Russia Probe Cites Officials in Death

Wall Street Journal

Russian investigators on Monday blamed prison personnel in the 2009 death of a jailed hedge-fund attorney—the first time the government has acknowledged any official wrongdoing in the case.

Human-rights activists welcomed the announcement, but said they feared that the government could use the prison officials as scapegoats while ignoring any higher-level complicity.

The lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, had accused Interior Ministry officials of stealing $230 million in Russian budget funds in concert with tax officials.

Mr. Magnitsky’s employer, the U.K.-based hedge fund Hermitage Capital, has alleged that instead of investigating the theft, investigators tried to force him to recant by jailing him in squalid conditions and withholding vital medical care.

Mr. Magnitsky’s death and the slow investigation into it have challenged Kremlin promises that it is cleaning up the court system and combating corruption. A panel of Russia’s independent presidential human-rights council is due to issue a report on the case Tuesday to President Dmitry Medvedev, urging that higher-level officials be held accountable in Mr. Magnitsky’s death, according to Valery Borshchev, a prisoners’ rights activist and member of the panel.

In a statement Monday, Russia’s top law-enforcement body, the Investigative Committee, said it had “identified inadequacies in the care received by Mr. Magnitsky during his detention, which prevented timely diagnosis of his chronic illness.” The statement didn’t name any suspects but said that “in the near future we plan to bring to justice the perpetrators of the violations.”

Members of the independent presidential panel investigating Mr. Magnitsky’s death have long alleged that he was deliberately denied care in prison and that this led to his death. But Mr. Borshchev said the medical staff were taking orders from supervisors and from the chief investigator prosecuting the case, an Interior Ministry colonel named Oleg Silchenko, who had ordered Mr. Magnitsky jailed.

“Of course the doctors are guilty, but all of this was orchestrated by investigator Silchenko and the warden of the jail,” Mr. Borshchev said. “Everything that happened in the jail was orchestrated by the investigator.”

Shortly after Mr. Magnitsky’s death, the deputy head of Russia’s prison service said that the incident left a “serious stain” on the Russian judicial system and that the prison system was partly to blame.

Russia’s Interior Ministry denies that Mr. Silchenko was involved in any wrongdoing, and Mr. Silchenko has declined to be interviewed. Since Mr. Magnitsky’s death, Mr. Silchenko has received two promotions and received an Interior Ministry award for outstanding service.

There was at least a hint Monday that the activists’ calls to hold Mr. Silchenko responsible were getting traction with more mainstream officials. The But the official RIA-Novosti news agency cited Anatoly Kucherena, a prominent pro-Kremlin lawyer who is a member of a civil-society advisory body, as saying he thought that the investigator who had pushed for Mr. Magnitsky to be kept in jail should be held “personally responsible” in his death.

Mr. Magnitsky’s employer, Hermitage Capital, issued a statement Monday saying it welcomed news that the government was moving against the prison staff, “but they are not the principals in this case—they were tools” to higher officials who wanted Mr. Magnitsky to withdraw his allegations of malfeasance.

At the time of his death, Mr. Magnitsky was in jail on charges of tax evasion.

His legal problems began after the investment fund that employed him, Hermitage, fell out of favor with authorities and its head, U.K. money manager William Browder, was denied a visa and declared a national-security threat.

Mr. Magnitsky alleged that Interior Ministry officials enriched themselves as Hermitage collapsed, by seizing ownership documents of three of its subsidiaries in 2007, then using those documents to register their own people as owners and directors. They then filed a bogus tax claim, saying they had paid far more than they should have, and received a refund of $230 million, Hermitage has alleged.

While in prison Mr. Magnitsky developed pancreatitis, but the condition remained untreated despite repeated requests for attention. He died in a prison isolation cell, but questions remain about the exact cause of his death.

Mr. Magnitsky was found with bruises and hematomas by ambulance attendants who arrived shortly after his death, and his family found other evidence of beatings on his corpse, said Mr. Borshchev, the prisoners’ rights activist. Mr. Borshchev said authorities’ claims that the cause of death was heart failure were based on the original official report, which Mr. Borshchev called “false.” займ онлайн на карту без отказа займы на карту https://zp-pdl.com/apply-for-payday-loan-online.php https://www.zp-pdl.com hairy woman