A letter from Rosokhrankultura sent to Kommersant on July 10, 2007.
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Kommersant in Government Oversight Agency's Sights
// Newspaper, Website Suspected of Leaking Litvinenko Investigation Materials
Yesterday the offices of Kommersant publishing house received a letter from Rossvyazokhrankultura, the Russian government's media watchdog, stating that the agency has sent a message to the General Prosecutor's Office requesting an investigation into the circumstances of the publication on the newspaper's website, www.kommersant.ru, of the transcript of an interview conducted by investigators with Ahmed Zakayev regarding the murder of Alexander Litvinenko. Rossvyazokhrankultura believes that the publication of the interview may fall under Article 161 of the Russian Criminal Code
"An interview with Ahmed Zakayev, who has been accused by the Russian General Prosecutor's Office of numerous crimes, was published in the issue of Kommersant-Vlast on July 9 under the headline 'That's How the FSB Worked, and Sasha Was No Exception'," said the letter. "The document in question has a link to the site www.kommersant.ru, where the editors offer their readers a look at the transcript of the questioning of A. Zakayev by investigators from the [Russian] General Prosecutor's Office on March 30, 2007… Rossvyazokhrankultura believes that the publication of this material may fall under the purview of Article 161 of the Russian Criminal Code ('The Impermissibility of Disclosing Information from Preliminary Investigations'), in consequence of which a corresponding enquiry has been sent to the Russian General Prosecutor's Office."
Ahmed Zakayev answered questions posed by representatives of the Russian General Prosecutor's Office in London on March 30, 2007. The questions were asked by Detective Rose of the British Police in the presence of a translator named Mr. Faik and deputy head of the Russian General Prosecutor's Office department of high-profile cases Andrei Maiorov. At the beginning of the interview, which lasted about an hour, it was stated that Ahmed Zakayev was answering questions voluntarily, that he was not under arrest, and that the interview could be ended at any point. The majority of the questions concerned the relationship between Ahmed Zakayev and Alexander Litvinenko and his acquaintances.
Formally, the complaint from Rossvyazokhrankultura concerns only Kommmersant's website, where the text of the questioning of Mr. Zakayev was posted. However, the agency has decided to complain about the newspaper as well for publishing the link to the interview. Kommersant web editor Pavel Chernikov called the tone of Rossvyazokhrankultura's complaint "polite and undemanding": "It is as though the agency has its doubts – in the opinion of officials, the publication [of the material] 'may fall' under the purview of the article from the Criminal Code, meaning that it also might not," he said.
Maxim Kovalsky, the editor-in-chief of the weekly news magazine Kommersant-Vlast, said, "They told us that it doesn't pay to break the law. Thank you for the superfluous reminder." According to Mr. Kovalsky, a look at Article 161 of the Criminal Code led the editors to conclude that only participants in a preliminary investigation are forbidden to divulge investigation materials: "If the investigators made Mr. Zakayev sign an agreement not to disclose anything, and Mr. Zakayev leaked some information, complaints can be made only against him. But it's not likely that they made him sign anything like that."
Kommersant's legal department doubts that Ahmed Zakayev can be considered a participant in a criminal case. "The interview given by Ahmed Zakayev does not accord with the strictures placed on the investigative process by Article 161 of the Criminal Code," said the department. "As far as I understand it, this was not entirely an interrogation, but rather an 'interview' with Zakayev by investigators, since according to a [previous] agreement they were recorded and given to Zakayev," said Mr. Chernikov. He also noted that in May Kommersant's website published the transcript of a similar interview with Boris Berezovsky by Russian and British investigators working on the Litvinenko case. On that occasion, Kommersant received no letters of complaint from Rossvyazokhrankultura.
Attempts to elicit official commentary from the Federal Media Oversight Agency yesterday were unsuccessful, as the agency's head, Boris Boyarskov, was not in Moscow. The person with whom Kommersant spoke at Rossvyazokhrankultura explained that the notification sent to the newspaper's offices "was not an official warning": "It was simply a heads-up, and it carries no legal ramifications for Kommersant." According to the contact at Rossvyazokhrankultura, the agency has no complaints against the publishing house and its publications: "We send bunches of such warnings to the media; in a year we send around 400 such letters," he said. He also said he presumes that the General Prosecutor's Office will pronounce its opinion on the interview with Ahmed Zakayev published in the magazine Kommersant-Vlast and on the transcript published on the website www.kommersant.ru. When asked why the agency had not reacted similarly to the publication of the transcript of the interview with Boris Berezovsky more than a month ago, he could not answer, saying only the interview with Ahmed Zakayev published in the most recent issue of Vlast and featuring a link to the transcript published on the website was "more brash and therefore more noticeable."
Yulia Taratuta and Arina Borodina
All the Article in Russian as of July 11, 2007
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