Паст инфо

The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg declared the judicial inquiry carried out towards the former security officer of the Russian ‘’UKOS’’ oil company Aleksey Pichugin as unjust. As a reminder, the employee of mentioned oil company was previously accused of organizing murders and was sentenced to imprisonment for life.

European judges have decided that during the investigation of one of the cases held against Pichugin, Russia infringed Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights /the right to fair judicial investigation/ and demanded moral compensation as well as covering of judicial expenses.

The European Court on Human Rights found the process of holding judicial inquiries in a non-public way inconsistent.

Besides, the plaintiff was not given a tantamount chance to deny the statements of the witnesses brought by the accusing party during the proceeding.

Besides that, during this judicial process the European Court informed about the infringement of the thesis of Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which defines the right of freedom and immunity. It should be noted that the Court did not refer to Pichugin’s claim, concerning Article 3 of the Convention /interdiction of torture/.

Let us recall that two criminal cases were sued against Pichugin in Russia for organizing murders and attempt of murder. The Court rendered a judgment regarding the first charge in 2005.

For that reason he was sentenced to 20 years of imprisonment. He was sentenced to imprisonment for life in 2007 on the basis of the second criminal case.