"In Russia you can kill objectionable"

The son of Anna Politkovskaya Ilya - about who and why it is profitable to hide the name of the customer of the murder of his mother

In 2016, it will turn ten years since the murder of the Observer of the Novaya Gazeta, Anna Politkovskaya. During this time, the organizers were found and condemned and, as the investigation claims, the performers of this crime. The customer of the murder of a journalist, known for his loud investigations and a critical position in relation to the activities of Vladimir Putin and his subordinates, has not yet been found. Anna Politkovskaya, Ilya, told in an interview with Radio Liberty about who and why it is profitable to hide the name of the customer of the murder of his mother .

- How is a person who has been working in the field of PR (Ilya Politkovsky has been professionally engaged in public relations for many years. - RS), did you have the impression that for almost 10 years without Anna Stepanovna, her name turned into a certain brand, which is used in his own interests, opponents in disputes, journalists, her former colleagues?

- It seems to me, on the contrary, the name of my mother is less often and less used. First of all, due to the fact that 10 years have passed. But many still did not erase it from memory. Opposition media, opposition politicians - yes, remember. Her colleagues recall the nearest, "New Gazeta", of course, but already much less often than in the first three years. And if you take the state media, they, both of them, were distinguished by my mother, and continue to observe it.

- Has your family life has changed a lot over the years?

- No. Just all of us, first of all, I and my sister have some responsibilities that had not been before. I mean participating in investigative events and courts, which takes a huge amount of time, just incredible! Especially the courts, because we are sitting there from beginning to end. And communication with journalists also takes time, but we rejoice that the interest of journalists remains.

- Looking back at everything that happened during these years of investigation and trial, how can you evaluate your relationship with Russian justice and law enforcement system?

They are completely unprofitable for them, whoever is the customer, look for him

-A good question ... My interviews 7 years ago are very different from my statements and family statements over the past two years. At first, we believed and saw that the investigation was investigating the case. With certain flaws, mistakes, but is engaged. Years passed, and we understood, especially after studying all the materials of the case, which were in the previous courts, that this active activity was directed only against the lower participants of the crime. In the direction of the customers, there were certain steps of the investigation group, but they, as I understand it, did not want to conduct a serious investigation about customers. As in many cases with the political color that were during the time. Here you are, please, performers, here's the average level of the organizers, but what is higher - everything, we cannot find anything. Only different hints that maybe something will happen someday. As a result, not so long ago, three months ago, we learned by chance from the media that our investigator resigned in connection with the retirement age, that he was alone in the investigative group, the case was transferred to another investigator, and now one person, an investigator with whom we are not familiar, continues to do such a voluminous business. It turns out that they are completely unprofitable for them, whoever the customer is, to look for him and voice him in the current political regime.

- Why?

- I think there are many different factors here, and the first is that the mother was and remains a kind of enemy of the regime. That is, in the heads of the ruling elite, mother has always been an enemy, opponent, and why investigate what few people care? According to my information, remote rumors, let’s say, upstairs, in the board of our country, are aware of who is the customer, but for some reason the investigation does not go, and they are not divided by this with the official investigative group.

- How do you explain such an unwillingness to put an end to the case, find the customer?

-He most likely belongs to some clan, which are many in Russia, and this information is a bargaining coin. Everyone knows that many leaders of our country gather a dossier, incriminating evidence that is never used or used when it is necessary. I assume that those who know the name of the customer of the murder of the mother, this simply adheres to a convenient moment in the future. This is only a sensation. I have no confirmation of what I just said.

- And how do you evaluate the version, which several years ago sounded from the TV screens, that the customer of the murder of Anna Politkovskaya was Berezovsky, who in this way wanted to destabilize the situation in Russia?

- Homeric laughter. I read the case materials and saw how they tried to tie this version to our business, but it was such white threads ... they themselves did not push this version further, because there wasn’t that there was no evidence, but even nothing could be blinded! Berezovsky was accused of many crimes, such a "beating boy." They tried to extradite him all the time from England, including trying to do this through us. But as soon as they stated about Berezovsky, we distributed a message that we were familiar with the case file and this is complete nonsense. In other words, it is impossible to call it.

- In 2007, Alexander Litvinenko directly called the killer of Anna Politkovskaya Vladimir Putin. Then Litvinenko himself was poisoned. In those interviews in 2007-2008, you told reporters that you have some irritation of journalists to put these killings in one row. Your opinion has changed since then, are you inclined to bind the murders of Anna Stepanovna and Alexander Litvinenko?

- Yes, I connect them, but not as a chain of events with one customer or criminally bound. I associate them with the fact that for more than 10 years an atmosphere has been created in Russia when it is possible to kill objectionable. After all, "nothing bad" happens. They kill people who are certain enemies of the authorities, the splinter, and those who initiate these crimes clearly understand that they are cleaning a person who, in principle, does not really like the current government, and therefore will not take seriously to look for customers.

- In October of this year, it will be 10 years since the murder of your mother. In February, the anniversary of the murder of Boris Nemtsov. Many drawed direct analogies between these two murders.

- When we analyzed what everyone knew about Boris Nemtsov, we were horrified by the number of coincidences between these two murders. A huge number of factors, it feels like everything is done as a carbon copy, and this terrifies. I am talking now more about implementation. And yet. This murder is considered to be egregious only in a certain kind of media, for example, on such a radio station as yours, or in Novaya Gazeta. State media is extremely formally reported. In this sense, nothing has changed over 10 years, the authorities want most of the population to be presented in this way: everything is fine with us, in the country they happen, yes, such killings, but do not pay attention to them, and let's go together to a bright future. I can’t even imagine how it is possible - to go to such a deal with a conscience in order to receive money for work, the result of which is the zombie of the population that watches the TV.

- 10 years have passed, people have already been convicted, whom the investigation calls the performers and organizers of the murder of your mother, but it is still unknown who is the customer. Do you have any more hopes for Russian justice? Or will you already wait for the European Court of Human Rights to say that your complaint about an ineffective investigation last year?

- Of course, I have hope. With all the negative that I told you about, I am grateful to the Russian justice for those several people who were convicted, but this is a small part and not so important for me. Everything breaks off at the moment incredibly important for our family - one of the organizers and customers. On the one hand, I really believe and want the Russian justice system to somehow rehabilitate itself, but I understand that in the current regime, in the current situation, no one will do this. I do not believe that ours will be executed direct instructions of the ECHR, given the last signed law that in Russia they are not obliged to comply with European decisions. I just believe that at some point the environment, the regime will become such that more people will begin to engage in my investigation and the investigation will be more effective than now.

- In 2008, the documentary of Eric Berkraut "Letter to Anna" was released ...

- Yes, a wonderful film!

- Literally in the first minutes of this film, Anna Stepanovna is shown, who, answering the journalist’s question, says that she perceives as a miracle that is still alive. The interview was recorded with her in 2004. Did you feel that something threatens your mother in 15-10 years ago?

- Yes, I felt that this could happen. And more than once he discussed it with her. Because it was clear to me that what she was doing was not talking about the “enemy of the regime”, but about specific investigations that this could lead to physical reprisal. I clearly understood this and discussed with it.

“ And what did she tell you for this?”

-Firstly, "who, if not me." It was one of her important and favorite answers about this. Another is the people who came to her after all possible instances and departments, and they had no one who could help them, and she remained the last person. And, conducting her journalistic investigations , she reached certain important people in Russia, high -ranking. I always respected what my mother was doing, but she was always primarily for me by a mother, and not a journalist or some fighter who risks his life. I lost my mother, not a journalist, not a public figure, not a human rights activist. That is why I did not want her, it was my mother who was engaged in all these things. We have published a book "For what?" After my mother’s death, this is a collection of mother’s articles, each of which could be the reason for her murder, from our point of view. My New Gazeta and I chose not just its most interesting publications, but the most powerful, which may be the reason for what happened to it.

- I will allow myself a small quote from this book. In one of the articles collected in it, Anna Politkovskaya writes : “Meanwhile, the country has suffered again. There is a new militarist fumes: the Irony of fate was all last week, while the“ maternal claims ”were going on, the society was unanimously clapping that our soldiers were sent to the Serbian-Kosovsky war, it was happy that the Minister of Internal Affairs issued an order to apply Preventive missile strikes on Chechnya and a stop at one - “moral right” to apply them ... who remembers the autumn of 1994 - he has already passed all this ... no, we don’t like the Scythians, we just do not feed with bread - throw food for corrupted brains - new coffins, fresh graves, and infinite courts, old debts. ” Anna Politkovskaya wrote this in July 1999. She was a seer, knew that nothing would change in the country?

-No , she really wanted something to change in the country, and believed that it was possible. But I see that now the same thing happens: the same coffins, the same corpses, shots, war ... We need to always fight against someone. Unfortunately, the Russian people are such that they like this, and not peaceful existence and development.

- Anna Stepanovna, by the way, was a Ukrainian, and your relatives live in Ukraine. How would she appreciate and how do you evaluate what is happening now in the relationship between Russia and Ukraine?

If my mother were alive, she would be in the east of Ukraine, one hundred percent!

- If my mother were alive, she would be in the east of Ukraine, one hundred percent! There would be no options here, it would definitely be in the east of Ukraine during the hostilities that took place there. We often discuss this. My opinion is that what is happening there is, of course, horror! We continue to move back, becoming more and more becoming barbarians, without engaged in the development of science and so on. When I watch news from European countries or America, where missile carriers are already returning back, new iPhones are presented, and we have a Stalin Museum, I get scared. I do not know why you need to spend so many money on the war. I recently read that the next budget we have is a overnight so that almost 40 percent of Russia's budget is defense. It's horrible!

-Has your attitude to the position changed, some opinions of Anna Stepanovna, which you had not shared before?

- Of course, 10 years ago I believed that, by virtue of her character, my mother will a little exaggerating about the options for Russia's development further, everything is not so bad. But now, when I think about what is happening around, I think my mother could not even imagine that it would be so scary and terrible. I mean a lot of different things: adopted laws, and hatred of America, Europe and so on ... Every year it becomes worse, but my mother, I think, did not even assume that we would go into such an abyss of dictatorial state.

- In the film “Letter of Anna”, one of the former colleagues of Anna Stepanovna, journalist Vyacheslav Izmailov, says that if all journalists wrote about the same thing that Anna Politkovskaya would not have killed her.

Mom, I think, did not even assume that we would leave for such an abyss of dictatorial state

- Yes. Because such as mom could be counted on the fingers. There were only a few journalists, human rights activists who were engaged in this, they knew them all. And those who made a decision on liquidation understood that it was not so difficult for them to resist, because there are not many of them. And if there were many, many investigators, they would have to find a common language with them, communicate and communicate. And we are doing everything so that journalists are afraid to engage in investigations. And I heard, now even at the journalism faculty of Moscow State University they are preparing more propagandists than journalists, dissuading from the very beginning to do what my mother did.

- Many nevertheless they say that what Anna Politkovskaya was doing, it can not be called journalism in its pure form. This is human rights, writing, journalism. Do you agree with such assessments?

- Yes, I agree. But my mother categorically disagree when she was called a writer or human rights activist. Categorically! She considered herself only a journalist. She said: "You call me a writer, but I believe that I have neither a gift nor the skill for writing. There is no writer to call me any writer!"

- I know that in these 10 years a new member of the family appeared - the granddaughter, whom Anna Stepanovna was very waiting for and who was named in her honor. Ana will turn 9 years old this year. What does your niece know about her grandmother?

- She knows, of course, in honor of whom she was named, she knows that her grandmothers are not, but that she was a journalist and died for her professional activity - she does not yet know this, due to her age she is not dedicated to details. The moment will come, Vera and I , Ilya’s sister, daughter of Anna Politkovskaya. - RS) discussed this, and Vera will tell her everything in great detail.