Three killing episodes. “The Court founds its ruling on the guilty verdict of the jurors and adjudged him guilty of murders and attempted murders”. The website Prigovor.ru reminds its readers of what happened on March 30, 2005.
On this day, on March 30, 2005, the Moscow City Court sentence Alexey Pichugin, the head of the Department of internal and economic security of the Oil Company Yukos, to 20 years of imprisonment in a maximum security colony. This penalty was imposed on Pichugin on the basis of the verdict of a panel of jurors.
On the eve, by the majority of voices – eight against four – the collegium of jurors adjudged Pichigin guilty of contracting and organizing murders and attempted murders. The proceedings, due to a number of secret documents, were held in camera.
(See also the article “On this day, a sentence was passed upon Alexey Pichugin without condescension”).
According to the jurors. Alexey Pichugin doesn’t deserve condescension. “The Court founds its ruling on the verdict of the jurors and adjudged him guilty of murders and attempted murders”, explained Judge Natalya Olikhver, who read out the operative part of the judgement.
Alexey Peshkun, the second defendant in the case, received condescension from the jurors and was sentenced to four years of penal custody in a strict regime colony.
(See also “We ask to adjudge Pichugin and Peshkun guilty to full extend”).
During the oral argument of the sides, the state prosecutor demanded to sentence Pichigin to life imprisonment, and, as to the other defendant, the prosecutor demanded to sentence him to three years and two months imprisonment. Alexey Pichugin, who had started to cooperate with the prosecution during the first stage of the investigation, later on, evidently under an advice of his defense, began to expatiate about some “political order”, and during the whole process denied his guilt of any episodes imputed to him.
(See also “Murder cases of Alexey Pichugin”, part 1).
FIRST THREE EPISODES – FIRST 20 YEARS
y Pichugin, born 1962, the head of the Department of internal and economic security of the Oil company Yukos, was apprehended within the framework of the criminal case No 18/325507-04, on March 19, 2003, and was accused of murdering Sergey Gorin, director of the CJSC “Don-Group” and his wife Olga Gorin. A bit later, in August 2003, to this accusation was added three more episodes:
- October 5, 1998, accusation of beating up Viktor Koleson, an employee of the company “Rosprom”;
- November 28, 1998 – attempted murder of Olga Kostin, an employee of the Moscow City Hall, near her apartment a bomb was blown up;
- one more episode imputed to Alexey Pichugin: “a threat to kill” in 2002 with regard to the entrepreneur Sergey Lobikov, due to a motion of the defense, was discharged because the “expiry of the period of limitation”.
Thus, on March 30, 2005, the Court analyzed and evaluated, from the point of view of the law, the first three episodes of a whole series of murders and attempted murders, executed at the behest of Alexey Pichugin, whose criminal activity, as it was later established by the court, was under control of Leonid Nevzlin.
LEONID NEVZLIN’S CRIMINAL ACTIVITY
“However, as it turned out, these three episodes only partly unveiled the curtain of the bloody and shady activity of the “most transparent” oil company. New accusations on new episodes – organization of the killing of Valentina Korneyeva, director of the firm “Feniks”, mayor of the town Nefteyugansk Vladimir Petukhov, and two attempted murders of Yevgeny Rybin, general manager of the company “East Petroleum Handelsgas” – were filed against Alexey Pichugin as early as in April 2005. These crimes, pointed out the prosecution, were committed in the interest of Leonid Nevzlin and on his instructions. And it became definitely clear when the Moscow City Court started to analyze Nevzlin’s criminal activity”, notes the website Prigovor.ru.
(See the previous article “On this day, Khodorkovsky proclaimed a crisis of liberalism in Russia”. From liberalism to collaborationism is only one step. “So was a Russian liberal, so he has remained”. The website Prigovor.ru reminds its readers of what happened on March 29, 2004 and 2010).
