Alexey Pichugin asked for pardon

The former head of the Yukos security service, Alexei Pichugin, convicted of organizing the murders, asked for pardon. As his lawyer, Ksenia Kostromina, explained, Pichugin filed the petition to “enable Russia to enforce two decisions of the European Court of Human Rights, which found the judgments against Pichugin unfair.”

• Alexey Pichugin is serving a life sentence. He was sentenced to prison for organizing the murders of Nefteyugansk Mayor Vladimir Petukhov, Nefteyugansk businessman Sergei Gorin and his wife, as well as several assassination attempts. Neither Pichugin himself, nor the former head of the company, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, admit his guilt and call the persecution political.
• The European Court of Human Rights recognized the persecution of Alexey Pichugin as unlawful and awarded him compensation. Russia did not cancel the verdict on the basis of the decision of the ECtHR.
• Alexey Pichugin applied for a pardon to the President of Russia in the summer of 2016. He was denied. In October of the same year, Pichugin's mother wrote in a letter to Vladimir Putin that for 13 years she could not "even put her hand on her son's shoulder, let alone hug her," and "was brought to the last point of despair."