Senior Russian Senator: 'Georgia Ordered Domodedovo Bombing'

Civil Georgia, Tbilisi / 27 Feb.'11

Alexander Torshin, deputy speaker of Russia's upper house of the Parliament, Federal Council, said he did not believe Islamist militants were behind the January terrorist act at Domodedovo airport in Moscow and blamed Georgia for ordering the attack.

He said in an interview with the Russian state newspaper, Rossiiskaya Gazeta, published on February 25, that Islamist rebel leader Doku Umarov, who said he had ordered the Domodedovo bombing, had either nothing to do with this attack or at most acted as a middleman between those who had really ordered it and those who had carried it out.

"I am sure the terrorist act was organized from outside... I will say from where, although I understand that my words may trigger wave of anger and misunderstanding, but I think, it was Georgia and its ruling regime [who ordered the attack]," Torshin said.

"Saakashvili is not hiding his animosity towards us. He has long turned anti-Russian attitudes into a competitive product, which he is selling.There is nothing else to sell; the Georgian wines are being sold poorly on the foreign markets... But there is a demand on Russophobia. The Saakashvili's regime had no need at all in Umarov to organize the terrorist act, because there is Ossetian traitor [Dimitri] Sanakoev [the head of Tbilisi-based provisional South Ossetian administration] and his network of agents," he added.

Torshin, who is a member of ruling United Russia party, led the parliamentary commission of inquiry into 2004 Beslan school hostage-taking tragedy and a commission to probe into the August, 2008 war. He is a member of National Counter-terrorism Committee (NAK), which is Russia's government body coordinating anti-terrorism policies.

Source: Civil Georgia.
Link: http://www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=23189.