POC members confirmed that ex-YUKOS employee Alexei Pichugin is in the Lefortovo pre-trial detention center, but they were denied a meeting with him

The Public Monitoring Commission of Moscow has confirmed that the former Yukos security officer Alexei Pichugin, who was taken out of the Orenburg colony in an unknown direction last week, is in the Lefortovo detention center in Moscow. About this in your Telegram channel reported Executive Secretary of the POC Alexey Melnikov.

At the same time, Melnikov explained that he and other human rights activists were denied a meeting with Pichugin.

“When we asked to invite the former head of the YUKOS internal economic security department, Alexey Pichugin, to us, we were refused. The employees of Lefortovo motivated the refusal by the fact that at the moment, according to the order of the chief sanitary doctor of the Federal Penitentiary Service, all prisoners who arrived must undergo a 21-day quarantine, ” wrote Melnikov.

As noted by Melnikov, members of the PMC made a complaint against the actions of the detention center employees, indicating in the text of the document that in this case the employees of the detention center violated their rights to unhindered access to places of detention.

For what reason Pichugin was transported from the colony is still unknown. how transfers “Novaya Gazeta”, this was done within the framework of investigative actions for Pichugin to testify against the ex-head of YUKOS Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

In 2016, Pichugin was already taken to Moscow to testify in this case. However, then he used Article 51 of the Constitution and a few months later he was transferred from the Lefortovo SIZO back to the colony.

In 2005, Alexey Pichugin was sentenced to 20 years in prison in a strict regime colony. The court found him guilty of organizing the murder of businessmen Sergei and Olga Gorin. Later, a second criminal case was initiated against Pichugin, in which he received a life sentence. He was accused of organizing several more murders, including the mayor of Nefteyugansk, Vladimir Petukhov. Pichugin himself denied his guilt.

In 2012, the European Court of Human Rights found the process against Pichugin unfair and awarded him about € 9,500 in moral damages. However, a year later, the Presidium of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation refused to reconsider the verdict.

In June 2017, the ECHR recognized the prosecution of Pichugin as unlawful and ordered to pay him more than € 15,000 as compensation for violation of the right to a fair trial (paragraphs 1 and 2 of Article 6 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms). The ECtHR also concluded that in the Pichugin case, the Russian courts evaluated and recognized the evidence in such a way that there was an imbalance between the defense and the prosecution.

The Human Rights Center “Memorial” and other human rights organizations consider Pichugin a political prisoner and a prisoner of conscience. Human rights activists point to the lack of evidence of his involvement in the crimes incriminated to him. Since 2016, he has applied for pardon three times, but it was rejected.