Unhappy with bombing verdict family will sue in Strasbourg

Daughters of a woman killed in the 1999 apartment bombings, Tatyana and Alyona Morozov, accused the Russian government of "premeditated murder" and said they will sue for damages in the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

Tatyana Morozova, 32, has left Russia in 1998 after marrying an American. She lives with her husband and a child in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Alyona, 27, is one of the few survivors of the bombing at Guryanov Street. She is a student at the University of Colorado.

The story of the Morozov family, and their lawyer Mikhail Trepashkin became the subject of a new documentary, Disbelief, (http://www.disbelief-film.com), which will debut as the Russian entry at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival opening on January 15 in Park City, Utah.

We call your attention to the statement of the Morozov sisters released by their attorney, P. Joseph Sandoval.

Statement of Tatyana and Yelena [Alyona] Morozova

Yesterday's conclusion of the bombing trial in Moscow left us with feelings of profound dismay and frustration. We believe that justice has not been served, but the continued cover-up of a heinous crime has reached a new horrific proportion.

We do not reach this conclusion lightly, and we are saying this with a heavy heart, but we must speak out - both for the memory of the dead and for the education of the living, and hopefully some day, for the punishment of the guilty.

We have just received a report from our attorney in Moscow, Andrey Onischenko, who was present at the closed hearing. Even though Mr. Onischenko is bound by a Secrecy Pledge that he was required to sign in order to be allowed in the courtroom, his restricted account, which we believe was not in violation of the Pledge, was sufficient for us to ascertain that:

• not a single classified document or statement that could be construed as sensitive was presented in court, so the only apparent reason for the secrecy was to limit the access of the press and the public;
• not a single piece of evidence linking the accused to the explosions in Moscow was presented: nonetheless they were found guilty of both the Volgodonsk and the Moscow attacks, an absurd finding because they have not even been in Moscow and could not have been at the same time in two places, thousand of miles apart;
• if the respondents (who appeared to lack the literacy and sophistication required to commit such a crime) were indeed low level participants in the Volgodonsk attack - unwitting, as they claimed - then they could lead to the higher-ups, and yet all questions and motions aimed at exploring who actually organized the attack were immediately and untenably suppressed by the court, without meaningful comment;
• not a single motion submitted by ourselves via telegram, and through our lawyers, to review well-known facts pointing to possible involvement of official bodies in the attacks - including the incident in Ryazan, and the apparent prior knowledge about the attack by Duma speaker Gennady Seleznev - was considered or reviewed by the court;
• the court refused to call in as a material witness Mikhail Trepashkin, an associated counsel in this matter , who was arrested on obviously fabricated evidence just one week before the trial.

It is the arrest of Mr. Trepashkin that is most telling about the purpose and the nature of these proceedings. For Mr. Trepashkin, working on our behalf, had uncovered new evidence and witnesses linking the FSB to the bombings, the evidence that the court did not want to hear. The evidence includes but is not limited to the following:

• the space for the bombing at Guryanova St was rented not by Achemes Gochiyayev, the government prime suspect, but by Vladimir Romanovich, an undercover FSB agent;
• the FSB has substituted the initial police mugshot of Mr. Romanovich with the image of Gochiyayev, and pressured witnesses to change their identification;
• Mr. Romanovich was killed by hit and run car some months after the bombing;
• another FSB agent had been arrested by the police in Moscow in the act of buying hexogen, the bombing substance initially linked to the 99 explosions , and that the police have the arrest record and a videotape;
• the FSB suppressed police investigations of illegal transfers of large quantities of hexogen to front companies by the Central Institute of Explosives Research.

It is unfathomable how any judge in any country trying a case would refuse to hear such evidence, which is manifestly relevant to the crime in question.

Presently, Mr. Trepashkin is in government custody and being tried behind closed doors "for disclosing state secrets about the Moscow bombings", which according to the indictment, had been gathered by Mr. Trepashkin "on behalf of the British secret service with the purpose of discrediting the FSB."

This is preposterous! Mr. Trepashkin was not discrediting the FSB. Rather, he was looking for our mother's killers, and he did it not for the British secret service, he did it based upon on our instructions, and in the pursuit of justice!

From all of the above we conclude that we have exhausted all national remedies in obtaining justice or seeking truth, and that no Russian court could serve justice in this case, and that our legal representatives in Russia would put themselves in further personal danger by taking assignments from us related to the bombing, and our quest or justice.

We therefore intend to bring this case to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, where we will shortly file a suit against the Russian Federation for premeditated murder of our mother, Liubov Morozova.

Los Angeles, January 13, 2004