Posted on 03/30/2005 12:29:30 PM PST by jb6
MOSCOW, March 30 (RIA Novosti) - According to the sentence of the Moscow City Court, Pichugin will serve his sentence in a maximum-security prison. Another defendant in the case, Alexei Peshkun, has been sentenced to four years, and he will also serve this sentence in a maximum-security prison.
The judge passed the sentence on the basis of the jurors' verdict. Since the trial was held behind the closed doors, the judge announced only the resulting part of the sentence. "The court bases its sentence on the accusatory verdict of the jurors and has found him guilty of murders and attempted murders," the judge said.
After the announcement of the sentence Pichugin told reporters that he intended to lodge a complaint. "I hoped for a verdict of not guilty. But now I intend to fight to the end," Pichugin said.
Earlier, in the course of the debate between the sides, the state prosecutor demanded to sentence Pichugin to life imprisonment, and another defendant in the case, Alexei Peshkun, to three years and two months of imprisonment.
The jurors found Pichugin guilty of killing two inhabitants of Tambov, Olga and Sergei Gorin, in 2002. Apart from that, the jurors decided that the investigation had succeeded in proving Pichugin's guilt in organizing an attempted murder of Olga Kostina, former chief of the public relations department of the Moscow Mayor's Office and ex-adviser of former YUKOS head Mikhail Khodorkovsky in November 1998.
At the same time, in the opinion of the jurors, Pichugin is not guilty of the attempt on the life of the former head of the ZAO Rosprom, Viktor Kolesov, but he is guilty of beating the entrepreneur.
By a majority of votes the jurors decided that Pichugin was guilty.
During the whole trial Pichugin did not admit his guilt on any of the accusations brought against him, while Peshkun partly admitted his guilt
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