“Bad Guy” Interview Throws US ABC TV Network in Hot Water

Michael Hedges August 4, 2005

Russian authorities complained bitterly about an interview broadcast on ABC News “Nightline” with Chechen rebel leader Shamil Basayev.
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“I am a bad guy, OK,” said Basayev in the interview with journalist Andrei Babitsky, broadcast July 28th. “The Chechen people are more dear to me than the rest of the world. You get that?”

Al-Jazerra, which regularly broadcasts communiqués from Osama bin Ladin, quoted Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov saying ABC News would no longer be “invited” to the Defense Ministry.

Basayev freely expressed responsibility for the hostage taking in Beslan, North Ossetia, the aftermath of which left 330 dead, mostly children, in 2004.

Described as illusive and reticent to give interviews in some accounts, Basayev has turned to western television twice earlier this year. Those interviews, with Swedish news agency TT and UK Channel 4, were also condemned by Russian authorities, but with no consequence to either broadcaster. In the Channel 4 interview Basayev admitted responsibility for organizing the Beslan hostage taking as well as the 2002 Moscow theater siege, which claimed 129 lives. Because of the high number of civilian deaths Beslan is considered Russia’s September 11th. Basayev has been hunted by Russian military unsuccessfully for eleven years who have offered a $10 million bounty.

Ownership changes at Russian newspaper Izvestia and television channel NTV to State-owned or State-friendly companies are widely believed to be the result of the Russian governments displeasure at coverage of events in Beslan.

Federation Council Deputy Speaker Alexander Torshin, charged with investigating the Beslan hostage taking, told the Interfax news agency (July 29) that it would send an official request to Babitsky for details of the interview.

On Tuesday (August 2) the Russian Foreign Ministry, in a press statement reported by Interfax, seemed to boot US television network ABC out of the country. The statement said ABC employee’s accreditation would not be extended beyond expiration because of “circumstances surrounding the broadcasting of an interview with internationally-recognized terrorist Shamil Basayev.”

Several western news services have made recent changes with their Moscow bureaus. ABC TV’s Moscow bureau has been downsized to one person. CNN’s Moscow bureau chief Jill Dougherty moved to Hong Kong earlier this year.

ABC News, in a press statement, called the program “one of the most controversial in Nightline’s 25-year history.”

Andrei Babitsky is not an employee of ABC News but a Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) journalist well known both for his coverage of the Chechen conflict and irritating Russian authorities. Last year Russian President Vladimir Putin revoked a decree signed by his predecessor Boris Yeltsin in 1991, which guaranteed “legal and operational status” for RFE/RL’s Moscow bureau. Subsequently RFE/RL relocated much of the staff, including Babitsky, to the Prague headquarters.

In 2000 Babitsky, a Russian citizen, was “detained” by Russian authorities in Chechnya, eventually arrested, convicted and fined for using a false passport. The journalist has won acclaim for his reporting on Chechnya, where few dare to go, including an award from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in 2000.

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