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In his desire to help the prosecution, Korovnikov fed this nonsense to the jury despite the fact that Demidov had made a detailed transcript of the witness confrontation. What the jurors thought after this can easily be imagined. At the second trial, the defence asked the judge to disclose this story by a "trustworthy" witness for the benefit of the new jury. Naturally, Olikhver ruled it inadmissible. So that the jurors would not realise what kind of person the prosecution was using to construct its case.
There can be no doubt that between the two trials the gang were coached in how to behave and what to say the second time round. Those handling the case had learnt from the mistakes of the first trial.
Chapter 10
Conviction and sentence
The 18 questions that Judge Olikhver put to the second panel of jurors appeared to have been worded with some skill. Possibly by her. It was almost impossible to answer them in the negative. For example: "Has it been proved that people broke into the house, abducted the Gorins and inflicted bodily harm on Izmaylov?" But Izmaylov (Gorina's son) had indeed suffered bodily harm! No-one disputed that. And the indictment contained not a word about Izmaylov being hurt. So what was this about? And how should one answer the question - yes or no?
Some questions were worded not separately in relation to each charge but to several at once. The defence clearly saw the difficulties that this would cause the jurors and, naturally, requested that the questions be broken down into their individual components. And, naturally, were rebuffed by Judge Olikhver.
Rigging a trial to help the prosecution is not such a rare occurrence in Russia. But at Aleksey Pichugin's trial and under a contrived cloak of secrecy, it acquired truly Rabelaisian dimensions. A typical instance was a statement for the media by prosecutor Kamil Kashayev.
The news conference was called on 30 March, the day the verdict was due. To be more precise, for immediately after the verdict. During the conference, he said many interesting things. But the defence team was shaken by his claim that strong pressure had been brought to bear on the jury. By the defence. According to Kashayev, matters had got so bad that the jury had to be specially bussed to court.
Now here's a turn up for the books. It transpired that throughout the trial some kind of organisation had been protecting the jury against tampering. It proved impossible to establish which organisation this was. The defence was furious. Every morning, before the start of the day's proceedings, Olikhver had asked the jury: "Have you read anything in the newspapers that might affect your judgement? Has there been any pressure on you from any party?" And day in, day out the jury had answered: "No".
But prosecutor Kashayev was in effect saying that the jurors had concealed the fact that the defence was interfering with them! True, he did not say what form this interference took. So the defence lawyers could not wait to see the court transcript, which would contain that daily question and answer. Olikhver had the transcript prepared by mid-April and the defence lawyers rushed to read it. They were amazed to discover that according to the record, the judge had not once throughout the entire trial asked the jury about interference!
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