Eurasia

The Smerdyakov Effect

Even by Russian standards, the Litvinenko affair has been exceptionally murky. But, paradoxically, it has also been marked by a heightened sense of mirror-image symmetry. Either President Vladimir Putin is the villain or anti-Putin tycoon Boris Berezovsky is; Andrei Lugovoi was either the killer or himself a victim.

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ECHR on Russian war crimes

Immediately after yesterday’s announcement of the rulings by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg in two Chechnya-related cases, press conferences were held in the Russian and Chechen capitals by representatives of the Memorial Human Rights Centre, who gave their assessment of the event.

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Terrorist admits to have planned attack on Turkish president

Alparslan Arslan, the radical Islamist who attacked Turkey’s top administrative court in May 2006, killing one judge and injuring four others, admitted during a court hearing Thursday (July 26th) that he had planned more assaults — including one on President Ahmet Necdet Sezer.

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