State Secrets: An Insider's Chronicle of the Russian Chemical Weapons Program

CHAPTER 21 The KGB Prepares for a Closed Trial

After the November holidays I was summoned once more to the Investigation Department. A document was waiting for my signature, confirming that I had read the case in its entirety. Leaving the department, I bid farewell to Investigator Shkarin (he had been awarded the rank of major by that time), and I offered him my hand for the first time. I even told him that he wasn’t the worst investigator, because I had never heard any insulting words from him, and there had been no attempts to provoke me to take irresponsible actions. He seemed pleased, and I tried to imagine how disappointed he would be when the Attorney General didn’t sign off on his work, but cancelled it with a flourish.

At the end of November of 1993, Aleksander Asnis called to say I was to go with him to a department of the Attorney General’s Office on Kuznetsky Most (Bridge). I thought that would be the long-awaited end to my ordeal. I was sure that we had been summoned so they could hand us the decision about the termination of my case. We met near the Kuznetsky Most Metro Station and quickly reached the Attorney General’s Office. I noticed that my lawyer didn’t look particularly triumphant, but Aleksander Asnis was always serious. His face seldom expressed any emotions at all.

We entered the hall of the beautiful building, and Asnis made a call on the internal phone. Soon Prosecutor Vladimir Buivolov found us, we greeted each other, and he handed me the text of the final indictment, which had many pages. At that point I realized that nobody had terminated my case, and the KGB flywheel fashioned by Lenin many years ago was still revolving. However, I had no time for further reflection, because Buivolov persistently repeated his request for me to sign for the receipt of this document. I did so automatically, because I must admit I was simply shocked at what was happening. On the street I quickly recovered and gave my full attention to my lawyer, who was describing the scenario of the events to come. A closed session of my case would take place in the Supreme Court of Russia, and the trial was unlikely to start before next year. The court would consist of either a judge and two jurors, or three independent judges, depending on which we chose. I was shocked at what I heard. “Closed trials have been cancelled, haven’t they? How it is possible these days that they want to return to the past?” I asked. Asnis explained to me that closed trials had in fact been cancelled, but not closed hearings. The only difference is that the first session and the last one, when the verdict is made public, would be open. I told my lawyer that I would not participate in such monkey business, and he explained that if that was the case I would be arrested, and the trial would be closed anyway.

After I studied the indictment[200] carefully, I came to the conclusion that the trial would be purely a formality, because the general framework for the final indictment had been prepared to rubber-stamp the lists of state secrets and the conclusion of the so-called expert commission. The only real task of the trial was to determine the length of my imprisonment based on Article 75 of the Criminal Code.

Soon I received a copy of the letter that the Supreme Court had sent to the Attorney General’s office, which said that there would be a hearing of my case in Moscow City Court on December 6, 1993. Aleksander Asnis told me that he had met with Judge Nikolai Sazonov who would consider my case. He made a reasonably good impression on Asnis. The judge told my lawyer that even though he was still very busy, he was going to read through the case before the New Year, and after that he would schedule a trial date. I was filled with apprehension that my case was just rolling along by itself. It seemed to have a life of its own, and who could stop it? Anyone who thought they could should refer to the letter of the law, and the general advice that those who are dissatisfied should work to make changes in the law, and not complain about those who are just carrying out their duties. I was certain that I had to do something extraordinary to step off this path of destruction. I was sure that my actions would inevitably drag me under the wheels of the tank of the Soviet system of justice, which had not changed much at all when it became the Russian system of justice.

The news from the U.S. showed that many influential public and state figures there were beginning to become a bit alarmed about my case. One of the first letters from this time period is the one written on October 14, 1993 by the U.S. Senator from New Jersey, Bill Bradley, to Strobe Talbot the Ambassador Plenipotentiary to Russia and Special Advisor on issues of the Newly Independent States.[201] In the letter, he stressed that my trial must be open to the public in accordance with Russian law, and he asked Talbot to raise these concerns with the Russian government at a senior level.

On October 19, 1993 John Conyers, Jr., Chairman of the Congressional Legislation and National Security Subcommittee of the Committee on Government Operations sent a letter to Warren Christopher, the U.S. Secretary of State.[202] He wrote, “Dr. Mirzayanov courageously revealed that the Russian government’s public call for the elimination of chemical weapons was deceptive, since new chemical weapons research was being secretly funded… The persecution of Dr. Mirzayanov stands in direct contradiction of the Clinton Administration’s commitment to strengthen democratization efforts in the former Soviet Union, and halt the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. I am confident that you share my deep concern over the treatment of this courageous scientist, and I call on you to personally appeal for his release.”

Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan in his letter to the Secretary of State Warren Christopher, on December 23, 1993,[203] expressed his “deep concern regarding Dr. Vil Mirzayanov, a Russian chemist who has been arrested for publishing an article in Moskovski Novosti [Moscow News] alleging that the Soviet Union developed and that Russia subsequently tested a new class of organophosphorous nerve gases, which are highly toxic and when are absorbed through the skin or lungs shut down the nervous system, for use as chemical weapons”. “If true”, continued the senator, “it means Russia may have disingenuously negotiated and signed a treaty on chemical weapons which does not prohibit its newly developed weapon because it is not listed on the detailed schedules appended to the convention.” He finished with the conclusion “…President Clinton will be meeting with President Yeltsin in January. Would you not think it appropriate to raise this issue at that time? I look forward to hearing your views.”

Dr. Wolfgang Hirschwald a professor of Berlin Free University, wrote an open letter on December 27, 1993, on behalf of the International Network of Engineers and Scientists for Global Responsibility (INES), the largest association of scientists in Germany and Western countries, addressed to Frederico Mayor, the Director General of UNESCO, regarding the violation of human rights and possible violation of the CWC by my trial.[204]

From the fall of 1993 through January 1994, a number of U.S. scientific societies kept their members current on the developments of my case, and they wrote frequently to President Boris Yeltsin and to Attorney General Stepankov and then to Kazannik who replaced him and others, urging that my case be dropped. Especially vigorous among them were the American Chemical Society (ACS), the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS),[205] the Committee of Concerned Scientists,[206] and the New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS).[207] I am pointing out just some of these documents, which show the high level of solidarity of scientists who defended the right of their colleague to speak out on issues of vital global importance.

The New York Academy of Sciences, which I joined in September of 1993, put forth its full effort to make sure the U.S. press reported more actively on my case. On December 6, 1993, Nobel Prize Laureate Dr. Joshua Lederberg, who was the president of the NYAS wrote a letter to the Executive Director of The New York Times Max Frankel.[208]

Human Rights Watch and its sister organization Helsinki Watch, as well as other organizations supporting human rights wrote letters to Russian officials. I was also supported by the Andrei Sakharov Foundation in the United States, which issued a statement on September 15, 1993. They have many famous individuals and political figures and those of whom the world of culture and science is proud, in their membership and on their advisory board and Board of Directors. The statement was signed by Sakharov’s step son Aleksey Semyonov.[209]

The mass media was continuing to cover my case[210]^, [211]^, [212]^, [213]^, [214]^, [215]^, [216]^, [217]^, [218]^, [219]^, [220]^, [221]^, [222]^, [223]^, [224]^, [225]^, [226]^, [227]^, [228]^, [229]^, [230]^, [231]^, [232]^, [233]^, [234]^, [235]^, [236]^, [237]^, [238]^, [239]^, [240]^, [241]^, [242]^, [243]^, [244]^, [245]^, [246]^, [247]^, [248]^, [249]^, [250]^, [251]^, [252] sympathetically, with very few exceptions.[253]^, [254] Authors of those few papers were trying to compromise my articles. Surprisingly there was also a pro-Communist reporter in Kazan, who was working to mock and slander me.[255] That was in striking contrast to so many papers expressing huge support for my case in Tatarstan and Bashkortstan.[256]^, [257]^, [258]^, [259]^, [260]^, [261]^, [262]^, [263]^, [264]^, [265]^, [266]

On the eve of my trial, the Moscow media was extremely busy with the upcoming elections of the State Duma and the referendum on the new Constitution. The daily shows on all TV channels droned on about how the rebel chiefs of the failed putsch “suffered” in their cells in Lefortovo. Ruslan Khasbulatov had grown pale. Rutskoi had shaved off his moustache, and he was going to write his memoirs. These were the highlights of the press reports. Moscow News was a happy exception, when it published a statement by world-famous Russian public figures Sergei Alekseev, Georgi Arbatov, Yuri Afansiev, Vitali Goldansky, Tatiana Zaslavskaya, Len Karpinsky, Viktor Loshak, Aleksander Pumpyansky, and Grigory Yavlinsky.[267] It’s text was striking, expressing anxiety that Russia was trying to back away from democratic principles:

My defenders in America were troubled with the developments of my case, and they energetically worked for my support at a high level. As a result, on January 4, 1994, the Chairman of the U.S. Congressional Committee on Government Operations, John Conyers, made another special statement[268] in which he stated that:

Before the New Year, I received a written summons which ordered me to appear for a hearing in the Moscow City Court as a defendant on January 6, 1994 at 11.30 A.M. However, the hearing couldn’t begin because my lawyer Aleksander Asnis couldn’t attend it. In the middle of December he was in a car accident and suffered a serious concussion. At the beginning of the year, Asnis was still on sick leave, although he was no longer in the hospital. He gave me advice over the phone regarding my strategy in court and said that I should ask to postpone the hearing because of his illness.

On the morning of January 6, Kathleen Hunt, a National Public Radio correspondent from the U.S., who had continuously reported on all the developments of my case in the past, came to see me. She was accompanied by Andrei Mironov and Nazifa Karimova, from the Tatar broadcast “Azatlyk” of “Radio Liberty”. We went by trolley bus to the “Novogireevskaya” Metro Station and then quickly reached “Komsomolskaya.”

On the way I read an article by Sergei Mostovschikov titled “Chemistry and Life” in the January 6^th issue of Izvestia.[270]He presented a detailed analysis of the past investigation and its groundlessness, which made the case without merit in his opinion. Judge Nikolai Sazonov declined to comment on the forthcoming trial, saying only that it would be held behind closed doors. The surprised journalist challenged the fact that none of the six witnesses that had to participate in the trial had yet received a subpoena from the court. He also suggested that the trial would be delayed because of the defense attorney’s illness. He wrote further that I was apprehensive about the whole situation. If the Ministry of Security brought the case to court, showing such an enviable obstinacy, and even managed to get away with a secret closed trial, it could easily declare that some grounds had been found sufficient for imprisoning me for 2-5 years.

We rose from the metro underground up to Komsomolskaya Square, where Building 43 housed the Moscow City Court.

The morning was frosty, but it had thawed a bit the day before, and so there was a lot of snow and ice under our feet. The entire time we risked falling under the city transport that was briskly weaving between the snowdrifts. We fell down several times, but didn’t injure ourselves, and safely reached the doors of the gloomy and rather dirty yellow three-storied house of justice. Although it was still half an hour before the trial, there were quite a lot of reporters on the street with TV camera crews, photojournalists, and microphones. The telegenic leader of the Democratic Union movement, Valeria Novodvorskaya, stood out among the rest. She was famous in the country for her courageous actions against Bolshevik totalitarianism, and had written several highly expressive essays on my case.[271]^, [272]^, [273] I gave one of them to Investigator Shkarin, at her request. He had known her when she was a prisoner at Lefortovo.

Although I tried, I still didn’t have enough time to answer all of the correspondents’ questions. Mostly they were asking about how I was doing, what forecasts I would give regarding the outcome of the trial, and what I felt right before going to the closed trial. Despite serious doubts and the suffering connected with them, I was resolute and didn’t feel any traces of fear or regret. I understood that I had a great moral responsibility, and I realized that I must not show any weakness at the trial. Otherwise my behavior would offend the memory of many thousands of fighters against the Fascist-Communist regime.

Apart from correspondents, there were a lot of ordinary people and former veterans and dissidents who had served their terms in the Bolshevik concentration camps. They came up to me, shook my hand, and asked me to believe that I had their support. It was extraordinarily touching, and I will be grateful to them for their warm words and support until my last day.

Then it was time to go inside the court building, up to the second floor, to Room 30, where two policemen stood by the doors. Surrounded by the constant flashes of the photo cameras and the rattling chatter of the TV cameras, I produced my summons, and a policeman went into the room with it. He returned with a young woman, the court secretary. She checked my passport, opened the door, and I entered the room. On the left was the seating for the judge and the two jurors. Opposite there were two rows of benches for the defendants. I went to the front bench, sat in the middle, and waited for the judge to appear. A middle-aged man was sitting near the armchairs of one of the jurors. I decided he must be the prosecutor. There was nobody else in the room. At 11.30 A.M. sharp the secretary coming into the room announced, “Rise, court is in order!” Immediately, the judge and two jurors, a man and a woman, entered.

The judge was a thickset middle-aged man, who had well groomed black wavy hair. He pretended to be an intellectual, but that didn’t match up with his poorly concealed expression of conceit and signs of treachery and slyness. The judge announced the beginning of the hearing of my case and added that he, Nikolai Sazonov, would conduct the session. He announced the names of the two jurors. I remembered that people called them “the nodders”, because they always nodded their heads as a sign of certain agreement. The judge’s tone of speech wasn’t flat. I would say that it had the intonations of a participant in a scientific debate. That was how he started his interrogation about my parentage, year of birth, educational background, etc., which was obviously a trivial introduction to the court session. I answered these questions, trying not to give the impression of an ingratiating defendant, and at the same time trying to respond appropriately. The judge asked who would defend me at the trial. I answered and asked for a two week postponement of the trial, in order to give my lawyer the time to recover his health. Then the prosecutor took the floor and said that he represented the Moscow City Prosecutor’s Office, however, another prosecutor, Leonid Pankratov, had prepared for the trial, but had caught a cold. The latter become familiar with my case at the request of the City Prosecutor, and he advised that it could take a considerable time to replace him. So he also asked the court to postpone the hearing until the State Prosecutor recovered.

Then the judge asked me what my preference would be for the composition of the court panel, and I answered that I would like to have the three independent judges to conduct the hearing. My choice was unexpected, but it seemed to me that three judges could have different opinions, which could give me some advantage in the long run. After this, the court adjourned for a short recess. Then the judge appeared, accompanied by “the nodders” and read their decision to comply with the request to have three independent judges and to postpone the next court session until January 24, 1994. That concluded the day’s business.

I remember that after the conclusion of that session, numerous correspondents entered the courtroom (the judge had dismissed security), and they interviewed Judge Sazonov. He answered their questions with apparent pleasure. In answering a question by Soni Efron from the Los Angeles Times, I said that I wasn’t going to remain mute during the trial process, and that I wasn’t happy at all about the hearing being conducted behind closed doors, because it created a bad precedent for potential dissidents who disagreed with the current regime. However, I didn’t know what I personally could do about it.[274]

The radio stations Mayak, Echo Moskva, Molodezhny Kanal, [The Youth Channel] and the TV channels NTV and All-Russia Channel Two reported on the beginning of the trial. Some newspapers published articles during the weeks that followed the beginning of the trial[275]^, [276]^, [277]^, [278]^, [279]^, [280]^, [281]^, [282]^, [283]^, [284]^, [285]^, [286]^, [287] and expressed concern about having a closed trial. The majority of them classified the goal of upcoming trial as an attempt by the Chekists to retaliate against me for telling the truth.

Of course, those in power in the U.S. couldn’t ignore such statements. Additionally, Gale Colby and Irene Goldman continued to actively inform the American public, the scientific societies, and senators and congressmen about my case. On the evening of the day that the trial process started, Gale called me and asked whether she should come to Moscow and try to do something for my defense. I replied that she would be more effective and helpful by staying in the U.S., and I asked her not to come. She agreed with my arguments, and Gale’s and Irene’s work helped accelerate the activities of scientific and other organizations working to support me. Almost every day before the trial, which was scheduled for January 24^th, I received new statements in my defense by fax.

Prior to January 6, 1994, some people doubted that a closed trial process was possible at all. However, the press clearly saw after the first session, that the old system was very much alive, and it fully intended to ignore the protests against the closed hearing. This put a lot of people strongly on their guard, both in Russia and abroad, because they felt that the events were unfolding in the same sad and familiar ways as they had in Soviet times. Letters addressed to the Russian powers-that-be show this.[288]^-296

A letter was sent on January 13, 1994, from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) To the Attorney General of Russia, Aleksei Kazannik²⁸⁸ which insisted that foreign observers be allowed to witness the trial and stressed that “the Mirzayanov prosecution and secret trial is an unfortunate and very surprising throwback to past practices under the totalitarian regime.” The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) in its letter emphasized that my case had become a famous one now in the American scientific community, and had been discussed at the highest levels of our two Governments. The FAS asked Attorney General Aleksei Kazannik to ensure that I received a fair trial and expressed hope that the case could be resolved in a respectful way.[289]

The National Academy of Sciences of the U.S. sent a letter to President Boris Yeltsin on January 19, 1994 asking the Russian Government to drop the charges against me “because they are in clear violation of the Russian Constitution.”[290] “If the charge is not dropped”, they wrote “we would expect the Russian government to grant Dr. Mirzayanov a fair trial, and we would appeal that it be open in accordance with the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Dr. Mirzayanov acted on the dictates of his conscience and, if accorded due process, he would be exonerated on the grounds that he exercised his right to the free speech and did not reveal information that was, at the time, officially recognized as a state secret.”

The New York Academy of Sciences in its statement on January 20, 1994 said that it “has received notification that Dr. Vil Mirzayanov will be brought to trial for actions protected under international agreements and required under ethical standards of scientific responsibility. We ask that charges against Dr. Mirzayanov be dropped and that international observers be permitted to attend the trial on January 24, 1994.”[291]

The influential Committee of Concerned Scientists appealed to Attorney General Aleksei Kazannik once more on January 19, 1994and asked him to avert a closed trial. “If this trial takes place in camera, it will suggest that Russia has indeed created a new group of binary chemical weapons. We therefore urge in the strongest possible terms to stop this prosecution lest it cast a pall on your country’s declared intent to join with other nations in banning the development of chemical weaponry.”[292]

I’m very proud that Roald Sagdeev, the famous scientist, physicist and deputy of the USSR Congress of People’s Deputies, who together with Andrei Sakharov and Boris Yeltsin took part in organization of the first opposition bloc of deputies in the history of the USSR, sent an appeal to Attorney General Aleksei Kazannik. He wrote: “If we were able to defeat the Cold War and start the complete destruction of chemical weapons what kind of secrets should be hidden from the world public? … It is not so much guilt, but the tragedy of a whole generation of scientists and engineers forced to spend their talents in making the weapons of mass destruction. The voice of Mirzayanov – the voice of the conscience of a whole generation – must be heard and not strangled.”[293]

The Lawyers Committee for Human Rights of the U.S. sent a letter to the President of Russia[294] in which they said that “Mr. Mirzayanov’s case is an important test of the Russian government’s commitment to respect human rights and build just legal institutions. We urge you to ensure that the courts act as a truly independent branch of government, according to the rule of law and free from government pressure.”

The authors of the appeals were well informed about the legal details and meanings of the resolutions of the Russian government, concerning the lists of state secrecy. Gale and Irene helped a lot in this respect, by distributing excerpts from my case materials to many individuals and organizations who could be advocates for me. Individuals who were working on the scientific freedom and responsibility committees of different scientific societies were for the most part unremitting in their support, sending out frequent updates to their vast membership by e-mail. On January 21, 1994, the American organization “Physicians for Social Responsibility” addressed an appeal to Attorney General Kazannik, which was signed by Dan Ellsberg.[295]

A no less legendary man who is rightfully called the “Chinese Sakharov,” the famous scientist Fang Lizhi, signed a letter addressed to the President of Russia on behalf of the Committee on the International Freedom of Scientists of the American Physical Society on January 24, 1994.[296] This courageous scientist was one of the leaders of the democratic movement in China and took part in the well-known events in Tiananmen Square in 1989. The Chinese military were going to arrest him for this, but the U.S. Embassy in Beijing saved him, giving the scientist sanctuary in its building. For several years the Chinese authorities prevented Fang Lizhi from leaving the country. However, under pressure from the international community they had to yield and let him emigrate to the U.S. A short review of protests of the American scientific community is given by Chemical and Engineering News.[297]

The time remaining before the beginning of the next court session flew by like a shot. Every day there were a few telephone calls requesting me to give interviews, to speak on the radio, or just to comment on the forthcoming trial.

I don’t remember turning down any of these requests. Despite great nervous tension, I met with the journalists and these meetings helped me to focus and better articulate my ideas about banning chemical weapons, and to identify what I saw as potential attempts to circumvent the Chemical Weapons Convention.

At that time in my life, before my trial, I read the whole package of international human rights acts for the first time in my life, and I thoroughly studied the new Constitution of Russia.

Everything in these papers indicated that there were no legal grounds for the prosecution of my case. I already wrote that not one of the lists, on which the prosecution was based and conducted, mentioned even a single word about chemical agents or chemical weapons. The situation was supposed to remain exactly the same as it was before, in the newly democratic Russia. The new list of information of state secrecy, adopted by resolution of the Council of Ministers number 733-55 of September 18, 1992, entered into force on January 1, 1993 and is not fundamentally different from the previous document. However, it turned out that my actions interfered with tradition in this area. As a result, this document was amended with a secret resolution number 256-55 of the Council of Ministers dated March 30, 1993.[298] In this document, things were called by their true names, directly and clearly, as befits a serious legal document. Although Investigator Shkarin didn’t directly cite this amendment in the indictment as a basis for my legal proceedings, the very fact that this resolution was included in the criminal case materials shows that it was meant to be used during the trial.

The question remained open: can previous lists, as well as the new list of secrets with amendments be used in a trial? They must be published to come into effect legally. That was the requirement of the new Constitution. This one thought, aside from everything else, literally caused me to burn with indignation. It turned out that the Chekists and the court wanted to carry out an instructive lesson, by using my example, “You can write and adopt various constitutions, but we will manage without them, and we will judge you according to our former rules.”

Someone had to try and break this endless vicious circle. But who could do it? We had become accustomed to waiting for someone else to do this for us. This mythic “someone else” is probably smarter than we are, more self sacrificing, has no children or old parents to care for…

My resolve to take action was slowly but surely ripening. I didn’t share my vague and still maturing plans with anybody. Unfortunately, at that time I didn’t have anyone close to me, with whom I could discuss and consider my intentions. I didn’t know how the public, the ordinary people, would react if I threw out a challenge to the “new” system of the Soviet justice.

By that time, my lawyer Aleksander Asnis was rapidly recovering. Soon he was back at work full time, and we often talked on the phone. He was planning to petition the court to appoint a new expert commission, and he was looking for new candidates to be experts. A number of famous scientists agreed to take on that role.

Meanwhile, it seemed that everything in the country and in the world followed its proper course. President Clinton’s long-awaited visit to Moscow took place. The State Duma, where supporters of Zhirinovsky and Communists prevailed at that time, gave amnesty to the putsch ring-leaders and participants of the bloody revolt, which had claimed hundreds of victims. The democratic deputies literally sobbed into their microphones, demagogically urging people to stop “dividing everybody into red and white camps.” Translated into normal language, this was an appeal for honest and decent people to join forces with the criminals. Social demagogy had never reached such a pinnacle, even during the times of the Communist regime. The new Attorney General was completely preoccupied with solving this “nationwide” job. It was clear that nobody had time to attend to my case…