“You should finish him off!” - 5 September, 2002 - News

Boris Nemtsov pronounced sentence to himself

“He is so oppressed by Putin. Here in Russia, Luka (Alexander Lukashanko is meant) has the image of a clown and kind of an outcast. It is wonderful. However, you should finish him off. You shouldn’t become united with him. Why do you plan to unite with him, with this freak?”

Union of Rightist Forces leader Boris Nemtsov demands that it is necessary to find out who bugs and tapes telephone conversations of Duma deputies and then sells the tapes. At the same time, Boris Nemtsov wants to appeal to the General Office of Public Prosecutor in connection with Tuesday’s publication in Russia’s newspaper Sovetskaya Rossiya (Soviet Russia).

The article begins with the words: “We publish a taped conversation; at the same time we are ready to publish a phonogram of any radio station, Echo Moskvy, Radio of Russia, or Liberty Radio. The taped conversation is also abundant in obscene words the intelligent Russian democrat (Boris Nemtsov is meant) mentioned when he spoke about Kremlin officials.”

The newspaper mentioned that it has material from another source of the left opposition: the a radical newspaper Zavtra.

According to Nemtsov himself, it was his private telephone conversation, a confidential one by the way, with one of the Belarussian opposition leaders, which he had in his Duma office. The deputy admits at that he had already spoken out everything he said in the conversation. The telephone conversation the concerned policies of Belarussian president Alexander Lukashenko, the meeting between Russian and Belarussian presidents, and future of the Russia-Belarus union. Boris Nemtsov can't imagine how the conversation was made public. In accordance with the RF Code of Criminal Procedure in force, telephone conversations can be bugged only after a court decision (earlier, it was authorized by the prosecutor only).

Here is the preface to the taped conversation published by Sovetskaya Rossiya:

“A rather undistinguished stranger with a handbag came to the Zavtra editorial office. He looked like a petty trader who often come to offices to offer perfume, tights, and other smuggled goods for sale. The man opened his handbag, in which rows of tapes were put together like in a portable record collection. It was astonishing, but not the names of popular singers, but names of famous Russian deputies were written on the tapes. Raikov, Morozov, Zhirinovsky, Zyuganov, Khakamada, and Yushenkov were there. Those were taped telephone conversations that contained confidential information. The trader was an electronic thief or just an agent of some thief who offered the “goods” to editorial offices of famous political newspapers. Our journalists decided to listen to some of the tapes right in the editorial office. The conversations proved to be very piquant. However, the trader asked for too high of a price, which is why we couldn’t buy the wonderful collection, which could be called “Voices of birds." Not to be reputed as fences, we purchased only one tape with the inscription “Nemtsov” on it. That was we have a taped telephone conversation between Union of Rightist Forces leader Boris Nemtsov and, as we found out later, the head of the United civil party of Belarus, Anatoly Lebedko. The information on the tape is really very important, as it concerned the treaty on the Russia-Belarus union, which is why we decided to make the conversation public. Russians who lay great hopes on the Russia-Belarus union should know who puts spokes in its wheel.”

A complete version of Boris Nemtsov’s conversation was published on the Sovetsakaya Rossiya official site &to=http://www.rednews.ru/article.phtml?id=1363' target=_blank>Rednews.Ru. Traditionally, revelations of this kind mean an end to the career of a politician. Most likely, the Union of Rightist Forces is of a different opinion.

Pyotr Bely PRAVDA.Ru

Translated by Maria Gousseva

Read the original in Russian: http://www.pravda.ru/main/2002/09/05/46622.html

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