Wetwork man Pichugin stuck in proofs. Four corrupt deputies of the State Duma. Kremlin’s pleader Voloshin. The website Prigovor.ru reminds its readers of what happened on July 18, 2003.
On this day 20 years ago, on July 18, 2003, the Basmanny District Court of Moscow found legal the searches conducted by the Office of the Prosecutor General in the office of the employee of Yukos security service Alexey Pichugin. Lawyers tried to challenge the legitimacy of the investigative actions on the basis of certain procedural violations. However, the court, having studied the presented materials, dismissed the complaint of the defense that asked to acknowledge illegal “carrying out of the searches”.
The investigative actions were carried out within the framework of the criminal case over the charges against the mentioned employee of Yukos security service of a series of murders and attempted murders. He was apprehended on June 19, 2003, within the criminal case No 18/325507-04 on suspicion of organizing the double murder of the businessman from the town Tambov Sergey Gorin and his wife Olga Gorina.
On June 21, 2003, the Court issued a warrant to arrest him. The measure of restriction – detention in custody. On June 26, 2003, an indictment was brought against him on the basis of “the Tambov trail”. And, in August 2003, to his indictment of organizing the murders of the Gorins, other criminal episodes were added.
(See also the article “On this day, investigators came for Alexey Pichugin”. Bloody side of Yukos. Alexey Pichugin, an employee of Yukos security service, was apprehended within the framework of the criminal case No 18/325507-04 on suspicion of organizing a double murder).
SHOW OF CORRUPT DEPUTIES
On the same day, on July 18, 2003, ardent parliamentarians sent a request to the Office of the Prosecutor General of Russia, to Federal Security Service (FSB) and to the human rights ombudsman asking “to prove the assertions that psychotropic drugs are used with regard to the arrested employee of Yukos security service” Alexey Pichugin. On the eve, Tatyana, Pichugin’s wife, visited him in the pre-trial detention center and by eye determined that “prohibited methods of psychological and physical influence have been applied to her husband”. To the press the disinformation about “psychotropic drugs” and “traces of jabs” was launched at the instigation of Tatyana Akimtseva.
Among the deputies attaching with their spam and their request the investigation, were Alexey Melnikov, faction of the party “Yabloko” nursed by Yukos; Igor Annensky, faction of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF), domesticated by Yukos; “ready for any job parliamentarian” Alexander Barannikov, faction of Union of Right Forces (SPS): and the billionaire and Yukos shareholder Vladimir Dubov, who had been placed to the State Duma and to the faction of the party “United Russia”.
“The psychotropic myth” collapsed on July 30, 2003, yet, for a rather long period of time, it was exploited by inveterate “Pichugin’s witnesses”, credulous press, and, naturally, his lawyers.
SEVEN CRIMINAL CASES OF KHODORKOVSKY’S ORGANIZED CRIMINAL GROUP
On the same day, on July 18, 2003, the Office of the Prosecutor General of Russia explained some aspects of “Yukos case”. It became known that the investigation was working on seven cases that, somehow or other, were connected with this oil company.
The preliminary picture didn’t have it store anything good for Yukos. The case went in two directions. These were economic and tax crimes, to which was related also the criminal case against Platon Lebedev over embezzlement of the shares of the JSC “Apatit”, as well as tax episodes under Article 198 and Article 199 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.
The rest – at that moment these were five criminal cases - were dealing with murders and attempted murders. The investigation also analyzed implication of Yukos and the bank “Menatep” in contract murders and attempted murders. A preliminary list of the cases being worked upon, looked like this:
- criminal case into the murder in June 1998 the head of the administration of the town Nefteyugansk Vladimir Petukhov and into the attempted murder of his bodyguard;
- criminal case into the killing in December 1998 in the town on Nefteyugansk of the entrepreneur from building branch Nikolay Filippov;
- criminal case on the murder in October 1998 of Alexander Berlyand, CEO of Tomsk-Neft-Vostok CJSC, head of the Moscow representative office of Kurskneftekhim;
- criminal case with regard to the employee of the security service of the oil company NK Yukos Alexey Pichugin accused of organizing in November 1998 the murders of Sergey Gorin and his wife Olga Gorina, and of attempted murder of the head of the PR-Department of the Moscow City Hall Olga Kostina;
- criminal case into the attempted murder of the manager of the Austrian company “East Petroleum” Yevgeny Rybin in November 1998.
“A uniting feature of all these five criminal cases is property contradictions between commercial and state entities, headed by the victims, and the oil company Yukos”, told the press at that time an unnamed source.
KREMLIN’S PLEADER ALEXANDR VOLOSHIN
“In the oil company, they are holding to contrary opinions. The mentioned by representatives of the Office of the Prosecutor General criminal cases over murders and attempted murders are united by one thing – neither Yukos, nor its employees are defendants in them”, said the head of Yukos press-service Alexander Shadrin, who, for the sake of a witty remark, crossed off Alexey Pichugin from the ranks of Yukos employees.
He also issued a “clumsy” press release declaring that all itemized cases were “unsubstantiated” and had “no perspectives in court”, and the Office of the Prosecutor General simply “saves the honor of the regiment”. And the newspaper “Nezavisimaya Gazeta”, against the backdrop of a series of criminal cases over murders and attempted murders, veraciously reported that “the Yukos case will be swept under the rug”. According to the newspaper, the pleader for the swindlers and wetwork men from Yukos happened to be the unforgettable Alexander Stalyevich Voloshin “head of the administration of the president of Russia from March 19, 1999, to October 30, 2003).
“After the arrest in October 2003 of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, it became clear that all efforts of the “fifth column” in the Kremlin were to no avail”, notes the website Prigovor.ru.
(See also the previous article “On this day, the shares of the company “Yeniseyneftegaz” were being searched, which had been stolen by Yukos”. Where Alexander Temerko got money for the friendship with Boris Johnson. Sad Beilin in the war which is “not his own”. The website Prigovor.ru reminds its readers of what happened on July 17, 2003 and 2005).
*On May 20, 2022, the Russian Ministry of Justice included M.B. Khodorkovsky in the list of physical persons executing functions of a foreign agent.
