Yuri Shchekochikhin

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
In this name that follows Eastern Slavic naming customs, the patronymic is Petrovich and the family name is Shchekochikhin.
Yuri Shchekochikhin
Юрий Щекочихин
Born9 June 1950
Kirovabad, Azerbaijan SSR, USSR (present-day Ganja, Azerbaijan)
Died3 July 2003 (aged 53)
Moscow, Russia
Cause of deathIllness; radiation poisoning suspected

Yuri Petrovich Shchekochikhin (Russian: Ю́рий Петро́вич Щекочи́хин, IPA:

investigative journalist, writer, and liberal lawmaker in the Russian parliament. Shchekochikhin wrote and campaigned against the influence of organized crime and corruption. His last non-fiction book, Slaves of the KGB, was about people who worked as KGB
informers.

As a journalist for the newspaper

Bank of New York
.

Shchekochikhin died suddenly on 3 July 2003 from a mysterious illness a few days before his scheduled departure to the

radioactive materials and were similar to the symptoms of Nikolai Khokhlov, Roman Tsepov, and Alexander Litvinenko. According to Litvinenko and news reports, the death of Yuri Shchekochikhin was a politically motivated assassination.[2][3]

Early life

Shchekochikhin was born in Kirovabad, Azerbaijan SSR in June 1950 and was of Azerbaijani origin.

Investigative journalism and political career

Shchekochikhin graduated from the Journalism Department of Moscow State University in 1975. He worked as an investigative journalist at Komsomolskaya Pravda (1972–1980) and Literaturnaya Gazeta (1980–1996), and then as a deputy editor of the liberal newspaper Novaya Gazeta (from 1996). Beginning in the 1990s, he published many articles critical of the First and Second Chechen Wars, human rights abuses in the Russian army, state corruption, and other social issues.

In the summer of 1988, Shchekochikhin published an interview with a lieutenant colonel of the militia Aleksander Gurov, in which the existence of organized crime in the Soviet Union was first publicly stated. That brought fame to both Gurov (who became the head of the 6th Agency of the MVD of the USSR which struggled against organized crime) and Shchekochikhin.[4]

Yuri Shchekochikhin began his political career in 1990, when he was elected as a representative to the

UN expert on the problems of organized crime. He was a vocal opponent of the First and Second Chechen Wars
.

Since early 1995, he was an author and host of an investigative journalism program called "Special Team" on ORT, Russian television's first channel (then owned by Boris Berezovsky). In October 1995, the heads of the channel closed the program. According to Shchekochikhin, the reason was an episode called "For Motherland! For Mafia!", which was devoted to the Chechen War and was unleashed, in his opinion, by the "leading banks of Russia".[4]

In 2000, he accused Russia's Deputy PM

Kursk submarine crew.[5]

From 2002, Shchekochikhin was a member of the

Federal Security Service (FSB) to generate support for the war.[6]

One of Shchekochikhin's last articles before his death was "Are we Russia or KGB of Soviet Union?".[7] It described such issues as the refusal of the FSB to explain to the Russian Parliament what poison gas was released during the Moscow theater hostage crisis, and the work of secret services from Turkmenistan, which operated with impunity in Moscow against Russian citizens of Turkmеn origin.

He also tried to investigate the

FBI and received an American visa to discuss the case with US authorities.[8] However, he never reached the USA because of his sudden death. Some Russian media claimed that Putin had issued an order to discharge 19 high-ranking FSB officers involved in this case in September 2006 as part of a Kremlin power struggle, but all of these officers continue to work in their FSB positions as of November 2006.[12]

Death

Shchekochikhin died suddenly on 3 July 2003 after a mysterious 16-day illness.

Russian Federal Security Service because it treats top-ranking Russian officials". His relatives were denied an official medical report about the cause of his illness, and were forbidden to take specimens of his tissues for an independent medical investigation.[13] Journalists of Novaya Gazeta managed to send his tissue specimens to "major foreign specialists". The experts did not reach any definite conclusion.[14] This caused widespread speculation about the cause of his death, especially since another member of the Kovalev commission, Sergei Yushenkov, was assassinated the same year[15][16] and the legal counsel and investigator of the commission, Mikhail Trepashkin, was arrested by Russian authorities.[17]

Some news reports drew parallels between the poisonings of Shchekochikhin,

FSB headquarters),” according to a Chechenpress report written by Zelimkhan Khadzhiev.[18]

Last book and publications

Shchekochikhin's last published book was Slaves of the KGB: 20th Century. The Religion of Betrayal (Рабы ГБ. XX век. Религия предательства), telling the real stories of some of the many people forcibly recruited by the Russian

FSB) to work as undercover informers or agents. These people virtually became their KGB controllers' slaves, betraying their relatives, close friends and colleagues. When he died, he had not finished working on a book about the 20th Century wars in Chechnya
.

In an interview he gave just before his death, he said

Many years ago we...summed up the mafia in the following phrase: The lion has jumped. This year, in January, we gave the mafia the following characterization: The lion has jumped and is already wearing epaulets. By comparison what is going on today in

our prosecutor's office, all bandits are simply boy scouts. Today, it is precisely the people who are needed to fight crime and corruption that have raised the flag of corruption and crime. This has not bypassed the secret police; what has never happened before happens constantly now - the protection that they provide, the enormous amounts of money they receive, and the control over ports and banks that they exercise.

[19]

Investigation

At the request of the

Prosecutor General of Russia closed the criminal case in April 2009 after the examination had failed to prove poisoning or violent death.[22][23]

Books

See also

References

  1. ^ Соколов, Сергей (2013-07-03). "Мы ставим точку" [We put an end to it]. Новая газета № 71 (in Russian). Retrieved 2019-07-04.
  2. ISBN 978-1-4165-5165-2
    .
  3. New York Times
    . Retrieved 17 November 2019.
  4. ^ a b c "Щекочихин, Юрий" [Dossier on Shchekochikhin]. Lenta.ru (in Russian). Retrieved 17 November 2019.
  5. ^ "Kremlin denies Kursk deception". BBC News. 15 September 2000. Retrieved 17 November 2019.
  6. ^ Birch, Douglas (2003-12-11). "Putin critic loses post, platform for inquiry". The Baltimore Sun. Moscow. Archived from the original on 2006-03-10. Retrieved 2019-11-17.
  7. ^ Щекочихин, Юрий (27 January 2003). "Мы — Россия или КГБ СССР?" [Are we Russia or KGB of Soviet Union?]. Новая газета № 06 (in Russian). Retrieved 2 October 2017.
  8. ^ a b c "Последнее дело Юрия Щекочихина" [The last case of Yuri Shchekochikhin]. Новая газета № 45 (in Russian). 19 June 2006. Retrieved 2 October 2017.
  9. ^ "Гнутые Спинки" [Bent Backs]. Новая газета № 45 (in Russian). 19 June 2006. Retrieved 2 October 2017.
  10. ^ Yasmann, Victor (26 September 2006). "Russia: Corruption Scandal Could Shake Kremlin". Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Retrieved 17 November 2017.
  11. ^ Щекочихин, Юрий (2 June 2003). "Дело о "Трех китах": Судье угрожают, прокурора изолировали, свидетеля убили" [The case of the “Three Pillars”: The judge is threatened, the prosecutor is isolated, the witness is killed]. Новая газета №39 (in Russian). Archived from the original on 3 July 2019. Retrieved 17 November 2019.
  12. ^ "Уволенные указом Путина генералы ФСБ продолжают работать" [FSB generals dismissed by Putin's decree continue to work]. Грани.ру (in Russian). 13 November 2006. Retrieved 17 November 2019.
  13. ^ a b O'Halloran, Julian (6 February 2007). "Russia's poisoning 'without a poison'". BBC Radio 4. Retrieved 30 July 2007.
  14. ^ "Агент неизвестен" [Agent unknown]. Новая газета № 82 (in Russian). 30 October 2006. Retrieved 30 October 2007.
  15. ^ "Yushenkov: A Russian idealist". BBC News. 17 April 2003. Retrieved 17 November 2019.
  16. ^ "Russian MP's death sparks storm". BBC News. 18 April 2003. Retrieved 17 November 2019.
  17. ^ "Amnesty International calls for Mikhail Trepashkin to be released pending a full review of his case" (PDF). Amnesty International. Retrieved 17 November 2019.
  18. The Jamestown Foundation
    . 30 November 2006. Retrieved 2 October 2017.
  19. ISBN 978-1-906142-07-0
    .
  20. ^ "Смерть Юрия Щекочихина расследуют заново" [Death of Shchekochikhin to be investigated anew]. Lenta.ru (in Russian). 2007-10-29. Retrieved 17 November 2019.
  21. ^ Abdullaev, Nabi; Osadchuk, Svetlana (2008-07-03). "Mystery Shrouds Shchekochikhin's Death". The Moscow Times. Archived from the original on 2021-02-24. Retrieved 17 November 2019.
  22. ^ "Прекращено уголовное дело по факту смерти журналиста и депутата Госдумы Щекочихина" [The criminal case into the death of journalist and State Duma deputy Shchekochikhin was closed]. NEWSru (in Russian). 2009-04-09. Retrieved 17 November 2019.
  23. ^ Shchedrov, Oleg (2009-04-10). "Investigators say Russian reporter wasn't murdered". Reuters. Archived from the original on 2009-04-13. Retrieved 2019-11-14.

External links

English

Russian

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Yuri_Shchekochikhin&oldid=1215249913"