MOSCOW, July 6. /TASS/. Ex-security chief of the now defunct Yukos oil company Alexey Pichugin, sentenced to life in prison for grave crimes, has been brought to Moscow for investigative activities in the case on the murder of Nefteyugansk mayor Vladimir Petukhov in 1998, a source said Wednesday.

"He has apparently been brought for investigative activities in the case on Petukhov’s murder," the source familiar with the situation told TASS.

At the same time, TASS has yet no official comments from law enforcers on the issue.

Earlier, Pichugin’s lawyer Ksenia Kostromina said her client has been held since July 5 in the Lefortovo pretrial detention center, where he was convoyed from the Black Dolphin colony in the Orenburg Region. The lawyer said she planned to visit him in the pretrial detention center.

She also said that in June Alexey Pichugin’s brother, Andrey, was questioned as an eyewitness in the Nefteyugansk mayor murder case. According to some data, Andrey has left Russia for security reasons.

"Regarding the location of Andrey Pichugin, I have no information, I don’t know whether he left or not," Kostromina said.

In 2005, within the framework of the first criminal case, Alexey Pichugin was sentenced to 20 years in a maximum security penal colony for organization of the murder of the married couple of Tambov businesspeople Olga and Sergey Gorin, as well as attempt to kill Rosprom company administrator Viktor Kolesov and Moscow City Hall spokeswoman Olga Kostina.

Later, after the second court process, Pichugin was found guilty of organizing three more murders and four attempts to kill, including the murder of Nefteyugansk Mayor Vladimir Petukhov in 1998, as well as Moscow entrepreneur Valentina Korneyeva, who posed danger to or acted contrary to the interests of Yukos. Pichugin was sentenced to life in prison.