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Yuri Petrovich Shchekochikhin (; 9 June 1950, Kirovabad – 3 July 2003, Moscow) was a Russian investigative journalist, writer, and liberal lawmaker in the Russian parliament. Shchekochikhin made his name writing about and campaigning against the influence of organized crime and corruption. His last non-fiction book was about people who worked as KGB informers. As a journalist for the newspaper ''Novaya Gazeta'', he investigated Russian apartment bombings allegedly directed by the Russian secret services and Three Whales Corruption Scandal which involved high-ranking FSB officers and was related to money laundering through the Bank of New York. He died suddenly in July 2003 from a mysterious illness, just a few days before his scheduled departure to the United States where he planned to meet with FBI investigators. His medical documents ended up "classified" by the Russian authorities. The symptoms of his illness fit a pattern of poisoning by radioactive materials and were similar to the symptoms of Nikolai Khokhlov, Roman Tsepov, and Alexander Litvinenko. According to Litvinenko and news reports, the death of Yuri Shchekochikhin was a politically motivated assassination.〔Alex Goldfarb and Marina Litvinenko. "Death of a Dissident: The Poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko and the Return of the KGB." Free Press, New York, 2007. ISBN 978-1-4165-5165-2.〕 == Investigative journalism and political career == Shchekochikhin graduated from the Journalism Department of Moscow State University in 1975. He worked as an investigative journalist at ''Komsomolskaya Pravda'' (1972–1980) and ''Literaturnaya Gazeta'' (1980–1996), and then as a deputy editor of the liberal newspaper ''Novaya Gazeta'' (from 1996). Beginning in the 1990s, he published many articles critical of the First and Second Chechen Wars, human rights abuses in the Russian army, state corruption, and other social issues. In the summer of 1988 Shchekochikhin published an interview with a lieutenant colonel of the militia Aleksander Gurov, in which the existence of organized crime in the Soviet Union was first publicly stated. That brought fame to both Gurov (who became the head of the 6th Agency of the MVD of the USSR which struggled against organized crime) and Shchekochikhin.〔(Dossier on Shchekochikhin by Lenta.ru ) (in Russian)〕 Yuri Shchekochikhin began his political career in 1990, when he was elected as a representative to the Congress of People's Deputies. He was elected to the Russian State Duma from the liberal Yabloko party in 1995. He was a member of a Duma committee on the problems of corruption, and was a UN expert on the problems of organized crime. He was a vocal opponent of the First and Second Chechen Wars. Since early 1995 he was an author and host of an investigative journalism program called "Special Team" on ORT, Russian television's first channel (then owned by Boris Berezovsky). In October 1995, the heads of the channel closed the program. According to Shchekochikhin, the reason was an episode called "For Motherland! For Mafia!", which was devoted to the Chechen War and was unleashed, in his opinion, by the "leading banks of Russia".〔 In 2000 he accused Russia's Deputy PM Ilya Klebanov of covering up the fact that Russia did not have the resources to attempt a rescue of the Kursk submarine crew.〔(Kremlin denies Kursk deception ) ''BBC'' 15 September 2000〕 From 2002, Shchekochikhin was a member of the Sergei Kovalev Commission, which investigated allegations that the 1999 Moscow apartment bombings had been orchestrated by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) to generate support for the war.〔()〕 One of Shchekochikhin's last articles before his death was "''Are we Russia or KGB of Soviet Union?"''() It described such issues as the refusal of the FSB to explain to the Russian Parliament what poison gas was applied during the Moscow theater hostage crisis, and the work of secret services from Turkmenistan, which operated with impunity in Moscow against Russian citizens of Turkoman origin. He also tried to investigate the Three Whales Corruption Scandal and criminal activities of FSB officers related to money laundering through the Bank of New York and illegal actions of Yevgeny Adamov, a former Russian Minister of Nuclear Energy.〔()〕〔()〕〔(Russia: Corruption Scandal Could Shake Kremlin ) - Victor J. Yasman, REF/RL, 26 September 2006.〕 The Three Whales case was under the personal control of President Vladimir Putin.〔(ДЕЛО О «ТРЕХ КИТАХ»: СУДЬЕ УГРОЖАЮТ, ПРОКУРОРА ИЗОЛИРОВАЛИ, СВИДЕТЕЛЯ УБИЛИ ) ''Novaya Gazeta'' 2 June 2003 〕 In June 2003, Shchekochikhin contacted the FBI and got an American visa to discuss the case with US authorities.〔()〕 However, he never made it to the USA because of his sudden death. Some Russian media claimed that Putin has issued an order to discharge 19 high-ranking FSB officers involved in this case in September 2006 as part of a Kremlin power struggle, but all these officers still continue to work in their FSB positions.〔(Уволенные указом Путина генералы ФСБ продолжают работать ) ''Grani'' 13 November 2006〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Yuri Shchekochikhin」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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