SUSPECTS ARRESTED IN POLITKOVSKAYA CASE

C O N F I D E N T I A L MOSCOW 004226 SIPDIS SIPDIS STATE FOR INL/AAE KIMMEL AND CARROLL, EUR/RUS WATSON, GLANTZ, SOLOMON, SIMAKOVSKY, FINKELSTEIN, L/LEI FOR DAUGHTRY AND GUTHERIE, DRL FOR CORKE,DOJ FOR OPDAT/LEHMANN, NEWCOMBE AND ALEXANDRE, OIA FOR BURKE AND DITTOE, OCRS FOR OHR AND OTT E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/28/2017 TAGS: PGOV KJUS KCRM PHUM RS SUBJECT: SUSPECTS ARRESTED IN POLITKOVSKAYA CASE REF: A. MOSCOW 02361 ¶B. MOSCOW 01933 ¶C. MOSCOW 01477 Classified By: Political Counselor Alice Wells for reasons 1.4(b) and ( d) ¶1. (C) Summary: On August 27, Prosecutor General Yuriy Chayka announced that ten people had been arrested for participation in the October 2006 murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya. Chayka alleged that the murder was committed by an organized crime group, and claimed that a known but unnamed person outside of Russia had ordered the murder to "discredit the leaders of the Russian state and to provoke external pressure on Russia." Chayka also implied that the murder may have been connected to other high profile murders such as journalist Paul Klebnikov's. Prominent press coverage contains widespread speculation about the validity of charges, the identity of the person who commissioned the murder, and the motive. Many, including Politkovskaya's newspaper and family, have been pleased with the professionalism of the investigation, while casting doubt on efforts to implicate a foreign hand in the commissioning of the murder. Absent a thorough review of the court documents and evidence, none of which are yet available, we are unable to assess the validity of the charges, but believe that progress has been made in one of Russia's most sensational crimes. End Summary. The Arrests - What We Know -------------- ¶2. (C) Politkovskaya was murdered on October 7, 2006, near her apartment in Moscow. On August 27, Chayka publicly stated the following: - Ten people have been arrested for participation in Politkovskaya's murder; - Formal charges against the ten will be presented soon; - The murder was planned in a thorough manner and included two "surveillance groups" whose activity was coordinated by the leader of a Moscow crime group of Chechen ethnicity; - The Chechen who coordinated the murder has been living in Moscow, is involved in criminal business, specializes in arranging contract murders and is not connected with the current situation in Chechnya or its governing structures; - The group responsible for the murder includes former and current members of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) and a member of the Federal Security Service (FSB) who surveilled Politkovskaya and provided information about her movements to the killers; - The motive was to "discredit the leaders of the Russian state and to provoke external pressure on Russia" - The same criminal group committed a series of other murders with the same goal; - The person who commissioned the murder lives outside of Russia, was acquainted with Politkovskaya and met with her on more than one occasion. Chayka did not provide the names of those arrested, identify the person who had commissioned the murder or explicitly tie the Politkovskaya murder to the Klebnikov murder or any other specific murder. ¶3. (U) The investigation has dominated the news in Russia today, with the story leading every major television newscast and appearing above the fold on the front pages of Kommersant, Rossiyskaya Gazeta, Komsomolskaya Pravda, the Moscow Times and others. Reports relying on unnamed sources from the General Procuracy and defense lawyers identified eleven suspects, of whom at least ten have been arrested: - Aleksey Berkin - Magomed Dimelkhanov - Dmitriy Lebedev - Akhmed Isaev - Tamerlan Makhmudov - Sergey Khadzhikurbanov - Dzhabrail Makhmudov - Dmitriy Grachev - Ibragim Makhmudov - Pavel Ryaguzov - Oleg Alimov The newspaper "Your Day," reported the three Makhmudovs are brothers of Chechen ethnicity, that two are suspected of carrying out the murder and the third is suspected of organizing it. Some press reports have identified Ryaguzov as the FSB officer. 4.(C) The press has also been rife with speculation about who commissioned the murder. Relying on Chayka's statement that the person who commissioned the murder lives overseas and the possible link to the Klebnikov murder, many accounts have identified Boris Berezovskiy and Khozh Akhmed Nukhayev as likely candidates. (Note: Berezovskiy and Nukhayev were both the subjects of unflattering books by Klebnikov. In 2005, the General Procuracy charged Nukhayev with commissioning Klebnikov's murder as revenge for the book. However, because of his fugitive status, he has never been brought to justice and none of the evidence against him has been publicly disclosed. In April, a representative of the General Procuracy told us that the Procuracy has information that Nukhayev is located in Azerbaijan and is working to extradite him to Russia. (REF B) End Note.) Public Reaction -------------- ¶5. (C) Reaction to the investigation has been largely positive, although most observers discount or withhold judgment on the GOR's implication that the murder was ordered by persons outside Russia. Aleksey Simonov, President of the Glasnost Defense Fund, expressed satisfaction at what he called a "professional, thorough, and discrete investigation." "This is the first serious professional investigation of a journalist's murder," he told us. The accused "seem to be the mechanism that was used to kill Politkovskaya," he said, "but the conclusions that Russian officials have made about who ordered the killing are at best unfounded, and most likely false." Politkovskaya's family issued a brief statement that while not questioning the results of the investigation, raised concerns that the premature release of information could jeopardize bringing some suspects to justice. ¶6. (C) In a brief August 28 conversation, Novaya Gazeta (Politkovskaya's newspaper) Deputy Chief Editor Andrey Lipskiy told us that the paper's staff was surprised by Chayka's announcement, which he speculated could have been designed to steer the investigation "where some in the Kremlin would like it to go." Lipskiy said that the NG staff had been pleased with the professionalism of the investigation to date, and had refrained from publishing information they had independently developed in order not to compromise the investigators' work. Lipskiy was not surprised by some of the suspects named subsequent to Chayka's announcement, but he suggested that the evidence to date, at least the evidence developed by the newspaper, does not point to a foreign connection. ¶7. (C) Chief Editor Sergey Sokolov, Novaya Gazeta's liaison with the GOR law enforcement organs on the Politkovskaya case, told us separately August 28 that his conversations with the General Procuracy in the wake of Chayka's announcement had suggested that at least some of those responsible for the investigation had perhaps come under pressure to bring the case to closure, which had prompted the "premature" announcement by Chayka. Sokolov suggested that the announcement might also be traced to competition within the General Procuracy in advance of an Office re-shuffle that he predicted would occur in early September. Conversations with law enforcement contacts had convinced Sokolov that Chayka's announcement had not, in the end, pre-judged the outcome of the investigation. He pointed to an August 28 article on the case published by the official news service RIA Novosti as evidence that at least some of those responsible for the investigation were attempting to put the lid back on. The RIA Novosti piece urged that the media exercise restraint in reporting on developments in the investigation, a request which, in Sokolov's reading, seemed to be at odds with Chayka's sensational announcement. Klebnikov Connection? -------------- ¶8. (C) On August 27 and 28, Embassy Resident Legal Adviser (RLA) discussed the Politkovskaya arrests with Klebnikov family lawyer, Larissa Maslennikova. Maslennikova stated that she had spoken to Igor Myasnikov, a senior investigator in the General Procuracy with responsibility for both the Klebnikov and Politkovskaya cases. Myasnikov refused to provide her additional information about the Politkovskaya arrests, but did not deny a possible link between the two cases. Maslennikova cautioned that without an opportunity to review the evidence in the Politkovskaya case, it is impossible to draw any conclusions about the validity of the charges or a possible connection to the Klebnikov case. She also noted that Procuracy investigators had previously told her several months ago that they had evidence indicating that the Klebnikov murder had been arranged by a Moscow "dispatcher" who specialized in taking orders for contract murders and then farming these jobs out to different hit teams (REF A). She speculated that this might be the connection between the cases. Next Steps -------------- ¶9. (C) Under Russian law, the General Procuracy must formally charge those arrested within 5 to 15 days, depending on the circumstances under which they were arrested. Due to the dearth of available information about the circumstances of the arrests, it is impossible to know exactly when the charges will be presented. Typically, after the presentation of initial charges, the investigation continues for a period not exceeding 18 months. Upon completion of the investigation, the investigator presents the complete case file to the defendants, their counsel, the victim and victim's counsel for review. After the review is completed, the investigator drafts a final indictment and the case file is sent to court for trial. Comment -------------- ¶10. (C) Absent a thorough review of the evidence and meetings with the investigators, we are unable to draw conclusions about the validity of the charges, but the evidence suggests that real progress has been made. It is also important to remember that a possible link to the Klebnikov murder (or to other recent high profile murders) does not necessarily mean that the same person ordered the murders. Rather, as Maslennikova suggested, the link, if there is one, is likely at the level of the "dispatcher," or other middlemen. The extensive publicity that this case is generating nearly a year after her murder is remarkable and demonstrates the high level of public and government interest in the case. Burns