#8
St. Petersburg Times
November 27, 2001
Starovoitova Still Shrouded in Mystery
By Vladimir Kovalyev

LAST week, we quietly marked the third anniversary of the murder of State Duma Deputy Galina Starovoitova, who was gunned down in the staircase by her apartment on Canal Griboyedova on Nov. 20, 1998.

The investigation of the assassination continues, but there have been no results so far.

A lot of people, including me, are pretty convinced that the local branch of the Federal Security Service, or FSB, which is handling the investigation, has not discovered anything. The only comment that you can get from them on this matter is that "the case is still under investigation and all possible motives are still being looked into."

"For us, she's still alive," said Rimma Starovoitova, Galina's mother, at a press conference last week. "Sometimes I think that she'll call again after another trip to Moscow, but we know that she won't."

For three years now, Starovoitova's family has not been able to learn any more about the investigation than the rest of us have. The FSB stubbornly says that, according to the law, information about the investigation can be given to the family only after the investigation has been completed. But the FSB keeps extending its inquiry: Just last week, it announced the work would continue at least until May 20, 2002.

"[This decision] raises many questions, the most important of which is whether they have done anything at all to resolve this case," said Yury Shmidt, the local human-rights lawyer.

As a result, on Nov. 20, Sta ro voi to va's parents announced that they were suing the FSB for information about the case. On the same day, members of the Union of Right Forces political faction announced that they would send an official State Duma inquiry to the St. Petersburg FSB, also demanding information.

And look what happened.

The very same day, FSB officials announced that they knew who killed Starovoitova.

"A circle of people linked to the assassination has been identified," ran an IMA Press report, quoting FSB officials. The report, however, was quick to add that no one had been charged.

So what is going on?

Over the last three years, the FSB has interrogated about 1,000 people, made 34 searches, examined 104 documents and sets of fingerprints, etc., etc. As I read this information, I recalled the experiences of Tatiana Likhanova and Danil Kotsubinsky, two local journalists who were interrogated in connection with the case in 1998. Kotsubinsky, who was working for the newspaper Chas Pik at the time, said that his interrogator informed him that the youth wing of Starovoitova's political movement regularly held orgies involving animals. He said that Interior Ministry detective Mikhail Balukhta tried to get him to testify to immoral behavior on the part of Starovoitova's political allies.

Likhanova has worked as an aide to Duma Deputy Yuly Rybakov, an artist and Soviet-era dissident who was one of Starovoitova's closest allies. She said that Balukhta gleefully informed her that he had personally detained Rybakov 15 times during the Soviet period for taking part in pro-democracy meetings. He then added that he considered Rybakov a suspect in Starovoitova's murder.

That would be funny if it weren't so sad.

"I'm surprised to be honest," Ruslan Linkov told me the other day. Linkov is the head of the local Democratic Russia faction, who three years ago was walking up the staircase with Starovoitova and was severely wounded by her killers.

"The 'circle of people' that is linked [to the case] is known, and it's a fact. How many years have I been demanding that investigators interrogate [Governor Vladimir] Yakovlev and [State Duma Speaker Gennady] Seleznyov? I was told that they can't be questioned because they have immunity. Investigators have told me 'Yes, we know that, but we haven't received any orders,'" Linkov said. "There's no political will, that's why [the investigation has not progressed]," he added.