Statement in support of Andrew Mogilyansky
I am writing to confirm that Andrew Mogilyansky played a prominent role in the opposition to the regime of Vladimir Putin in Russia in the period of 2002-2004 and this may have impacted the later criminal case against him, which originated from the Russian Prosecution Service.
In October 2002 a group of terrorists took hostage more than 800 people at a theater in Moscow. Russian special forces stormed the theater using a poison gas. As the result, 125 hostages died from gas poisoning.
In the aftermath of the storm, a group of survivors and relatives of the victims accused the Russian government of disregard to the lives of hostages. They formed an organization, which mounted a public and legal campaign against the government saying that the authorities were responsible for the death of their loved ones.
A famous Russian journalist, Anna Politkovskaya, raised in her reporting an even more serious allegation that the Russian secret police, FSB, had infiltrated the terrorist group and was complicit in the attack. The same accusation came from Alexander Litvinenko, the Russian dissident in London who was affiliated with my organization. At the time I headed the International Foundation for Civil Liberties, based in New York. We funded the relatives group, and helped the Politkovskaya-Litvinenko investigation. Obviously all of these activities were highly annoying to the Russian authorities.
I met Andrew Mogilyansky in the context of these events. In the aftermath of the attack he raised a substantial amount of funds in the United States to help the victims families. He then travelled to Moscow to distribute this assistance and met the activists of the relatives group. He also did some crucial research into the nature of the poisoned gas, which helped the relatives campaign.
Later he assisted a representative of the relatives group, Svetlana Gubareva, during her visit to Washington to give evidence to FBI and a grand jury in an investigation of the death of her fiancee, a US citizen, who was killed in the theater siege. Andrew accompanied Svetlana to the FBI interview and facilitated her work with lawyers. Andrew I actively collaborated on helping Svetlana prepare for her testimony, in which she held Russian authorities and personally Putin responsible for the death (using deadly gas) of Svetlana's fiancee and 124 other hostages at Nord-Ost. Andrew also testified to the FBI himself about the events at Nord-Ost.
I was much surprised and saddened when I learned that Andrew was convicted by US court of a sex offense in 2009. The events in this case allegedly took place in Russia in 2003 during Andrew's trip to work with the victims relatives. I was immediately alarmed to find out from Andrew that the US charges against him were solely based on the evidence provided by the Prosecution Service of Russia. Given the fact that Andrew's work was highly annoying to the regime, I was suspicious that the evidence could have been fabricated by the Russians for political reasons.
I am still doubtful about this case today, after both Politkovskaya and Litvinenko have been assassinated by the agents of the Putin's regime.
The Russian evidence against Andrew has never been critically probed in a US court. The Russian witnesses have never been cross-examined. He was convicted on the basis of a plea bargain taken at the advise of his lawyers. While I cannot question the legality of his conviction, I still have my doubts about the case which was built by the Russian law enforcement agencies. There is a solid body of evidence coming from court decisions in Europe and from human rights groups, that Russian authorities routinely fabricate evidence when it suits them politically. On that grounds nothing coming from Russian prosecutors should be taken in the West with the presumption of good faith - which apparently happened in Andrew's case.
For the above reasons I feel that he deserves the benefit of the doubt.
Alex Goldfarb
April 13, 2016