Alexey Pichugin
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Alexei Vladimirovich Pichugin was born in the town of Orekhovo-Zuevo, Moscow Region, in 1962. He is a former high ranking security official at the erstwhile Russian oil giant Yukos.
[edit] Early years
From his childhood Aleksey looked forward to a military career, so after leaving school in 1979 he entered Interior Ministry’s Higher Command School in Novosibirsk. Aleksey Pichugin graduated in 1983 and was sent to the Interior Ministry’s unit in the Tula region.
[edit] Professional career
In 1986 Aleksey Pichugin entered the KGB’s School in Novosibirsk. He graduated from it successfully and started his work for the Committee for State Security. From 1987 to 1994 Aleksey Pichugin worked in the Administration of the KGB’s Military Secret Service.
On the whole Aleksey Pichugin had given 15 years of his life to the protection of Soviet and Russian state interests in the military and the secret services. In 1994 after some restructuring exercises in state security, Aleksey left the FSB with the rank of Major.
On leaving the FSB Aleksey Pichugin joined the security service of “Menatep Bank“. In 1998 “Menatep Bank“ acquired YUKOS Oil Company, and Aleksey Pichugin started to work for YUKOS. He was appointed as head of a section within the security department.
As head of YUKOS’s Internal Economic Security Department, Aleksey's main responsibilities were safeguarding the company’s properties and prevention of theft and plunder in its enterprises. Aleksey's former colleagues described him as a true professional and a stern but just superior. Aleksey Pichugin had more than once been rewarded for irreproachable service in the units of the Interior Ministry and the FSB of Russia.
[edit] Arrest, Torture, and Convictions in Russia
Pichugin was arrested in April 2003, allegedly for the murder of his good friends Sergei and Olga Gorin in 2002. During interrogation at the FSB's Lefortovo prison, he was given drugged coffee and subsequently injected with an unknown substance, after which he could not remember anything. In the following weeks, he mysteriously began to lose weight precipitously.
On March 30, 2005, after a closed-door trial in which the original jury had been replaced by the state and the star witness against him was a multiple-murderer serving a life sentence - a fact the jury was not allowed to know - Aleksey was found guilty of the murder the Gorins and the attempted murder of Olga Kostina. He received a sentence of 20 years in prison.
In August 2007 he was additionally found guilty by the Moscow City Court of murder of three people and assaults on four. Pichugin received a life sentence for organizing the murders of Moscow businessman Valentina Korneyeva, Nefteyugansk mayor Vladimir Petukhov and a person by the last name of Fedotov.
[edit] European Court proceedings
In September 2007 Aleksey Pichugin's lawyers placed questions by the European Court for Human Rights to the government of the Russian Federation at the disposal of journalists . These deal with Aleksey Pichugin's first criminal case concerning the disappearance of Tambov businesspersons, Sergey and Olga Gorina. These questions were drafted on June 5, 2007, based on complaints from Pichugin and his lawyers filed in Strasbourg.
As was reported earlier by lawyer Kseniya Kostromoina, the defence had called to the attention of the Strasbourg court the violations of Articles 3 (Prohibition of torture), 5 (Right to life, liberty and security of person) and 6 (Right to fair trial) of the European Convention on Human Rights.
[edit] Private life
Aleksey Pichugin was married at the time of his arrest in 2003, and has three sons, the youngest of whom, Sergey, was only 5 at the time. After several years of defending her husband's honor in public, his wife has now left him.
