that was what the British had counted upon) who exactly left the traces first. There are no fingerprints. This was the basis of the provocation”.
Lugovoy added that in those documents which were sent by the British side to Russia, there was one specified motive: „the FSB and Putin have ordered me to destroy Litvinenko because he was criticizing the FSB and Putin”.
Lugovoy stated that, in his opinion, there were three basic versions: relation of secret services, [Russian businessman Boris] Berezovsky and the so-called Russian mafia in Spain to the murder. He marked that he could add the fourth version here, too. „I do not exclude that it was fortuitousness for Litvineko, too. That is, quite probably that he illegally dealed with polonium, with radioactive substances, and there was some leakage. He poisoned himself. It could be an accident”. Lugovoy added that he was ready to leave for London to work on this case, however, the British side had to make the first steps. „First, they have to send all documents. Second, they have to reopen investigation.”
Russian secret services become worried about new cartographical service
ProGorod, cartographical service, providing maps for GPS- and GLONASS- navigators, has become an object of interest of Russian secret services, as certain objects which under the law on the state secret should be hidden are noted on these maps, Gisa.ru reports.
According to the order of Russian Cartographic Service, coordinated with the Armed Forces General Staff, it is forbidden to publish not only data on military objects or the objects related to state secrets, but also, for instance, it is forbidden to indicate wayless sectors of roads, mouths of caves, all-electric segments of railways, etc.
Earlier the SiDiCom company, which owns the ProGorod service, specially paid attention to the fact that it that possessed the license of the Federal Security Service (FSB) of the Russian Federation for realization of the works connected with use of data, making the state secret. This license allows obtaining and legal use of satellite pictures with resolution of 0.5—0.6 meters for creation of maps. The official sales of ProGorod navigating service have begun in early November.
Among the functions of service is a realistic display of complex hubs and intersections, the instruction of movement on lanes, an intellectual mode of voice support, IQ Voice Guide. About 33,000 settlements in 50 areas of the Russian Federation have been put on the ProGorod maps with 800,000 km of the total length of network of roads and 120,000 places of interest.
Within the year, SiDiCom managed to create a large team, engaged in navigating cartography with more than 100 cartographers and digital converters operators. The general investments of the project by September, 2009, have made about $7 million, Gisa.ru adds.
It was just greed why top Israeli intelligence officer joined KGB – newspaper
AIA already reported that Israel’s Shin Bet/SHABAK security service had for the first time gone public about the Shimon Levinson spy case, posting details about the affair on its official Web site. Daily Haaretz has devoted a vast article to his story. The Shin Bet has now published is its official version. Though the material has been censored, it contains details that have never come to light before.
Levinson, a retired army intelligence colonel, a former member of the Shin Bet and the Mossad, and a chief of security in the Prime Minister's Office, was convicted of spying for the KGB in 1991 and sentenced to 12 years in prison. He was released after seven years for good behavior, and in 2003, he moved to Thailand, where he works as an agricultural consultant, Haaretz notes.
Shimon Levinson was born in Jerusalem in 1933 and enlisted in the Israel Defense Forces in 1950. He retired from the IDF in 1978 after having held a variety of positions, including the service in in Military Intelligence's documentation centre.
In 1963, Levinson was recruited by the Shin Bet and served in the security vetting team in the Jerusalem area. Two years later, the army agreed to his request to transfer to the Mossad, where he worked in a similar capacity. He ultimately became head of the Mossad's Tevel station in Ethiopia. In 1973, Levinson returned to Israel and to the IDF. He became a liaison officer with the UN and remained in this job until he retired in 1978 when then-IDF chief of staff Rafael Eitan refused to promote him further.
Levinson exploited his old connections with senior UN officials and arranged a job for himself in Bangkok, running a UN agency fighting the drug trade in East Asia. In April 1983, Levinson entered the USSR embassy in Bangkok and offered to spy on Israel. After some hesitation, the KGB decided to take him on and sent him to Moscow for tests and a crash course in the art of coded messages, radio communications and secret rendezvous. During his interrogation by the Shin Bet later, Levinson said his sole motive was money.
While Mossad rejected Levinson’s attempt to rejoin the secret service after he returned to Israel, Shin Bet agreed to a new and surprising appointment for him in May 1985. Levinson’s old friend Major General (ret.) Avraham Tamir, then director general of the Prime Minister's Office, gave him the important and sensitive position of chief security officer. The then-Prime Minister Shimon Peres and former army and Shin Bet officers were among those who recommended Levinson. During this time, Levinson had access to all the Prime Minister's secrets. According to the Shin Bet website, the information Levinson gave the USSR was comprehensive.
What the Shin Bet Web site does not reveal, however, is that Levinson's incarceration in May 1991 was made possible by information that reached the Mossad from a foreign source, Haaretz marks. After repeated lie detector tests, Levinson was able to convince Shin Bet interrogators that he had not planted bugs in the Prime Minister's Office, which would have enabled his handlers to listen in on all the most sensitive and secret cabinet decisions.
The Shin Bet refrains from saying that during the trial, some of the spy's best friends in the army and the security services came to his aid, the paper marks. Among those who testified on his behalf were Ariel Sharon and Rafi Eitan - a close relative of Levinson as well as a legendary Mossad and Shin Bet operative who until recently was a cabinet minister.
General Skipalsky willing to unite Ukraine’s former security services and armed forces members
Lieutenant-General Alexander Skipalsky has been intending to unite veterans of security services and armed forces of Ukraine, news agency Pravda reports, referring to General’s interview.
«Nowadays we need to do everything to create association of public organizations, to address to veteran and military movement», online paper Novosti.dn.ua cites General Skipalsky. «This public association, in case of need, would provide the order in the country by virtue of the nature, as defenders of Fatherland».
General Skipalsky also marked impossibility of use by top politicians of security forces in their own interests, «The veteran organizations will not stay aside if there will be a real threat for existence of the country and its people, on fidelity to which all of us have swore. The operating security forces will be guided by the Constitution. Any order to fight against own people is a crime».
Skipalsky reminded that security forces supported the wave of national protest in 2004, not having allowed bloodshed, «Then the hotheads distributed cartridges. Armies moved to Kiev. Nevertheless the general efforts have stopped it. Then, addressing to demonstrators, I did not tell that I was addressing to them on behalf of the leadership of security forces. I told them that I was speaking on behalf of the majority which shared democratic position of development of the country. (..) But if there is a problem of protection of integrity and sovereignty before the army it is a constitutional mission. However, the mechanism at what stage, when and what level of threat there should be that the army started to carry out its duties has not been developed. In the future it is necessary to develop it», -Skipalsky declared.
Lieutenant-General Alexander Skipalsky who previously served in the KGB, was among those who were standing at the very roots of the Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) and the Main Intelligence directorate of Ministry of Defence of Ukraine; he was a parliament member and a deputy minister of emergency situations, according to online paper Ostrov. In 2004, he headed the protection service of the then presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko.
The last state service positions of Skipalsky were the deputy chairman of the SBU and the head of the SBU Donetsk area directorate in 2006.
Former head of Poland’s presidential administration accused of leakage of information on 2008 incident in Georgia
The former head of administration of the Polish President, Piotr Kownacki, will appear before prosecutors for leakage of information concerning "the incident in Georgia" with participation of the President of Poland. According to radio RMF FM, the Office of Public Prosecutor considers that it was him who has given out the secret information concerning gunfire at motorcade of presidents of Georgia and Poland in 2008. Kownacki has been summoned to the Office of Public Prosecutor as a suspect on November 26, radio expands.
AIA already reported that the incident with participation of the two presidents occured on November 23, 2008, in Georgia’s Akhalgor area. The Georgian side accused the Russian militarians of firing at the motorcade of Saakashvili and Kaczinski. In a year, the Polish newspaper Dziennik published extracts of the official report of the Internal Security Agency (ABW) of Poland, according to which shooting at the motorcade of presidents of Georgia and Poland had been a provocation of the Georgian side. According to the Polish secret services, the fact that after the first series of firing, the Georgian protection members had not reacted at all testifies that fact. Moreover, it was reported that the President of Georgia Mikhail Saakashvili at the moment of incident was "relaxed and smiling".
Poland’s Internal Security Agency has been paying attention to that fact that directly on the eve of the incident, a bus with journalists was let pass with an apparent aim of filming the forthcoming attack. Earlier the press secretary of the Polish Foreign Ministry, Piotr Paszkovski, noted that the ministry had no the exact data, confirming the fact of use of weapons by the Russian militaries at the moment of appearance of the motorcade. Kaczinski’s visit to the South Ossetian border area was initiated by the President of Georgia at the last minute and was simply added to the visit’s schedule.
Florin Nencu, one of former Romania’s Securitate members and then SRI officer, under scrutiny of CNSAS
Daily newspaper Romania Libera has been continuing the series of disclosures by the National Council for the Study of the Securitate Archives (CNSAS) about seven secret service of Communist Romania, Securitate, officers from Tulcea, whose files have been laying since the summer on the table Bucharest Court of Appeal judges, awaiting the sentence. Securitate Officer Florin Nencu, who coordinated terror in Brasov, became after the revolution a Colonel of Intelligence Service and retired after service as a FNI, National Investment Fund, Tulcea county coordinator, Romania Libera reports. CNSAS sent the file of the ex-Securitate officer to the court this summer.
In the files which CNSAS submitted to court, it was described how the Securitate members of Tulcea focused on many "enemies of the people". Two workers in Brasov who particpated in November 15, 1987 riots in this city against the Communist regime became one of local Securitate branch targets. The code name of this action was Neamtul, and its coordinator was the Securitate Major Florin Nencu. Detailed plans to control the workers of Tulcea Shipyard was worked out by Major Florin Nencu together with Colonel Tudorel Milea, the head of Securitate Inspectorate of Tulcea, and they have been revealed by the CNSAS. Nencu and his subordinates installed eavesdropping equipment in a few houses and ten workers were recruited from shipyard to become special informants of Securitate.
The former Securitate officer was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and in March 1990 became an Intelligence officer. In 1999, Florin Nencu retired in the rank of SRI Colonel. Immediately he became a branch chief of Tulcea FNI, National Investment Fund. The door of the office of the FNI with two retired Securitate officers, Nencu and his former colleague from the Securitate and Intelligence Service, retired Colonel Vasile Boiarciuc, at the Delta Hotel was a continuous pilgrimage, the paper writes. The both ex-Securittate officers contibuted in the biggest case of bankruptcy in Romania, the FNI scandal, that left a 300 million-dollar loss behind.
During the FNI scandal, colonels Nencu and Boiarciuc disappeared from Tulcea. Boiarciuc has not been seen since then in this city. Nencu returned there after several weeks. FNI logo on his office door was replaced by Nencu with Gelsi sign and now the door has the logo of Conservil, a company that manages the assets that belonged to Delta Company Gelsi. In the documents of Tulcea branch of the Gelsi company, Florin Nencu’s name apears until 2002, as "an administrator”. After 2002, the company's activity in Tulcea was closed, and the other directors registered the Conservil firm. Nencu Florin declined to answer accusations against him, the newspaper notes.
Former Internation Olympic Committee President Samaranch was KGB’s secret agent – new book
Russian historian Yuri Felshtinsky and former KGB Lieutenant Colonel Vladimir Popov claim in a new book, The KGB Plays Chess, that former IOC President, Juan Antonio Samaranch, was hired by the KGB in the late 1970s, Danish website Play the Game reports.
Samaranch was sent to Moscow in 1977; he served as Spain’s ambassador in the Soviet Union and Mongolia. At this time, Samaranch was IOC Vice President and head of Olympic protocol.
Already in his book The Corporation: Russia and the KGB in the Age of President Putin, published in late 2008, Felshtinsky told the story about Samaranch’s recruitment. Samaranch grew fond of Russian antiques, which he collected and shipped to his home in Spain. All antiques were closely monitored by the KGB; so the Spanish ambassador, a frequent buyer of valuable rarities, was taken note of. An agent from the KGB’s Second Main Directorate, which monitored the Spanish embassy, met with Samaranch and gently explained to him that his actions were subject to prosecution in accordance with the Russian Federation’s Criminal Code and were classified by Soviet law as the smuggling of contraband goods. According to Felshtinsky, Samaranch was offered a choice: he could either be compromised through the Soviet and foreign press detailing his activities, which would undoubtedly have put an end to his diplomatic career, or he could collaborate with the KGB as a secret agent. Samaranch chose the latter option, the author marks.
It is claimed that the KGB promised to help Samaranch becoming IOC President. It is documented that Viktor Chebrikov, then KGB vice-head who become later KGB’s chairman, has written encrypted information to his counterparts in the Eastern Bloc to support Samaranch in any way to get the required votes. In 1980, the KGB plot went well; Samaranch was elected as successor to Ireland’s Lord Killanin. Felshtinsky says the IOC want to hold this story under the carpet.
Felshtinsky and Popov repeated the allegations in The KGB Plays Chess, which was published in Russian a few weeks ago. For the first time Vladimir Popov, source of the KGB story in the 2008 book, decided to disclose his identity. He was responsible for several hundred secret sport agents. Samaranch was only one of them and was called Soviet Sport General within the KGB. Felshtinsky notes that Popov knows all the names of the sport spies, all the nicknames and all the recruiting officers. He is a very reliable source with strong arguments.
Felshtinsky labels other high ranking Olympic agents: Russian IOC members Vitaly Smirnov and Shamil Tarpishchev, longtime FIFA Executive Board member Viacheslav Koloskov and current Russian NOC President Leonid Tyagachev. Tyagachev was recruited by KGB Major Smaznov with the code name Elbrus (Tyagachev was once a Soviet downhill skier and coach).
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