European Court of Human Rights has begun investigating one of the most high-profile organized crime cases in Russia

European Court of Human Rights has begun investigating one of the most high-profile organized crime cases in Russia — that of Yury Shutov, a former lawmaker and advisor to the late St. Petersburg Mayor Anatoly Sobchak.

Shutov was sentenced to life imprisonment by a St. Petersburg court in 2006 for a series of contract killings and organized crime convictions.

According to prosecutors, Shutov, who had a Soviet-era criminal conviction, headed a group of more than 20 racketeers who carried out six contract murders in 1998 and seized control of local enterprises by threatening and blackmailing their owners.

The St. Petersburg City Duma stripped Shutov of his lawmaker’s immunity from prosecution only in late 2000 — more than a year after he was arrested on murder charges.

The trial of Shutov and his fellow defendants began in September 2001. In 2002, Shutov was re-elected to the City Duma, but was not released from prison. Tahe trial ended in 2006.

Several other members of the Shutov gang were given between seven and 18 years in prison. One of the suspects, who was sentenced to eight years in prison, was killed in prison just days before sentencing, causing speculation that he had been killed to stop him from giving evidence that would influence the verdict. When the judge read out the sentences, it became apparent that he was not aware of the murder.

The crimes with which Shutov was charged included the murders of Dmitry Filippov, chairman of the board of directors of Bank Menatep St. Petersburg, who was killed by a radio-controlled bomb in October 1998; local attorney Igor Dubovik, an adviser to the governor who was shot in February 1998; Yevgeny Agarev, the City Hall official in charge of cemeteries and burials, killed by a bomb in September 1998; and Nikolai Bolotovsky, the chairman of the board of directors for the local defense contracting firm Istochnik, shot six times in the head in June 1998.

Shutov was also charged with plotting to kill State Duma Deputy Vyacheslav Shevchenko, a member of Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s Liberal Democratic Party, and State Duma deputy Alexander Nevzorov. The latter is alive, but the former was murdered in unclear circumstances in Cyprus in 2004.

The European Court of Human Rights has contacted the Russian authorities with an official information request on the case. Russia is expected to provide the information by Jan. 18, 2011.

Shutov’s lawyers, who sent an appeal to the European Court immediately after he was convicted in 2006, are convinced that the intervention of the Strasbourg court and its decision will prompt the reopening of the case and ultimately perhaps even lead to Shutov’s full acquittal. Shutov and his lawyers argue that the trial against him was unfair and conducted with multiple violations.

The European Court of Human Rights does not have the authority to overturn a decision by a country’s court, but if its lawyers prove that a convict’s right to a fair trial — which is guaranteed by the Russian constitution — was violated, then Strasbourg will demand that another trial be held.

Shutov served five years in prison in the 1980s on convictions for forgery and embezzlement, and then served another 18 months in the 1990s while awaiting trial for extortion, smuggling and arson charges. He was eventually acquitted of the charges by a local court.

Shutov is the author of “Sobchachye Serdtse,” or “Heart of Sobchak,” a bitterly critical book about former city mayor Anatoly Sobchak written as a parody of Mikhail Bulgakov’s classic novel “Sobachye Serdtse” (“Heart of a Dog.”)

“Sobchachye Serdtse,” in which the author accuses the late St. Petersburg mayor of corruption, includes a photo of the author lying in a hospital bed — he hints that Sobchak had him roughed up — and allegations of corruption that Shutov said he learned about while working for a single month as an adviser to Sobchak before being fired.

Russia joined the European Convention on Human Rights in 1998. In doing so, it agreed to abide by the Strasbourg court’s decisions.

Since Russia entered the convention, the court has received about 50,000 complaints against the country.

Since 2002, Russia has been the leading member nation of the court as a source of new complaints, accounting for 21 percent of new complaints to the court in 2006. There are currently more than 20,000 complaints pending against Russia in the court.