Вил Мирзаянов - State Secrets - An Insider's Chronicle of the Russian Chemical Weapons Program

Then I also realized that I would have to pass the night in the police department, in some stinking, filthy and overcrowded cage, without food or drinking water. This is why I immediately exclaimed, “Guys! They will expose you and everybody will ask you how legal your actions were. Besides, I doubt you are the ones you pretend to be. Why don’t you have written instructions from your boss?” A shadow of doubt immediately crept into the ruddy, round and mustachioed face of the OMON officer. He went to the telephone in the kitchen, called his boss, and explained our arguments. He also added that I had demanded written orders from the head of the police department. Probably the boss had also started doubting his actions and backed off. The OMON officer nodded to his cohort, “Let’s go!” I got a reprieve to think about the situation that was developing. I realized that I would be arrested in any case. However, I had promised to go to the press conference and I didn’t have the heart to ruin it. I decided to leave the house immediately and go see my lawyer. Everything would become clear after that. Sergei Mostovshchikov colorfully described this in the January 26, 1994 evening edition of the newspaper Izvestia . According to Sergei, the police came to my apartment at 6.15 A.M. and at 8 A.M. the next day, but failed to find me at home. [301] Sergei Mostovshchikov, “Mirzayanov is Arrested”, Izvestia , January 26, 1994.

So I went to the legal advice office at 6 P.M., but Asnis wasn’t there. His secretary asked me to wait. Finally, my lawyer came back at about 7 P.M. and told me the news. First, the court was literally shocked by my decision. Second, Asnis had met with Aleksei Kazannik, the Attorney General, who had warned my lawyer that a meeting of the Attorney General with the defense counselor during the trial was extraordinary. This is why Alexander Asnis asked me to tell no one about this meeting. I kept my word about it for many years. Asnis said that he saw my case on the Attorney General’s desk. Kazannik was concerned about my case, which he hadn’t yet read. He promised to read it quickly in order to be able to say something specific about it.

When Asnis was leaving Kazannik’s office, he saw Prosecutor Pankratov, who in his opinion wasn’t there by chance. All of that was reassuring, but there was nothing specific there to encourage me. I made up my mind to be firm and consistent with my decision. I had to act in such a way so as not to disgrace myself, but to intensify pressure on the powers that be of this world, in order to have my case thrown out. Asnis asked me to reconsider and think everything over again. However, I had made my decision and I wasn’t going to deviate from my course. We agreed to meet at the press conference, if I hadn’t yet been arrested by that time.

Then I called my daughter Elena from the law office, and said that I would go to her place, which was on Leninski Prospect, and spend the night in her apartment. Just in case, I gave her phone number to my lawyer, so that he could give it to any interested journalists and other people I knew well. Of course I knew that the office telephone was tapped by the Chekists, but I was sure that they would cooperate with the local police only in exceptional cases – for instance in an escape attempt or something like that.

Early the next morning reporters started calling and asking for interviews, and soon some of them showed up at my daughter’s apartment. The American journalist Kathleen Hunt asked how I was feeling before being arrested. I said that it reminded me of the wait before a surgical procedure.

I went to Khlebny Pereulok with my son-in-law, businessman Oleg Orlov and his two sturdy associates. We had to be very vigilant about possible provocations in that situation. I arrived an hour before the appointed time and met Asnis. He told me about his trip earlier that day to the court, which had made a decision regarding my behavior. Sergei Mostovshchikov wrote about it in Izvestia . [302] Sergei Mostovshchikov, “Moscow City Court Decided to use the Force of Police Department 139 Against Vil Mirzayanov”, Izvestia , January 27, 1994. According to the journalist, it was clear that significant positive changes had taken place. In particular, when the question of my arrest was discussed, and some felt that I should be brought to the courtroom by force, but Prosecutor Pankratov, who had long ago insisted on this measure, abruptly changed his mind and no longer supported this idea. Referring to the Moscow human rights activist, Andrei Mironov, Mostovshchikov wrote that this metamorphosis in the prosecutor was a result of the fact that Attorney General Aleksei Kazannik had been informed about the trial in detail. The journalist thought that information concerning the dubious quality of the compromising material found by the former Ministry of Security, hadn’t made it through to Kazannik, and had been blocked by his subordinates. It is difficult to say, Sergei Mostovshchikov ironically continued, how one could be ignorant of a case which was reported in all the newspapers of the country. Still, it was so and even the court was in a state of confusion. The next court session was scheduled only for February 3 rd, providing support for Mostovshchikov’s theory. I must add that Nikolai Sazonov, as an experienced judge, reckoned the defendant would become “prudent” after he had spent more than a week in jail.

There were many people at the Russian American Information Press Center for the press conference, and there were no vacant places in the hall. Representatives of various information agencies, radio, and television, as well as numerous newspapers, constantly asked questions and took pictures. Aleksei Simonov presided over the meeting. Everything seemed extremely clear: my closed trial was a challenge to the new Constitution of Russia and a test of the emerging democratic society as well. My lawyer reported that earlier in the day Judge Sazonov had decided to have me arrested for contempt of court, and this made the press conference more dramatic. Asnis also thought it was possible that I could be arrested right at the doors of this building, though I thought that was unlikely, because OMON officers really don’t like having their pictures taken by the press.

I went home after the press conference. I had decided to let them take me from my home. My son-in-law and his lads accompanied me to 4 Stalevarov Street, to the porch of my apartment.

At home, I had a good night’s sleep and was calm the following morning. Nuria was suffering from her usual migraine attack, so I had to content myself with tea instead of breakfast. My elder son Iskander went to school early in the morning, and young Sultan stayed at home. Out of the habit I went to the kiosk, read the newspapers on a bench near our apartment building, and then I came back to the apartment, planning to call some people. As time dragged on, the wait was extremely aggravating, but nobody came to arrest me. I read children’s fairy-tales to Sultan, and then he started drawing his race cars and space ships… Nuria was prostrate with a white kerchief binding up her head.

Around midday, we heard the doorbell ring, and this time everything was routine: an arrest warrant was produced, with an order to prepare for the trip to jail. The policemen didn’t know which jail. They only knew that they had to take me to bedraggled Police Department 139, which had certainly seen better days. It was very close to my apartment block. I was very ashamed in front of Sultan, because he had watched plenty of movies in which various criminals and bandits were arrested. If his father was arrested, there was something wrong. As we say in Russia, they don’t throw people in jail for good deeds. Thanks to television every child knows that, and of course my son was no exception. He watched with horror as finely muscled young men with automatic weapons came to take his father away.