In his book ''FSB Blows Up Russia'' Litvinenko openly blamed the tragedy on the special services. In March of this year in London, Berezovsky presented a documentary ''Attack on Russia'' based on Litvinenko’s book. It is likely that both will use Gochiyayev’s evidence to substantiate their earlier statements.
In a telephone interview with Ekho Moskvy radio station on Wednesday Alexander Litvinenko made a sensational statement. He said he had been in contact with Gochiyayev, whose name has been on the federal wanted list for two years now.
Litvinenko said he had recorded a lengthy interview with Gochiyayev, which he intends to present to the public commission for investigating the 1999 blasts at its regular session on July 25. Litvinenko and a historian Yuri Felshtinsky, co-author of ''FSB Blows Up Russia'', will take part in the session’s work via a TV link from London.
Nobody knows how the former FSB colonel-lieutenant, who was granted political asylum in Great Britain, came across Gochiyayev. A member of the public commission and co-founder of Berezovsky’s Liberal Russia party Sergei Yushenkov told Gazeta.Ru that even for a professional like Litvinenko it was not an easy task. ''But then one should not forget that, after all, in the FSB he held a rather high post,'' said Yushenkov.
Yabloko’s Yuri Shchekochikhin, who is also a member of the public commission investigating the blast, told Gazeta.Ru that he is inclined to believe Litvinenko, when the latter says he has managed to find Gochiyayev, whom the special services have been hunting in vain over the course of two years.
After all, the colonel-lieutenant worked in a top secret FSB directorate for detecting and disrupting the activity of criminal groups, and it is likely, he had been working in Chechnya. It is quite possible that he has found Gochiyayev through his old connections.
But one thing is for sure; in the days of his service in the FSB Litvinenko could not have had personal contacts with the terrorist. Just as the officer was leaving the service amid a series of scandals, the young Gochiyayev was only beginning to take interest in radical Islamists ideas, widely spread in his home Republic of Karachai-Cherkessia.
To recap, Litvinenko raised to prominence in Novembeer 1997, after he told a news conference that the FSB’s anti-mafia directorate had been instructed to assassinate Boris Berezovsky. At that time, the tycoon enjoyed tremendous influence in the Kremlin and was considered one of the most powerful men in the country. Litvinenko was assigned to carry out that order, since he had known the tycoon personally.
In the same year Gochiyayev abandoned a rather profitable construction business in Moscow and went back to Karachayevsk, and then to Chechnya. According to a special services’ report, he received terrorist training in Khattab’s camp, whereupon he returned to Karachai-Cherkessia and established his own jamaat – the ‘Muslim Society No.3’, practicing Wahabbi ideas.
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