Police ‘illegally arrested’ lawyer who died in prison

The Times
A group of Russian detectives illegally arrested a lawyer who died in prison after accusing them of a $230 million (£143 million) tax fraud, an inquiry ordered by President Medvedev concluded yesterday.

In an apparent breakthrough in the scandal over the alleged torture and killing of Sergei Magnitsky, the President’s human rights council pointed the finger for the first time at police whom he had accused of corruption.

Mr Magnitsky, 37, died in agony in Matrosskaya Tishina prison, Moscow, in November 2009 after being held for a year in pre-trial detention and being denied medical treatment for serious illnesses. He repeatedly complained that he was tortured in jail to try to force him to withdraw testimony against a group of Interior Ministry police whom he had accused of stealing $230 million.

Mr Magnitsky claimed that the officers made fraudulent tax claims using businesses owned by Hermitage Capital, once the largest investment fund in Russia and the company that he represented.

The same police arrested Mr Magnitsky a month later and accused him of tax evasion.

The ministry rejected the allegations and promoted the officers involved in the case despite an international outcry over his death. Mr Medvedev ordered about twenty prison officials to be fired but nobody has been prosecuted yet.

The inquiry team presented its report to the President yesterday and said that the findings would be published today, including the names of those considered responsible. Mara Polyakova, a member of the council, told reporters: “It is evident that both the medics and employees of the detention centres where [Magnitsky] had been held were to blame for his death and it is safe to say that the investigation was carried out by an investigating team that had been illegally formed. This alone is sufficient reason for those people to be withdrawn and not be allowed to participate in the investigation.”

Valeri Borshchev, another member of the inquiry, said it had established that Mr Magnitsky died shortly after eight prison guards handcuffed him, took him to a cell and beat him with truncheons. “We have concluded that he died of beating. It was a real torture to beat an ailing man with truncheons,” he said.

Mr Borshchev said that guards kept an ambulance waiting for more than an hour outside the prison while Mr Magnitsky was being beaten. The ambulance crew originally testified that Mr Magnitsky died 15 minutes before they arrived but the official report claimed falsely that he had died later in a prison hospital.

The inquiry is being watched closely in the West as a measure of Mr Medvedev’s commitment to rooting out corruption and making officials accountable for criminal acts. The Russian Investigative Committee admitted for the first time on Monday that a lack of medical attention was the direct cause of Mr Magnitsky’s death.

Moves are being made by legislators in the United States and European Union to blacklist 60 Russians accused of complicity in the lawyer’s death. MEPs in the European Parliament voted unanimously on Monday to urge the Russian Government to ban officials linked to the case. быстрые займы онлайн займ онлайн на карту без отказа https://zp-pdl.com/how-to-get-fast-payday-loan-online.php https://zp-pdl.com/get-quick-online-payday-loan-now.php быстрые займы онлайн