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For the makers of the expose against Aleksey Pichugin, Korovnikov was again dressed up and his handcuffs removed. The viewers were not told of his crimes: the authorities and their propaganda machine needed someone that inspired trust. So he was made to look like a public figure, like Leontyev or Rogozin .
We do not know how this propaganda onslaught affected public opinion. Polls failed to pick up any particular trends. It's quite possible that all these numerous programmes and press articles were part of a pre-planned PR campaign for the Pichugin case. The money had been set aside, so it got used by default.
But conscience (not to mention the law!) should have compelled the judge to dismiss the second jury as well. Because there was no case for the jury to decide on the main charge, the murder count, and nor is there now! Pichugin was clearly innocent, and in such instances the judge is entitled to send the jury home.
Can we regard as proof of guilt that back in 1999, according to Korovnikov, Pichugin supposedly tried to hire him to kill Gorin and he, allegedly, turned down the contract? The Gorins went missing in 2002, in November. Can this single claim by Korovnikov serve as proof that three years later Pichugin was complicit in the crime? Yet on this key issue, that's all there is in the case!
Supposed that your friend goes missing. And that three years later some serial killer claims that a few years previously you had tried to talk him into bumping off your friend. What would that prove? Even if you really had tried, and you had been caught on tape with a court's permission.
Who did kill the Gorins three years on? That's of no interest to the investigation. They wrote down that Pichugin killed them with the help of unidentified persons in an unidentified place! They accused Pichugin of commissioning the murder on the basis of an invented motive, meanwhile to this day nobody's looking for the real killer.
Korovnikov was given a life sentence for a string of brutal murders. Some of his gang got 17 years inside, for the proven rape and murder of minors. The proof came from first-hand evidence, honest forensic examinations and hard work by the investigation - not to mention the testimony of the killers themselves, who confirmed all the circumstances of the case independently of each other. Compare with Pichugin's sentence - 20 years. Simply because three years before a crime was committed he had allegedly held a dubious conversation with these hoodlums!
Epilogue
The court of vengeance
The consequences of the Pichugin case for the judicial process in this country are horrifying. This was the first political case in modern-day Russia in which the charge was derived not from evidence, even dubious evidence; not from a tangled web of property dealings; and not even from procedural sophistry. It was openly rigged.
And it was not the jury-tampering that was the most important aspect, for this is on the increase. The most horrifying aspect was that everyone involved in the case, uniformed or not, received awards and a clear signal - you can get away with this.
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