Russian human rights campaigners ask for international assistance with investigation into Magnitsky death

25 October: At a meeting in Moscow on Monday with Philip Gordon, US assistant secretary of state [for European and Eurasian affairs], Russian human rights campaigners asked for international assistance in the investigation into the death in a pre-trial detention centre in Moscow of Sergey Magnitskiy, the lawyer acting for Hermitage Capital [Management investment] fund.

“Regarding the Magnitskiy case, I said that, since our authorities can’t punish those responsible, let the international community respond to this,” Lyudmila Alekseyeva, one of the participants in the meeting and the head of the Moscow Helsinki Group, told Interfax.

According to her, at the meeting they also discussed problems that civil activists in Russia face, particularly when trying to organize public rallies.

Russian rights campaigners complain that, as a rule, it is easier for them to meet representatives of foreign states than the Russian authorities, which rarely invite civil activists to a dialogue.

Earlier Alekseyeva told Interfax that, as regards human rights in the USA, not everything was satisfactory there but the situation in this sphere was better in America than in Russia.

“To become a trend-setter in the sphere of human rights, the USA should at the very least close down Guantanamo. There are no countries where everything is satisfactory in the sphere of human rights. But to compare the human rights situation in the USA to that in Russia, with all its shortcomings, is the same as to compare a decent summer day with a damp and cold autumn. Our human rights situation is incomparably worse. There are things we can learn from America,” Alekseyeva said in September.

Thirty-seven-year-old Sergey Magnitskiy, the lawyer of Hermitage Capital investment fund, died in the Matrosskaya Tishina remand centre on 16 November 2009. He was charged under Article 199 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (tax evasion). His death had big public repercussions.

According to two forensic reports, a heart failure was the cause of the lawyer’s death. Forensic experts confirmed that Magnitskiy had suffered from the diseases he had been diagnosed with before but, according to them, they were not at an acute phase [at the time of his death].

Despite dismissals in the Federal Penal Service, according to human rights campaigners, no proper investigation into Magnitskiy’s death has been carried out.

On 29 September, Hermitage Capital announced that the chairman of the US state Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, Senator Benjamin Cardin, introduced a bill to the US Congress that would block entry to the USA to Russian officials “responsible for the persecution and death of Sergey Magnitskiy”.

The prosecution of Hermitage Capital representatives in Russia started in June 2007. Magnitskiy maintained that his prosecution was revenge for the evidence he had given about the possible involvement of representatives of the law-enforcement authorities in stealing budget money. онлайн займы займ онлайн https://zp-pdl.com/fast-and-easy-payday-loans-online.php https://zp-pdl.com/how-to-get-fast-payday-loan-online.php онлайн займ