#3 - JRL 8003
RFR/RL NewLine
January 5, 2004
FIVE YEARS AFTER LIBERAL RUSSIAN DEPUTY'S SLAYING, THE TRIAL BEGINS
By Vladimir Kovalev
Vladimir Kovalev covers local politics for "The St. Petersburg Times" in St. Petersburg, Russia.
Copyright (c) 2003. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. www.rferl.org

After a five-year investigation, the case of the November 1998 murder of liberal State Duma Deputy Galina Starovoitova was finally handed over to a St. Petersburg court at the end of November. The case was expected to be the first in the city to be heard by a jury, and Starovoitova's acolytes say she long dreamt that juries would become the norm in Russia, because she believed this is the best method for reaching fair and unbiased verdicts. But such hopes were dashed on 19 December, when the St. Petersburg Municipal Court ruled that a jury trial "would not be expedient" for such a case. The trial, which began on 5 January, is open to journalists, however.

After investigating the case for five years, the Federal Security Service (FSB) believes that it has identified Starovoitova's murderers and their accomplices. However, it now seems increasingly unlikely that the person or persons who ordered the assassination will ever be known.

In the current trial, six suspects are charged with committing "an act of terrorism or attempt to assassinate a state or public official so that she would cease carrying out her state or other political activities or in revenge for such activity." Such a formulation of the indictment underscores the importance of the Starovoitova case for Russian political history. A study of the case materials provides ample evidence that investigators carried out a serious and thorough investigation, leading to the arrests of the six suspects. However, the failure to identify those ultimately behind the murder continues to raise concern.

For three years now, Ruslan Linkov -- who was Starovoitova's assistant in 1998 and who was severely injured during the attack on her, has claimed that FSB investigators know who ordered her murder. However, he says, they cannot do anything about it because there is no political will to do so at the federal level. Former State Duma Deputy Yulii Rybakov has publicly alleged that the roots of the case are to be found in Vladimir Zhirinovskii's Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR), noting that many of the arrested suspects are LDPR members.

Starovoitova's older sister, Olga Starovoitova, alleged in an interview in November 2002 that Zhirinovskii himself can be connected to the killing, although she retracted the allegation quickly after Zhirinovskii said on Ekho Moskvy that she "should calm down so that she doesn't have any problems in the future."

The suspects now facing trial are Yurii Kolchin, who was a Russian Military Intelligence (GRU) officer at the time of the murder; Igor Lelyavin; Vitalii Akishin; Igor Krasnov; Anatolii Voronin; and Yurii Ionov. All six have been identified as natives of the Bryansk Oblast village of Dyadkovo, according to local media reports. According to Linkov's lawyer, Yurii Shmidt, Krasnov, Voronin, and Ionov have confessed to the charges, but they maintain that they were not aware that they were killing a State Duma deputy. Two other suspects, Sergei Musin and Oleg Fedosov, remain at large.

According to the FSB case, on the night that Starovoitova was killed -- 20 November 1998 -- Kolchin stood outside her apartment building on Griboevdov Canal, waiting for Musin to call from Pulkovo Airport with information that Starovoitova had arrived on a flight from Moscow. After the call came, the alleged killers -- Akishin and Fedosov -- began to get ready. According to the FSB, Fedosov was disguised as a young woman.

The alleged killers then entered the staircase of the building, where they encountered Starovoitova and Linkov. They fired several shots from a Croatian-made Agran-2000 long-barreled handgun, which was left at the scene of the crime. Ionov then allegedly drove them away. Voronin allegedly dumped the killers' clothing into a river. Investigators also allege that Voronin monitored Starovoitova's telephone calls and handed over information from them to those plotting the killing. Investigators have not yet clarified Krasnov's alleged role in the slaying.

On 19 December, the Prosecutor-General's Office filed a request with "a European country" for the extradition of two additional, unidentified suspects who were allegedly involved in planning the murder, Russian media reported on 20 December. One of the two new suspects was described as an "organizer" of the crime, while the other was called a "technical executor." Linkov has also said that a third suspect, whom he described as "a middle man," whose name is known to investigators is being sought. "I have a feeling that [the third suspect] is hiding and blackmailing investigators and the authorities," Linkov said.

If Linkov's speculation is true, it could only mean that this "middle man" is someone with links to federal-level officials. Several years ago, Linkov called for investigators to question then-St. Petersburg Governor Vladimir Yakovlev, who has since been named deputy prime minister, and then-State Duma Speaker Gennadii Seleznev. Both men, Linkov said, were the subjects of corruption cases that Starovoitova was investigating at the time of her murder.

However, the fact that the influence of these two figures has fallen significantly in the last couple of years would seem to indicate that neither is the one the so-called middle man might be blackmailing. Despite being five years old, the Starovoitova case clearly still has the power to shake up the Russian political scene, if only on the level of rumor and speculation.