Mikhail Trepashkin
Encyclopedia
Mikhail Ivanovich Trepashkin, (7 April 1957 – ) is a Moscow
attorney
and former FSB
colonel who was invited by MP Sergei Kovalev
to assist in an independent inquiry of the Russian apartment bombings
in September 1999 – the atrocities that followed Dagestan war
and were one of the triggers for the Second Chechen War
.
in 1984 as an investigator of underground trade in stolen art. At the beginning of 1990s Trepashkin moved to Internal Affairs department of FSB
where he worked for Nikolai Patrushev. He investigated connections of FSB officers with criminal groups. He won a medal for intercepting a plane-load of weapons sold by FSB officers to Chechen rebels.
In 1995, Trepashkin got involved in the Bank Soldi affair. The situation is described by Scott Anderson in his 2009 GQ article. Trepashkin was working on an FSB sting operation
against a bank extortion ring linked to Salman Raduyev
, a Chechen rebel who was then fighting against Russia in the First Chechen War
. The sting resulted in a raid on a Bank Soldi branch in Moscow in Dec 1995. Trepashkin claims that the raid uncovered bugging devices used by the extortionists, whose serial numbers linked their origin to the FSB or Ministry of Defense. Furthermore, a van outside the bank was monitoring the bugging devices, and in this van was an FSB agent, who Trepashkin claims was working for the criminals. His name was Vladimir Romanovich. However, most of those arrested in the sting were released. Nikolai Patrushev took Trepashkin off the case, and began an investigation of him instead.
In 1997 Trepashkin wrote a letter to Yeltsin attempting to bring light to the case and corruption in the FSB. He resigned from the FSB, sued FSB leadership (he won), and got a job with the tax police.
At a press conference on 17 November 1998 Alexander Litvinenko
, Victor Shebalin and few other members of FSB claimed to have received an order to kill Boris Berezovsky and Mikhail Trepashkin. The group members claimed that the order came from an FSB department called URPO, the Division of Operations against Criminal Organizations.
to assist in an independent inquiry of the Russian apartment bombings
. Two sisters whose mother was killed in one of the houses hired Trepashkin to represent them in the trial of two Russian Muslims
accused of transporting explosives for the bombings.
While preparing for the trial Trepashkin claims he uncovered a trail of a suspect whose description had disappeared from the files. He claimed that the man turned out to be an FSB member named Vladimir Romanovich, the same man he claimed had been working for criminals in the Moscow Bank Soldi raid of 1995. Trepashkin said that a witness identified only the first of the 2 composite images distributed by the official investigation. This implied that the official investigation doctored the composite image to hide the perpetrators from the FSB. But Trepashkin never managed to air his findings in court. On October 22, 2003, just a week before the hearings, Trepashkin was arrested for illegal arms possession. He was convicted by a closed military court to four years for illegal arms possession, for revealing state secrets and for abuse of the office. An appeal court later overturned the arms possession charge, but the other sentence remained. In September 2005 after serving two years of his sentence, Trepashkin was released on parole, but two weeks later was re-arrested after the State appealed the parole decision.
Trepashkin investigated a letter attributed to Achemez Gochiyayev and found that the alleged Gochiyayev's assistant who arranged the delivery of sacks might have been vice-president of Kapstroi-2000 Kormishin, originally from Vyazma
.
Mikhail Trepashkin suffered from asthma
with bronchial attacks on a daily basis, itching dermatosis and pain in the area of his heart
, and he needed medical treatment. However, he told Amnesty International
that he was denied medical treatment, held in a freezing punishment cell, and transported with imprisoned tuberculosis
patients who "were coughing right into your face because they were unable to either cover their mouths or turn away."
On November 30, 2007 Mikhail Trepashkin was freed with the expiration of his four-year prison term.
, mentioned by the US State Department and featured in an award-winning documentary Disbelief. The documentary was funded by anti-Kremlin oligarch Boris Berezovsky.
American war correspondent
Scott Anderson
wrote a story about his interviews with Trepashkin for the September 2009 issue of the GQ magazine. However, according to NPR
's David Folkenflik
, Conde Nast
management gave orders to limit circulation of the story. These included banning the story off of GQ's website, not showing the US issue to "Russian government officials, journalists or advertisers", not publishing the story in any overseas Conde Nast magazines, not publicizing the story, and asking Anderson to not syndicate it 'to any publications that appear in Russia'.
. He also claimed that FSB had plans to kill relatives of Litvinenko in Moscow in 2002, although these have not been carried out.
Trepashkin claimed that supervisors and people from the FSB promised not to send him to the prison if only he leaves the Sergei Kovalev
commission and start working with the FSB "against Litvinenko"
In 2008-10 Trepashkin defended Yulia Privedennaya, leader of the organization "F.A.K.E.L.-P.O.R.T.O.S.", whom the authorities accused of creating an illegal armed formation and then decided to put in hospital for mental examination.,
In March 2010 Trepashkin signed the online anti-Putin manifesto of the Russian opposition "Putin must go
".
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
attorney
Lawyer
A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...
and former FSB
FSB (Russia)
The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation is the main domestic security agency of the Russian Federation and the main successor agency of the Soviet Committee of State Security . Its main responsibilities are counter-intelligence, internal and border security, counter-terrorism, and...
colonel who was invited by MP Sergei Kovalev
Sergei Kovalev
Sergei Kovalev is a Russian human rights activist and politician and a former Soviet dissident and political prisoner.- Early career and arrest :...
to assist in an independent inquiry of the Russian apartment bombings
Russian apartment bombings
The Russian apartment bombings were a series of explosions that hit four apartment blocks in the Russian cities of Buynaksk, Moscow, and Volgodonsk in September 1999, killing 293 people and injuring 651. The explosions occurred in Buynaksk on 4 September, Moscow on 9 and 13 September, and...
in September 1999 – the atrocities that followed Dagestan war
Dagestan War
The invasion of Dagestan, also known as the War in Dagestan and Dagestan War, began on August 7, 1999, when the Chechnya-based Islamic International Brigade , an Islamist militia led by warlords Shamil Basayev and Ibn al-Khattab, invaded the neighbouring Russian republic of Dagestan in support of...
and were one of the triggers for the Second Chechen War
Second Chechen War
The Second Chechen War, in a later phase better known as the War in the North Caucasus, was launched by the Russian Federation starting 26 August 1999, in response to the Invasion of Dagestan by the Islamic International Peacekeeping Brigade ....
.
Career in FSB
Mikhail Trepashkin started working in KGBKGB
The KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...
in 1984 as an investigator of underground trade in stolen art. At the beginning of 1990s Trepashkin moved to Internal Affairs department of FSB
FSB (Russia)
The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation is the main domestic security agency of the Russian Federation and the main successor agency of the Soviet Committee of State Security . Its main responsibilities are counter-intelligence, internal and border security, counter-terrorism, and...
where he worked for Nikolai Patrushev. He investigated connections of FSB officers with criminal groups. He won a medal for intercepting a plane-load of weapons sold by FSB officers to Chechen rebels.
In 1995, Trepashkin got involved in the Bank Soldi affair. The situation is described by Scott Anderson in his 2009 GQ article. Trepashkin was working on an FSB sting operation
Sting operation
In law enforcement, a sting operation is a deceptive operation designed to catch a person committing a crime. A typical sting will have a law-enforcement officer or cooperative member of the public play a role as criminal partner or potential victim and go along with a suspect's actions to gather...
against a bank extortion ring linked to Salman Raduyev
Salman Raduyev
Salman Raduyev was a Chechen separatist warlord considered to be one of the most radical and notorious Chechen rebel commanders of the period between 1994 and 1999...
, a Chechen rebel who was then fighting against Russia in the First Chechen War
First Chechen War
The First Chechen War, also known as the War in Chechnya, was a conflict between the Russian Federation and the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, fought from December 1994 to August 1996...
. The sting resulted in a raid on a Bank Soldi branch in Moscow in Dec 1995. Trepashkin claims that the raid uncovered bugging devices used by the extortionists, whose serial numbers linked their origin to the FSB or Ministry of Defense. Furthermore, a van outside the bank was monitoring the bugging devices, and in this van was an FSB agent, who Trepashkin claims was working for the criminals. His name was Vladimir Romanovich. However, most of those arrested in the sting were released. Nikolai Patrushev took Trepashkin off the case, and began an investigation of him instead.
In 1997 Trepashkin wrote a letter to Yeltsin attempting to bring light to the case and corruption in the FSB. He resigned from the FSB, sued FSB leadership (he won), and got a job with the tax police.
At a press conference on 17 November 1998 Alexander Litvinenko
Alexander Litvinenko
Alexander Valterovich Litvinenko was an officer who served in the Soviet KGB and its Russian successor, the Federal Security Service ....
, Victor Shebalin and few other members of FSB claimed to have received an order to kill Boris Berezovsky and Mikhail Trepashkin. The group members claimed that the order came from an FSB department called URPO, the Division of Operations against Criminal Organizations.
Investigation of Russian apartment bombings and imprisonment
Mikhail Trepashkin was invited by MP Sergei KovalevSergei Kovalev
Sergei Kovalev is a Russian human rights activist and politician and a former Soviet dissident and political prisoner.- Early career and arrest :...
to assist in an independent inquiry of the Russian apartment bombings
Russian apartment bombings
The Russian apartment bombings were a series of explosions that hit four apartment blocks in the Russian cities of Buynaksk, Moscow, and Volgodonsk in September 1999, killing 293 people and injuring 651. The explosions occurred in Buynaksk on 4 September, Moscow on 9 and 13 September, and...
. Two sisters whose mother was killed in one of the houses hired Trepashkin to represent them in the trial of two Russian Muslims
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
accused of transporting explosives for the bombings.
While preparing for the trial Trepashkin claims he uncovered a trail of a suspect whose description had disappeared from the files. He claimed that the man turned out to be an FSB member named Vladimir Romanovich, the same man he claimed had been working for criminals in the Moscow Bank Soldi raid of 1995. Trepashkin said that a witness identified only the first of the 2 composite images distributed by the official investigation. This implied that the official investigation doctored the composite image to hide the perpetrators from the FSB. But Trepashkin never managed to air his findings in court. On October 22, 2003, just a week before the hearings, Trepashkin was arrested for illegal arms possession. He was convicted by a closed military court to four years for illegal arms possession, for revealing state secrets and for abuse of the office. An appeal court later overturned the arms possession charge, but the other sentence remained. In September 2005 after serving two years of his sentence, Trepashkin was released on parole, but two weeks later was re-arrested after the State appealed the parole decision.
Trepashkin investigated a letter attributed to Achemez Gochiyayev and found that the alleged Gochiyayev's assistant who arranged the delivery of sacks might have been vice-president of Kapstroi-2000 Kormishin, originally from Vyazma
Vyazma
Vyazma is a town and the administrative center of Vyazemsky District of Smolensk Oblast, Russia, located on the Vyazma River, about halfway between Smolensk and Mozhaysk. Throughout its turbulent history, the city defended western approaches to the city of Moscow...
.
Mikhail Trepashkin suffered from asthma
Asthma
Asthma is the common chronic inflammatory disease of the airways characterized by variable and recurring symptoms, reversible airflow obstruction, and bronchospasm. Symptoms include wheezing, coughing, chest tightness, and shortness of breath...
with bronchial attacks on a daily basis, itching dermatosis and pain in the area of his heart
Heart
The heart is a myogenic muscular organ found in all animals with a circulatory system , that is responsible for pumping blood throughout the blood vessels by repeated, rhythmic contractions...
, and he needed medical treatment. However, he told Amnesty International
Amnesty International
Amnesty International is an international non-governmental organisation whose stated mission is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."Following a publication of Peter Benenson's...
that he was denied medical treatment, held in a freezing punishment cell, and transported with imprisoned tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
patients who "were coughing right into your face because they were unable to either cover their mouths or turn away."
On November 30, 2007 Mikhail Trepashkin was freed with the expiration of his four-year prison term.
Western press coverage
The case of Mikhail Trepashkin caught the attention of the Western press, caused an uproar among human rights campaigners, was put on record by Amnesty InternationalAmnesty International
Amnesty International is an international non-governmental organisation whose stated mission is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."Following a publication of Peter Benenson's...
, mentioned by the US State Department and featured in an award-winning documentary Disbelief. The documentary was funded by anti-Kremlin oligarch Boris Berezovsky.
American war correspondent
War correspondent
A war correspondent is a journalist who covers stories firsthand from a war zone. In the 19th century they were also called Special Correspondents.-Methods:...
Scott Anderson
Scott Anderson (novelist)
Scott Anderson is an American novelist, journalist and a veteran war correspondent. He wrote novels Triage, Moonlight Hotel, The Man Who tried to Save the World, and War Zones...
wrote a story about his interviews with Trepashkin for the September 2009 issue of the GQ magazine. However, according to NPR
NPR
NPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...
's David Folkenflik
David Folkenflik
David Folkenflik is an American reporter based in New York City and serving as media correspondent for National Public Radio. His work primarily appears on the NPR news programs Morning Edition and All Things Considered. He also appears regularly on the "Media Circus" segment on Talk of the...
, Conde Nast
Condé Nast Publications
Condé Nast, a division of Advance Publications, is a magazine publisher. In the U.S., it produces 18 consumer magazines, including Architectural Digest, Bon Appétit, GQ, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and Vogue, as well as four business-to-business publications, 27 websites, and more than 50 apps...
management gave orders to limit circulation of the story. These included banning the story off of GQ's website, not showing the US issue to "Russian government officials, journalists or advertisers", not publishing the story in any overseas Conde Nast magazines, not publicizing the story, and asking Anderson to not syndicate it 'to any publications that appear in Russia'.
Involvement in Alexander Litvinenko affair
In a letter from prison Trepashkin alleged that in 2002 FSB decided to kill Alexander LitvinenkoAlexander Litvinenko
Alexander Valterovich Litvinenko was an officer who served in the Soviet KGB and its Russian successor, the Federal Security Service ....
. He also claimed that FSB had plans to kill relatives of Litvinenko in Moscow in 2002, although these have not been carried out.
Trepashkin claimed that supervisors and people from the FSB promised not to send him to the prison if only he leaves the Sergei Kovalev
Sergei Kovalev
Sergei Kovalev is a Russian human rights activist and politician and a former Soviet dissident and political prisoner.- Early career and arrest :...
commission and start working with the FSB "against Litvinenko"
After the imprisonment
Mikhail Trepashkin continues to his work as a lawyer and participates in human rights activism.In 2008-10 Trepashkin defended Yulia Privedennaya, leader of the organization "F.A.K.E.L.-P.O.R.T.O.S.", whom the authorities accused of creating an illegal armed formation and then decided to put in hospital for mental examination.,
In March 2010 Trepashkin signed the online anti-Putin manifesto of the Russian opposition "Putin must go
Putin must go
"Putin must go" is a website and a public campaign of the same name organised for the collection of signatures under an open letter demanding the resignation of the Prime Minister of Russia Vladimir Putin...
".
Family life
Trepashkin is married for the second time. He has two young children and a son from the first marriage.See also
- Alexander Litvinenko poisoningAlexander Litvinenko poisoningAlexander Litvinenko was a former officer of the Russian Federal Security Service, FSB and KGB, who escaped prosecution in Russia and received political asylum in the United Kingdom...
- "Vladimir Putin's Dark Rise to Power" controversy
External links
- Official website
- Letters of Trepashkin from prison
- Interview with Novaya GazetaNovaya GazetaNovaya Gazeta is a Russian newspaper well known in the country for its critical and investigative coverage of Russian political and social affairs....
youtubeYouTubeYouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
video - Unofficial commentary by Mikhail Trepashkin as Yuliya Privedennaya's lawyer in her case. (Reports in media about Yuliya Privedennaya's case: http://www.novayagazeta.ru/news/296253.html http://grani.ru/Politics/Russia/m.139075.html)