Alexi Polevoi

Timeline

• March 1998 — Alexi Polevoi was sentenced to eight years imprisonment.
• July 8, 2000 — Alexi Polevoi was released.

Background

Alexi Polevoi was 16 at the time of the killings. His supporters said that evidence failed to show how Alexi could single-handedly have murdered his father, stepmother, her parents and two friends in the family house at Louveciennes. One of the victims was a former army officer turned bodyguard, and the killings appeared to be professional hit.

Alexi’s later explanation linked the killings to the business dealings of his father, Yevgeni Polevoi. His dream-scenario was dismissed as irrelevant by the judge. The prosecutor maintained that Alexi was motivated purely by rage against his heavy-drinking father, who delighted in humiliating him in public. The prosecutor also argued that the other victims died because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The offence

Alexi Polevoi murdered his father, stepmother, her parents and two friends in the family then blamed the killings on the Russian Mafia. The killings involved 15 shots fired from three different guns, with only one round missing its target.

Only his young half-sister was left alive.

Investigation

Investigators found Alexi’s fingerprints on the murder weapons. Police said there were gunpowder traces on his hands and that before calling the police, Alexi smoked a cigar, drank a beer and drove into Paris.

Investigators later faced accusations of turning a blind eye to evidence of Russian mafia involvement.

Alexi initially confessed to the killings and later retracted his confession nine months later, claiming that he had been forced to load the guns by a masked Russian who had threatened to kill him, his mother, his girlfriend and his baby sister unless he “confessed” to the crime. Alexi also gave investigators a different version of events, saying the killings were “guided” by a mysterious hooded “man in black” seeking “a red file”. He said the mystery killer forced him to finish off his father and warned him against talking, saying “See what we’re capable of.”

Arrest

In February 1995 Alexi called police to a house in Louveciennes, a suburb west of Paris. Officers discovered the bodies of six Russians: his father, a wealthy businessman, his stepmother, her parents and two family friends.

Trial

A French juvenile court convicted Alexi Polevoi. Under French law, he was identified only as Alexi P. The court sentenced him to eight years imprisonment. The prosecution had called for a sentence of between 18 and 20 years.

Alexi spent three years in custody awaiting trial.

Defence lawyers brought in a series of character witnesses to testify that Alexi had a non-violent personality. They argued that the theory of a mafia link was strengthened after Alexi’s uncle was shot dead ten months later in Belarus. Prosecutors dismissed the argument as “fantasist”.

The prosecutor argued Alexi hated his father, who was described as financially generous but violent and a drunken bully. The judge ruled over the case dismissed Alexi’s dream-scenario linking the killings with the business dealings of his father as irrelevant.

Sentencing

Alexi Polevoi was sentenced to eight years imprisonment in March 1998. The prosecution had called for a much longer sentence of 18 to 20 years.

Appeals

No appeals were stated in the provided material.

Outcome

Alexi Polevoi was released on July 8, 2000.

Other details

Yevgeni Polevoi, 42, was identified as Alexi’s father and as a Soviet apparatchik turned entrepreneur. He was fired at in Moscow shortly before his death and again while out hunting.

Five months after the Louveciennes killings, dad’s key business associate was found dead in his Moscow office. In December 1995, Polevoi’s brother, Dmitri, who had inherited his business affairs, also died from bullet wounds in Belorussia.