In Post-Election Meeting, Presidential Challenger Calls on President Putin to Pardon Alexey Pichugin and Other Political Prisoners

March 20, 2018

One day after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s re-election, Ksenia Sobchak, one of the candidates who had challenged Mr. Putin in Sunday’s presidential election, publicly asked the incumbent president to pardon several political prisoners during a meeting of all presidential candidates at the Kremlin.

Ms Sobchak handed a folder containing the names of sixteen individuals to Mr. Putin, who promised to consider her petition. The televised broadcast of the event was terminated as soon as Sobchak began speaking and asked for the release of political prisoners.

Listed among the sixteen names in Ms. Sobchak’s folder was Alexey Pichugin  – Russia’s longest-serving political prisoner.

Ms. Sobchak’s campaign website discussed the meeting and handover of the list on Tuesday. The posted passage describing Alexey Pichugin reads as follows:

“Alexey Pichugin – Former head of a Yukos Oil Company security department, whose arrest was the start of the “Yukos Affair.” Charged with organizing five murders and three attempted murders. The charges were based on statements by two convicts who later recanted as they made their statements under investigators’ pressure in exchange for milder sentences.

In prosecuting Pichugin, the investigators tried to get him to testify against former Yukos owner Leonid Nevzlin, but Pichugin made no statements.

He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

Earlier this month, Alexey Pichugin was once more acknowledged as a political prisoner by renowned Russian human rights group “Memorial Human Rights Center.” Read more here.

Source: Russian / English translation