2009 Courage in Journalism Award Winner Iryna Khalip has received new threats to her life, including a warning that she “will meet with Anna Politkovskaya,” the murdered Novaya Gazeta reporter and 2002 Courage Award winner.
Threats to Khalip surfaced while she was working on a complicated investigation into the case of Emmanuel Zeltser, an American lawyer who spent 18 months in a Belarusian jail before being released after the intervention of the American Embassy in Belarus. Khalip’s investigation documents a circle of relationships that includes Boris Berezovsky, the Russian billionaire who lives in exile in London; the heirs to the fortune of Georgian billionaire Badri Patarkatsishvili; the Belarusian KGB; Lord Peter Goldsmith, Berezovksy’s attorney; and the U.S. embassy in Belarus. After submitting the article to her editors, but before publication, Khalip began receiving threats.
On November 22, she received an email with the subject line: “Greetings from Boris.” The text of the email read “Irka, if you won’t remove the article you will meet with Anna Politkovskaya, or tomorrow you will meet with intoxicated niggers. With love, BA” (BA refers to Boris Abramovich, Berezovsky’s first name and patronymic).
Khalip called London and spoke with Berezovsky, who assured her that he had not sent her the email.
Khalip then gathered additional information for her article at the request of her editors.
On the evening of November 25, she received a call on her mobile phone from a public pay phone. An anonymous male caller said, “You have been warned, bitch, haven’t you? If the article is published, you must not leave your house anymore.”
On the evening of November 26, she received a telegram from Moscow with clear references to her phone conversations of the prior few days: “Hero of Europe the matter does not concern Pal Palych (Pavel Pavlovich) but Vladimirovich drink Hennessey and drink health of your son if you do not care for your health.”
In the days before she received the telegram, Khalip had discussed Pavel Pavlovich (Pal Palych) Borodin in a phone conversation with her editors at Novaya Gazeta. She told them that Emmanuel Zeltser was the New York lawyer for Borodin. (A Russian official and politician, Borodin was arrested in New York in 2001 for money laundering. He was later released.) During another phone conversation, Khalip asked her husband to buy Hennessy cognac at a duty free shop. Finally, her son had been ill and she made several phone calls relating to his health.
The telegram was sending the message that she was being watched, says Khalip. “All my actions are under control.”
When asked about the source of the threats, she told the Charter 97 Web site, “Only those who have a possibility to intercept emails of others could make threats to me. In our country it’s a prerogative of secret services. … KGB servicemen are used to stay nameless and faceless in the crowd. They do not like when their illegal and sometimes criminal actions become known … .”
Khalip and her editors decided to publish her story in Novaya Gazeta. It appeared on December 9.