ГУЛаг Палестины - Лев Гунин

of this demonstration, you informed Ukraine's assassins that they might expect

impunity for their work against Ukrainians, and in this way you encouraged them to

violence that they might otherwise have feared to commit. Thus, it is possible that

you contributed to Maksym Tsarenko losing his hands, and to Volodymyr Katelnytsky

together with his mother, and Borys Derevyanko, losing their lives.

Lubomyr Prytulak

cc: Yaakov Bleich, Ed Bradley, Jeffrey Fager, Don Hewitt, Steve Kroft, Andy Rooney,

Lesley Stahl, Mike Wallace, Simon Wiesenthal.

HOME DISINFORMATION PEOPLE SAFER 569 hits since 25Jul99

Morley Safer Letter 14 25Jul99 Who did Israel Roitman murder?

"By the time the Banderite's face was turned into a bloody-hairy pulp, we were

exhausted. The Banderite slumped to his knees, then fell flat on his face. We shot him."

- Israel Roitman

July 25, 1999

Morley Safer

60 Minutes, CBS Television

51 W 52nd Street

New York, NY

USA 10019

Morley Safer:

I bring to your attention the following boastful confession of

former SMERSH agent, Israel Roitman

The translation of Isreal Roitman's autobiographical account below, originally published

in the Russian-language periodical Our View in Thornhill, Ontario in 1998, recounts the

experience of a Jew participating in the torture and murder of a Ukrainian during the

Second World War, and boasts that this one crime was only the first of many:

MUSIC

by Israel Roitman

Our View

05May98

[...]

Once, on the occasion of a talk with students, I was asked: "Did you also kill

people?"

What could I answer? It remained only to smile sadly, and my memory recalled the

first cruelty. Afterward, there were many more, but the first is unforgettable.

It happened, if memory serves, in the Zolochiv region which lies along the

Ternopil-Lviv highway (Western Ukraine). The military SMERSH ("Death to Spies", as

military counter-intelligence was named during the war) instructed us intelligence

officers to investigate the cause of death of one of our sabotage units. On the

second or third day, we came upon the tracks of the perpetrators who were responsible

for the death of our comrades, and caught them relaxing in broad daylight in a large

house on a forest farmstead. There were three men sitting around a table with

moonshine and snacks: a thin, tall German, a heavily-armed policeman, and a

fat-faced, unshaven Banderite [Ukrainian fighting for Ukrainian independence] wearing

a service cap with a yellow-light blue [colors of the Ukrainian flag] cockade and

some kind of stripes sewn on his sleeve. It goes without saying: a merry band.

We had to shoot the policeman right there in the house, his abundance of weapons not

helping him a bit. We took the German and the Banderite out into the yard. The

Banderite, a huge man with long hands large as shovels, just stood there with a

crooked smile. On his unshaven face, his eyes darted nervously about like gimlets.

Evidently, the worsening situation was completely unexpected by him and he didn't

know what to do, and couldn't hit upon any course of action. Of course, under

different circumstances, he could have tossed us boys around like puppies, but this

time the inveterate beast could not do so: we were the ones with the weapons.

Oh, yes! By that time, we had seen a lot of these nationalists, as they were

contemptuously called, the "Samostiynyks" ["Independents"] (the motto of the

Ukrainian Nationalists was "For an Independent Ukraine"). These were veritable

beasts, worse than some Fritzes [Germans].

Volodka Seliverstov hit him first, in the solar plexus. The Banderite groaned,

gripped his stomach with his hands, and doubled over like a folding knife. Then

followed a knee upper-cut to the face. A sobbing was heard and the Banderite started

falling backwards. But we didn't let him fall. There were five of us. We stood in

a small circle and knocked him from one to another. We struck silently with backhand

blows, putting into them all our accumulated rage and hatred. We struck viciously,

probably like hunters striking huge and especially dangerous maddened beasts. By the

time the Banderite's face was turned into a bloody-hairy pulp, we were exhausted.

The Banderite slumped to his knees, then fell flat on his face. We shot him. The

German, we delivered safely across the front line and turned him over to the SMERSH

people. (We followed the same practice afterwards. When police, Banderites,

Vlasovites, or Germans fell into our hands, we usually delivered the latter

untouched, but the traitors we executed ourselves on the spot.)

[...]

The original of the beginning of Israel Roitman's article appears below, the portion

translated above shown enclosed in a box:

I Expand My Summary Table Once Again

The table which I have been developing in my previous three letters to you can now be

elaborated with the Israel Roitman entry. As Roitman gives no dates for his crimes, I

conjecture that they began in 1941; as Roitman could have continued his service in the

Soviet secret police for several decades, there is no telling what span of time his

crimes occupied:

Date of my letter

Subject of my letter

Date of Attack

Violence that you should have reported in your 23Oct94 The Ugly Face of Freedom

04Jul99

The Wiesenthal-Safer Calumny

Summer 1941

25Jul99

Who did Israel Roitman murder?

1941

15May99

Who murdered Volodymyr Ivasiuk?

April 1979

30Jun99

Who murdered Vadim Boyko?

February 14, 1992

Violence that you might have encouraged by your 23Oct94 The Ugly Face of Freedom

09Apr99

Who blew the hands off Maksym Tsarenko?

Summer 1995

17May99

Who murdered Volodymyr Katelnytsky?

July 7-8, 1997

01Jul99

Who murdered Borys Derevyanko?

August 11, 1997

And I Find My Earlier Conclusions Strengthened

In your 23Oct94 60 Minutes broadcast, The Ugly Face of Freedom, you urged the conclusion

that Ukraine was a place where Ukrainians kill Jews. However, you found that conclusion

difficult to substantiate. The conclusion that you would have found easy to

substantiate - as Israel Roitman demonstrates by his lack of inhibition in stepping

forward - is the opposite one that Ukraine is a place where Jews kill Ukrainians. What

Israel Roitman demonstrates is not only that Jews tortured and murdered Ukrainians, but

also that even today, even in Canada, they continue to view the torture and murder of

Ukrainians as their right, and they recount how they did so not with self-doubting

guilt, but with self-righteous pride.

To Israel Roitman, a Ukrainian fighting for Ukrainian independence was, and continues to

be, a "veritable beast," and the chief effect of your broadcast was to demonstrate to

the world that your own opinion is not much different.

Lubomyr Prytulak

cc: Ed Bradley, Jeffrey Fager, Don Hewitt, Steve Kroft, Andy Rooney, Lesley Stahl, Mike

Wallace.

HOME DISINFORMATION PEOPLE SAFER 675 hits since 27Jul99

Morley Safer Letter 15 27Jul99 Who did Leonid Wolf murder?

Although you have lost all claim to journalistic competence and integrity, at least you can

console yourself with not being alone and unappreciated. Indeed, you are a valued

member of a large and successful team. Grigory Luchansky, Vadim Rabinovich, and

Leonid Wolf undoubtedly know of your work, and they thank you for it.

July 27, 1999

Morley Safer

60 Minutes, CBS Television

51 W 52nd Street

New York, NY

USA 10019

Morley Safer:

I bring to your attention the following Kyiv Post article:

I reproduce the Kyiv post article in its entirely on the chance that it will be useful

to 60 Minutes researchers interested in developing a good story. However, for purposes

of this letter alone, we are primarily interested in information on Leonid Wolf which is

contained in the three segments in blue:

Who is Leonid Wolf and what is behind

government action?

News Analysis

By STEFAN KORSHAK

Post Staff Writer

01 July 1999

In making wealthy businessman Vadim Rabinovich persona non grata on June 24, the

Ukrainian government created a mystery. By simultaneously announcing that it had

taken a similar action against Leonid Borisovich Wolf back in December, it created

another one.

The government linked Wolf to numerous unsolved contract killings. But it did not

specify the link between Wolf and Rabinovich, other than to name them in the same

press release announcing that both Israeli citizens are banned from Ukraine.

That leaves the public, as usual, out of the loop about what the twin actions mean

and what evidence the Ukrainian government is holding. While Wolf could not be

reached for comment, Rabinovich denied the Ukrainian government's allegations in a

June 30 news conference in Tel Aviv.

The unanswered questions are numerous: What led the Ukrainian government to bar

Rabinovich from the nation for five years? What are his ties to Wolf? What evidence

links Wolf to murders?

The ban on the two men also raises larger questions about government motives: Coupled

with the pending embezzlement charges against former Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko

and an aide, is the Ukrainian government finally getting tough on corruption? Or is

it simply being unfair to successful businessmen who happened to fall out of favor?

Those questions in turn raise the most unpredictable question of all: What's next?

The official State Security Service (SBU) press release appears straightforward:

"Today Ukraine's Security Service, according to materials in its possession and in

the interests of Ukraine's national security, has forbidden the entrance the citizen

of Israel Vadim Zinoviovich Rabinovich, (passport numbers) from entering Ukraine for

the period of five years beginning 24 June 1999, for causing especially serious

damage to the Ukrainian economy.

"Moreover, on 17 December 1998, the SBU closed the right of entrance into Ukrainian

territory to Israeli citizen Leonid Borisovich Wolf, who is considered a member of a

professional organized criminal group, which is suspected of carrying out contract

killings in the Odessa, Kyiv, and Dnipropetrovsk regions."

The relationship between Rabinovich and Wolf was not spelled out, nor was the reason

why the Ukrainian government chose to announce the decisions in the same news

release. Who is this Leonid Wolf?

A search of Ukrainian media archives for the last 10 years turned up nothing.

Ukraine's SBU and Ministry of Internal Affairs flatly declined comment, as did

Israeli Embassy spokesmen.

However, according to Kyiv law enforcement and Odessa business sources, Wolf is a

Ukrainian native who was born in the 1940s. He emigrated to Israel in the late 1970s

and became a citizen there.

By the early 1990s, the sources said, Wolf was playing a key role in developing

Ukraine into an international smuggling hub. His business activities were said to

include shipping, oil trading, narcotics, export of weapons, chemicals, metals, and

agricultural commodities - sometimes in cooperation with Soviet-era mobsters,

sometimes with the assistance of local officials.

Wolf first came into contact with Vadim Rabinovich in Israel in the early 1990s, one

Ukrainian police source said.

One of Wolf's important business associates, the police source said, is one of the

former Soviet Union's most notorious alleged criminals, Grigory Luchansky. That, if

true, could be the link between him and Rabinovich.

Luchansky was born in the 1940s, possibly in Latvia, according to several sources

contacted by the Post. He became a career KGB officer and served overseas in a

variety of posts. By the mid-1980s, Luchansky set up and ran Vienna-based Nordex, a

KGB-owned and operated business designed to launder money for overseas intelligence

operatives.

Nordex's primary trading partner in Ukraine was government-owned Ukragrotekhservis,

U.S. Congressman Dan Burton alleged during congressional hearings in April 1997.

Burton identified Rabinovich as Luchansky's key Ukrainian lieutenant, serving in a

variety of capacities including, until 1995, Nordex vice president.

Rabinovich has stated repeatedly that he severed relations with Luchansky in 1995 due

to Nordex's poor international reputation. He has consistently denied participating

in any criminal activity while he worked for Nordex.

An April 1997 Time magazine article identified Luchansky as "the most pernicious

unindicted criminal in the world."

Luchansky's trading activities in the former Soviet Union encompass weapons, oil,

narcotics, natural gas, chemicals, precious metals, fertilizers, agricultural

commodities, and consumer goods.

Other Luchansky enterprises reportedly include prostitution, drug manufacture,

racketeering, influence peddling and fixed privatization auctions.

Nordex grossed $2 billion in 1994, investing some of its income in enterprises

ranging from a Moscow beer brewery to a Kyiv tire plant, a Magnitogorsk steel mill,

an Austrian health spa and even a Uruguayan car dealership, according to various

media reports.

Luchansky's biggest business coup came in 1993, when he engineered a fuel-for-food

deal between Russia and Ukraine.

In 1995, after meeting at a Democratic Party fundraiser with U.S. President Bill

Clinton and sparking a U.S. political scandal, Luchansky fell under increasingly

intense international investigation.

In 1996 a $35 million gold mine deal brokered by Luchansky between the Kazakhstan

government and a Canadian mining company flopped, cutting into Nordex earnings.

Nordex has reportedly suffered in the wake of the emerging-markets economic crisis.