It is five years today since Michail Khodorkovsky was arrested – the main figurant of the so called «Yukos case». Since this date – the 25-th of October – there counts the beginning of the most celebrated case of Russia after the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics’ disintegration. But besides Khodorkovsky and Lebedev – the owners of the oil company, which was taken away as a result – the people serve a time of imprisonment who can be called, with an every reason, the hostages, arrested or convicted (or who is going to be convicted) for the sake of the pressure upon the owners of the company.
One of them – the head of the internal Security department of the «Yukos» oil company Alexey Pichugin. Of all convicts he is condemned to the longest – extremely long term: for life.
In the «Novaya gazeta» the former cellmate wishes many happy returns to the former head of the «Yukos» Security department. And tells about him the things which nobody knows…
On the 19-th of June 2003 there was arrested Alexey Pichugin – the head of the «Yukos»’ Security department. After seven years had elapsed it is obvious: the prosecution initially staked on him for to convict the top-management of the disgraced oil company. It is said not only by Pichugin’s lawyers, human rights activists, the PAEC’s representatives, journalists, but also the investigators. Alexey Pichugin preferred a life-long imprisonment to perjury. What the person is he? What was his activity in the «Yukos»’ Security department, which caused so many myths? About this and many other things the portal HRO’s correspondent Vera Vasilieva talked with the former employee of the bank ’Menatep’ Konstantin Alexandrovich Shabelnitsky.
At Michail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev trial the public prosecution in the Khamovnichesky district court called one of its trump cards. It is Alexey Golubovich, the former «Yukos» director of the strategic planning and corporate finances, who gives evidence at court.
On the 7th of October, 2009 at the meeting with writers the Prime Minister of Russia Vladimir Putin made another statement about «the complicity of YUKOS Company in murders» that «has been proved by the court».
Six years ago on June 19, 2003, there was an event which became the starting point for the criminal case which for many people has become significant and representing ignorance of justice and absence of freedom in modern Russia. On that day Aleksey Pichugin, the former Chief Security Officer of the oil company of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, was arrested. This is how the «YUKOS Case» began. His attorneys and his mother Alla Nikolaevna told the portal HRO.org about the present state of the case of Aleksey Pichugin and where he is now.
On the 25-th of March, 2009 it became known that the Russian General Prosecutor’s Office sent to Israel another inquiry about the extradition of the former «Yukos» vice-president Leonid Nevzlin. The reason for this became the life-long sentence, passed regarding him by the Moscow City court in Leonid Nevzlin’s absense and came into effect on the 27-th of January.
On the 27-th of January, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation will consider the appeal of Leonid Nevzlin’s defense from the life sentence. In it the lawyer of the former „Yukos“ vice-president Dmitry Kharitonov asks to repeal the judgment of guilty, and to stop the criminal case because of absence of components of crime in his client’s actions.
The journalist of the «Daily journal» Zoya Svetova in her article «Results of the year. The president Dmitry Medvedev’s counter-proposal» discusses about a condition of the judicial system of Russia nowadays and remembers the most celebrated trials of 2008, among them – trial by default of the former «Yukos» vice-president Leonid Nevzlin, sentenced to life imprisonment, in spite of absence of witnesses and proofs of guilt. The author reminds that before with analogous charges there was convicted for life imprisonment, as an «accomplice of crime actions» Alexey Pichugin, serving his sentence in the colony «Black dolphin». At Leonid Nevzlin’s trial two false witnesses confessed that they had slandered the «Yukos» employees under the pressure of the General Prosecutor’s Office’s investigators, but it didn’t have an influence upon the sentence.
Program «Time of Freedom. Results of the week». The anchorperson is Dmitry Volchek
