Gochyiaev is an ethnic Karachai, born in the city ofKarachayevsk at North Caucasus. After finishing high school, he served in the Russian Strategic Rocket Forces. He had been living in Moscow for more than ten years. He ran a small construction company, Kapstroy 2000 in Moscow and got married in 1996. According to independent investigator Mikhail Trepashkin, Gochiyayev was an ordinary "russified Karachai" who lived in Moscow, and the information that he was an adherent of the Wahhabis came solely from a fabricated FSB investigation.
His alleged involvement in bombings
Gochyayev rented premises on four locations in Moscow where bombs were found. He, Tatyana Koroleva and Alexander Karmishin were founders of the company that received shipments of the explosives, RDX, used in the bombings. When the two first bombs went off claiming more than 200 lives, he called the police to warn about two remaining bombs. The remaining bombs were found on the addresses he indicated and deactivated, which helped to prevent a large number of further casualties. Gochiyaev claimed that he was framed by his old acquaintance, an FSB officer who asked him to rent basements "as storage facilities" at four locations where bombs were later found. According to the FSB, Gochiyayev received $500,000 from warlord Ibn Al-Khattab to carry out the attacks. The FSB released a picture showing the two together, claiming that it proved that the two had close links. The pictures appeared in response to a statement by Alexander Litvinenko that he has a letter from Gochiyayev denying any ties with Khattab. According to Litvinenko, a British forensic analyst could not determine if the man in the photo was Gochiyayev. Alexander Litvinenko, was later murdered in London with polonium. An independent public commission to investigate the bombings was chaired by Duma deputy Sergei Kovalyov. The commission started its work inFebruary 2002. On March 5Sergei Yushenkov and Duma member Yuli Rybakov flew to London where they met Alexander Litvinenko and Mikhail Trepashkin. After this meeting, Trepashkin began working with the commission. According to Trepashkin, the person who actually rented the premises was FSB officer Vladimir Romanovich. Trepashkin found the owner of the Guryanov St. basement warehouse in Moscow, where the explosives were stored. That was Mark Blumenfeld who said that the composite sketch of the man who rented his basement was later replaced with a different sketch by FSB people. Mr. Blumenfeld said he was forced by the FSB interrogators to testify against Gochiyaev. Trepashkin was unable to present his evidence to the court because he was arrested a week before the trial and convicted by a military closed court for illegal arms possession and for divulging state secrets to four years in prison. Romanovich was subsequently killed in a hit and run incident in Cyprus. Gochiyayev escaped to Georgia and later probably to Turkey, according to news reports. The last time author Yuri Felshtinsky and Litvinenko have seen Gochiyayev was in 2002 to obtain his written statement, in which he admitted having helped to "rent these premises on Guryanov Street, Kashirka, Borisovskie Prudy and Kopotnya".
