The Human Toll of Life In Prison – Novaya Gazeta Columnist Discusses Alexey Pichugin’s Case

By Vera Chelischeva, reporter, head of the judicial information department
This material was published in issue No. 131 dated November 22, 2019
[translation from Russian; bracketed text added by translator]

6,000 days – or 16 years and 5 months – is how long former Yukos security division employee Alexey Pichugin has been in prison as of today (November 22, 2019). Not many talk about this man, yet everyone knows who he is. Everyone knows he’s a hostage of the Yukos Affair, one who has suffered the most, and is suffering still.

6,000 days. None of us knows what it’s like to serve a life sentence knowing you’re innocent. What can that many days in prison do to a man? What can they turn him into?

You can describe Pichugin’s 6,000 days in a cursory fashion. June 19, 2003… The very first arrest at the company. The step the authorities took to mark the start of the war on Yukos. And right away this rank-and-file staffer, Pichugin, was charged with the most serious of crimes – organizing murders for hire. And right away he flatly refused to falsely implicate himself or his superiors. After that, he was visited in jail by FSB staffers, interrogated without his lawyers present, and pressured using strong-acting psychotropics – the so-called “truth serum.” Law enforcement really wanted to quickly produce a star witness for the prosecution. But they kept failing.

He kept turning them down even when promised the “rosiest” of prospects.

Then there were two trials, one of which was held at Moscow City Court behind closed doors on completely made-up grounds. At that trial, the jury was disbanded and replaced. The second trial was open to the public, but that trial, too, left no doubt that the prosecution was biased and partial. Incidentally, some prosecutors refused to take part in Pichugin’s proceedings, seeing how the jury is being worked on. Others didn’t refuse – and were promoted. Some prosecution witnesses, such as the hardnosed criminals Tzigelnik and Reshetnikov, later openly admitted that they were forced to falsely testify against Pichugin and his superiors in exchange for promises of a reduced sentence. But these jailbirds got played [and got long prison terms] despite agreeing to falsely testify. And a man was sentenced to life in part because of what they said.

6,000 days. Some of them added up to years spent at Lefortovo [jail in Moscow], then years at the Black Dolphin – the Orenburg prison for lifers, a place with horrid, unbearable energy. Over the course of these 16 years, every once in a while he’d be yanked out from “the Dolphin” and taken to Moscow: as the third case against Yukos was brewing, siloviki still hoped to get testimony against MBK [Mikhail Khodorkovsky], who was by then pardoned and living abroad. Their logic was simple: a man who’s been in prison this long will welcome a chance to try to change his fate. But again they got nothing. They simply never got Pichugin and his nature: this is a man who is not going to compromise or make any deals to lighten his load. Never. He was blackmailed using his relatives; they were forced to leave Russia, and he continued refusing to say one harmful word against anyone. Even Khodorkovsky couldn’t take it anymore – he publicly asked Pichugin to “take part in the show” – to testify like the investigators demanded in exchange for freedom. And again Pichugin would not.

It’s hard to judge this stubbornness.

Pichugin’s story has long ago transitioned to some Biblical plane that we, the ordinary people, can’t grasp.

6,000 days. Over the years, Amnesty International, Memorial [Human Rights Centre], the UN and other international organizations have intervened on his behalf. [The European Court of Human Rights in] Strasbourg twice ruled that the criminal cases and verdicts against Pichugin must be reviewed and new, fair trials held. Russia reviewed nothing, and later turning down Pichugin’s two pardon applications.

Nor did the president reply to the letter that Pichugin’s mother wrote out of sheer desperation. The extent of her suffering is unimaginable.

6,000 days. Every day, letters from all over Russia and from all corners of the world keep pour in to the Black Dolphin (there are so many letters that the [prison] censorship [department] can’t keep up). The letters come from all kinds of people. None of them knew Pichugin personally, but all believe he’s innocent: teachers, engineers, journalists, retirees, human rights advocates, entrepreneurs, housewives. That’s the price of spreading lies about Yukos on state-run TV channels. In the end, propaganda lost. And the man who, for 16 years, refused to give false testimony demanded from him (first to the General Prosecutor’s Office, then to the Investigative Committee), turned out to be above both propaganda and siloviki with their psychotropics and other provocations.

During those 6,000 days, Russia lost whatever was left of any justice.

During those 6,000 days, torture and murder in prisons and jails became the norm in Russia.

During those 6,000 days, the country itself became like the Black Dolphin. But even such relative freedom is better than prison.

What can we do for Pichugin? We can write him letters. Letters from the outside mean a lot to him and to other political prisoners; these letters help him stay strong.

What can we do? We can attend rallies in support of political prisoners and hold his portrait along with others.What can we do? We can read and share books about the Pichugin case, in which author Vera Vasilieva has been, for many years, thoroughly detailing the lack of foundation of every charge against Pichugin. In these books, Vera Vasilieva names the individuals responsible for the trumped-up charges against Pichugin. These people were later rewarded with promotions and bonuses. Among them –investigative team leader Yuri Burtovoi, who refused to conduct an independent medical examination of Pichugin after the incident with the psychotropics. Burtovoi actively badmouthed Pichugin, called him guilty and talked about new charges on [TV host] Karaulov’s shows even before there was a court verdict. And it was investigator Burtovoi who went as far as summoning the defendant’s priest for interrogation.

6,000 days. This is a story of a man who is selfless to the utmost, a man whose life has great meaning. A life of truth in conditions of everyday hell.

Source: Vera Chelisheva, Pichugin’s 6,000 Days, Novaya Gazeta, November 22, 2019.