“Yukos conducted fraudulent activity in the State Duma”. How deputies from the parties “Yabloko" and the Communist Party of the Russian Federation" (CPRF) worked off their financing. The website Prigovor.ru reminds its readers of what happened on October 15, 2003.
On this day, on October 15, 2003, 101 deputies of the Russian Parliament, of the State Duma, as if having forgotten the principle of separation of powers, attempted – it looked like that – to openly exert pressure on the court. They sent a "collective letter" to the name of Olga Solopova, a managing president of the Moscow Basmanny District Court. In their address, the deputies asked to appoint open proceedings in order to “clear the situation with the complaints of Alexey Pichugin pertaining to the actions of the Office of the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation”. “We hold”, argued the deputies, “that the openness of the court would facilitate the early establishment of the truth in this question and improve the situation in the domain of the defense of human rights”.
The most active signatories of this letter were deputies of the party “Yabloko” and the CPRF working off the financial generosity of Yukos.
At the basis of the indignation of the deputies (apart from money) was the “creative work” of the PR-Service of Leonid Nevzlin and the lawyers of a former employee of the Yukos Security service Alexey Pichugin, who was under arrest due to a criminal case connected with murders and attempted murders “in the interests of Yukos”. All kinds of rumors were spread about the “prodigious suffering” of the defendant of the criminal case, in particular, about some unwarranted interrogatory methods with nothing less than the use of some “psychotropic jabs”.
Into this initiative quickly tapped the whole squadron of parliamentarians – somebody was mistaken in good faith, and others acted in the interests of Yukos completely consciously. Deputies' inquiries in support of Alexey Pichugin fell on all agencies in summer 2003, right after the arrest of Pichugin, a mastermind of murders.
The Office of the Prosecutor General of Russia, naturally, carried out a necessary investigation “on the inquiries of deputies of the State Duma in connection with the case of Alexey Pichugin, the head of one of the Department of the Oil company Yukos Security services.
“In the inquiries, in particular, with reference to the wife of Alexey Pichugin, was pointed out that investigators of the Office of the Prosecutor General conducted with the defendant unjustified investigation actions, and illegal methods of influence were applied of just about the use of psychotropic means”. And then, on July 30, 2003, (pay attention to this date) the supervisory agency said "the investigation" had not found any breaches of the Criminal Procedure Code", all investigative actions had been conducted in presence of lawyers.
Apart from that, “in the course of the examination”, said the statement, “has been appointed and carried out medical examinations and forensic expertise of Alexey Pichugin. According to the conclusions of the examinations, no bodily harm or traces of them were found (including traces of injections) on Pichugin. As the result of the medical examinations, it was found out that Pichugin, as regards his health conditions, could be kept in a pre-trial detention center and there were no contraindications as to carrying out with him investigative actions".
“YUKOS CONDUCTED A FRAUDULENT ACTIVITY IN THE STATE DUMA”
Thus, already at the end of July – beginning of August 2003 the deputies received the official answers to their inquiries. For some reason, nobody from the deputies published the answers "as it was”, although usually an official answer to a deputy’s request contains more details, as public statements of state agencies. But, so it seems, the details, as well as, by the way, clarifying the gist of the discussed questions, did not bother at all the regardful parliamentarians.
Had it been otherwise, the letter of October 15, 2003, of the "Khodorkovsky's hundred" would have not emerged at all. But it originated, and it was done for a special reason – on the eve of the session of the Basmanny Court in connection with the complaint of lawyers that "during the interrogations, narcotic and psychotropic means were applied to their client". As it was already mentioned, the Office of the Prosecutor General, as early as in summer, carried out a special investigation, but this did not stop the lawyers who even a couple of months later demanded an extra court session.
Alexey Melnikov, the initiator of the October letter of the “Yukos hundred” and member of the “Yabloko” party faction, was very indignant. He expressed his indignation on the pages of the media outlet “Gazeta.ru”, which was so upset that it muddled the month, setting up the chronicle of the deputies’ interference in the criminal case.
But there are good reasons to believe such “dances around Pichugin” had a bit different background. On the eve of the rain of the deputies’ letters to the court, the investigation was conducted with good results searches with regard to economic directions of the Yukos criminal activity. Documents of the subordinated to Yukos foreign companies were seized which are part of the scheme of siphoning and laundering of money subsided on bank accounts of the “main shareholders” of the company.
To understand the situation in the deputy corps in 2003, it suffices to recall the evidence of Yegor Gaydar.
"Yukos carried out a very energetic and fraudulent activity in the State Duma. It used corresponding technologies and, in fact, as early as in 2002, it became clear that the government could not pass through the Duma any draft law without a Yukos approval”, notes the website Prigovor.ru.
(See also the previous article "On this day, bank accounts of Khodorkovsky were found to the amount of 15 million euro”. A search in the headquarters of the Swiss bank Julius Baer in Frankfurt am Main. Criminal case “on preliminary suspicion of money laundering”. The website Prigovor.ru reminds its readers of what happened on October 14, 2011.
