Alexey Vladimirovich Pichugin (; born July 25, 1962, in Orekhovo-Zuevo, Moscow Oblast, USSR) is a former manager in the security department at the Russian oil company Yukos. In 2003, Russian President Vladimir Putin initiated a campaign to expropriate Yukos and to harass and punish its executives. During testimony before an international tribunal in a case challenging Russia's campaign against Yukos, in which the tribunal found the company indeed had been unlawfully expropriated, a former advisor to President Putin testified that the campaign included formation in February 2003 of “a special unit [that] was set up to fabricate evidence” and to “launch the Government attack [against Yukos] under the guise of ‘legitimate’ court proceedings". Pichugin faced multiple trials, which have been determined by the European Court of Human Rights to have been unfair and in violation of his human rights. His case has been described as a politically motivated attempt to obtain false evidence against Yukos executives Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Leonid Nevzlin and Pichugin is said to be “the longest-serving political prisoner in Russia".

Though not himself a high-ranking Yukos executive, Pichugin was arrested on June 19, 2003. His was the first arrest in the campaign against Yukos and those associated with that company. Many view Pichugin as a pawn in efforts to silence or punish Khodorkovsky, Nevzlin or other politically active Yukos leaders.

During his first year in captivity, Pichugin described being drugged and interrogated without counsel while being pressed to give testimony against Yukos's leadership.

In April 2017, during free debate before the Parliamentary Assembly for the Council of Europe, the appointed rapporteur from the PACE Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights called out Pichugin’s case, describing Russia’s treatment of him as “tantamount to moral torture,” stating: “There can be no place for such inhumanity in our community of law.”

Early years

From his childhood Alexey Pichugin looked forward to a military career, so after leaving school in 1979 he entered the Interior Ministry's Higher Command School in Novosibirsk. Pichugin graduated in 1983 and was sent to the Interior Ministry's unit for the Tula region.

Professional career

In 1986 Pichugin entered the KGB’s school in Novosibirsk. On graduating, he started his work for the Committee for State Security. From 1987 to 1994 Pichugin worked in the administration of the KGB's military secret service.

Pichugin left the FSB with the rank of major, in 1994, after the restructuring of state security services. In total, he had spent 15 years protecting Soviet and Russian state interests through his membership of the military and the secret services.

On leaving the FSB, Aleksey Pichugin joined the security service of Bank Menatep. In 1998, when Bank Menatep became the holding company for Yukos oil, Pichugin was appointed a manager of the economic security department, one of a half dozen departments within the Yukos's security group. Pichugin reported to the head of Yukos security, Mikhail Shestapalov. The economic security department was responsible for background checks, securing company property and preventing theft.

Arrest and convictions in Russia

First cases against Pichugin

Pichugin was first arrested on June 19, 2003, and accused of the attempted murders of Victor Kolesov and Olga Kostina in 1998. Kolesov was a mid-level manager at Rosprom – a Yukos-related company, who had been mugged and who testified that he had no enemies at Yukos or elsewhere. Kostina was a functionary at Moscow mayor's office who had briefly worked at Yukos. Kolesov had been mugged and robbed on the street in Moscow. An explosive device had been left outside Kostina's parents' apartment, though it injured no one and she did not live there. Pichugin was further accused of the alleged murder of Sergei and Olga Gorin. Sergei Gorin was a Tambov businessman who had once worked at Bank Menatep. Gorin and his wife have been missing since an armed robbery at their home in 2002.

There was no physical or other direct evidence presented at Pichugin's closed-court trial that implicated his involvement in any of noted crimes. The first jury was empaneled on October 1, 2004, but it was dismissed by the court on December 9, 2004, without reaching a verdict. A new jury was formed on January 25, 2005. That jury reached a guilty verdict on March 30, 2005. Pichugin was sentenced to 20 years in prison. As noted above, the European Court found this trial unfair and stated that the appropriate remedy was a new trial, which the Russian Supreme Court has denied. Pichugin has sought relief from the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers to have the Russian Federation abide by the ECHR judgment.

The case against Pichugin depended entirely on assertions of jailhouse confessors. These men claimed that they had been hired to commit the crimes by a third person. According to them, this third person told the confessed criminals that Pichugin was behind the crimes. In other words, the case was based on double hearsay statements by individuals who were also prosecuted. The star prosecution witness was a multiple murderer serving a life sentence - a fact the jury was not allowed to know. As the European Court found, the Russian trial court materially limited Pichugin's lawyer's ability to cross examine these witnesses, thereby testing their credibility.

Private life

Married at the time of his arrest in 2003, Pichugin has three sons. The youngest, Sergey, was born in 1998. His wife spent several years publicly defending her husband's innocence. They are now separated.

References

  • Alexey Pichugin Case
  • Lenta.ru
  • Rian.ru