The key witnesses – Zigelnik and Reshetnikov – admitted their testimony against Alexei Pichugin and Leonid Nevzlin to be a slander enforced on them by the investigation. This episode proves that the long trial epic against the employees from the destroyed YUKOS will not remain in the public mind in the form the main TV stations attempted to fix it. Now doubted are all the testimony and conclusions by the investigation not only on the first, but also on the second Pichugin’s case.   

The story goes on not in the way it was planned. 3 March Alexei Pichugin, former chief of security service of YUKOS, was sent for 2-week adaptation period to the special penal colony for further servicing his life term. Up to the beginning of the last week he had been kept in a double-men cell with the strictest conditions possible. 

So he has had time to realize what kind of conditions he is going to have for the rest of his life. Now he is to give testimony at the trial made in the absence of Nevzlin, in Moscow. As any convicted person, Mr. Pichugin can hope for revisiting of his case if “new circumstances” will be discovered. 

But if he wants the “new circumstances” to be organized for him by those who organized the YUKOS case, he must at least do what they want, i.e. to give evidence that Leonid Nevzlin ordered him numerous killings. Pichugin is the only person to deny his involvement in all the counts. After his stay in the special colony for lifers he is expected to change his position. 

During the first trial on Pichugin’s case, several culprits serving their murder sentences in the colonies “recalled” after a few years their participation in organizing the murder of the Gorins couple, engaged in some shady business, who disappeared a few years ago. Shortly before their memory began to work so wonderfully, they were visited by the investigator in the colony, after which they began to state that Mr. Nevzlin was the person to organize the murder.   

Answering to the question how they knew that it was exactly Nevzlin, they said that the killed Mr. Gorin told them about it. The sentence said that “in unknown place, at unknown time and with the help from unknown persons” Mr. Pichugin killed the Gorins husband and wife, as he had motives for that, according to the investigators’ opinion.

During the second trial on Pichugin’s case other killers also “recalled” the murders “organized” with them by him and ordered by Nevzlin. Allegedly, a killed bandit Goritovsky told them about it. 

Had they seen Mr. Nevzlin before? Sure. He came in person to see them near the Salute Hotel! Absurdity of the testimony was the characteristic feature of the both trial on Pichugin’s case.  

And today’s prosecution has a weak position now, as in both cases all the charges were built upon the words allegedly heard by witnesses from people killed long ago – so it cannot be verified.     

Now we know that investigators Burtovoi and Bannikov promised to witness bandits to lessen their sentences to 6-7 years. And in reality they got 18. They just did not take into consideration that their “memories” could be needed again. And then the trial in absentia came on the Nevzlin’s case. And the convicted bandits were to repeat their testimony again. But being mad about the promises undone, the “witnesses” stated they had been “blackmailed” and made to slander. Now all the Pichugin’s cases are to be revisited in the future.    

The trial on Pichugin was made with the purpose of showing to the foreigners that Leonid Nevzlin is a murderer and to demand his extradition. And what can be proved now to the foreigners after such a fiasco?