the invitation of the U.S. Congress to testify about the political motivations of the Yukos campaign and about Pichugin's case in particular. On July 4, 2005, while Nevzlin was preparing for his testimony, Russian prosecutors announced yet more charges against both Pichugin. They indicted Nevzlin for the same crimes, as well as those for which Pichugin had been charged in April. The July 4 charge alleged that Pichugin had been involved in the murder of Vladimir Petukov, mayor of Nefteyugansk, and the attempted murder of Vyacheslav Kokoshkin, Petukov's bodyguard. Nefteyugansk is a city that had recently settled a local tax dispute with Yukos. In each of Pichugin's trials, prosecutors relied on witnesses who, during Nevzlin's subsequent trial on the same noted crimes, later recanted and testified that investigators had told them to name Pichugin (and Nevzlin). For example, Alexei Peshkun, whose testimony was relied upon for Pichugin's first conviction, subsequently submitted a hand-written document stating that his statements were coerced by Russian authorities. Gennady Tzigelnik, whose testimony was central in Pichugin's second case, admitted that he did not know Pichugin or Nevzlin at all and only implicated him when told to do so by investigators. Mikhail Ovsyannikov, whose testimony was relied upon concerning the Korneyeva incident, also stated that the Russian investigator gave him Pichugin's name and told him to implicate Pichugin. Asked directly if he implicated Pichugin (and Nevzlin) in response to government threats, Ovsyannikov stated that he did. Another jailhouse confessor, Vladimir Shapiro, stated that investigators offered him “manna from heaven” if he falsely implicated Pichugin. Evgeny Reshetinikov, another of the supposed “confessors”, testified likewise. Regardless of this manufactured evidence, on July 5, 2005, the deputy prosecutor gave an interview in which he stated Pichugin (and Nevzlin's) guilt as fact. Consequently, the jury pool was tainted and Pichugin was unable to exercise his right to jury trial. On September 11, 2005, the lead investigator gave a similar interview, expressing his opinion that Pichugin was guilty. Once the trial began, like in his first case, defense counsel's attempts to challenge the witnesses against Pichugin were cut off by the presiding judge. As discussed further below, the European Court of Human Rights found that both the pre-trial publicity by prosecutors and the conduct of the judge violated Pichugin's human rights. After Pichugin's second trial ended on August 17, 2006, he received a sentence of 21 years. On February 21, 2007,