Sergei Magnitsky, the death that shakes the Kremlin

Le Nouvel Observateur

(Translation from Original French text)

While Russian police recently raided the headquarters of BP in Moscow that Putin seems to have decided to become president of the country, here is the article I published last week in the “Nouvel Observateur” on d ‘a case that caused a stir in Russia.

It was a Muscovite like millions of others. Yet his death – heroic – will perhaps change the course of relations between Russia and the world. Sergei Magnitsky was a modest jurist who, unfortunately for him, discovered the huge embezzlement organized by a group of leading Russian officials. To silence him, he was thrown into prison, where for a year, he was tortured and denied care. He did not give. Despite excruciating pain, he refused to withdraw his testimony against the top brass. And November 16, 2009, it was left to die alone in a filthy cell.

Since then, Sergei Magnitsky has become in Russia, a kind of secular saint, and his death, the symbol of the struggle against the “kleptocracy” that runs the country. The most famous artists paid tribute to him. Last year, live on television, a popular singer has dared to challenge Putin on it. This year, a play in his honor was a full house in Moscow. In Russian society so apathetic, his martyrdom sparked an awareness probably irreversible. “One day people will build a statue in honor of Sergei Magnitsky, assures the editor of opposition newspaper” Novaya Gazeta “Dmitry Muratov. For, thanks to him, Russia has discovered the true face of the clan in power and it will, perhaps, relieved. ”

At first, the Kremlin camarilla has handled this matter with disdain. But in recent weeks, she is worried. On 18 July, the U.S. State Department said that for the first time in history, he forbade visa sixty Russian officials (and their families) involved in the death of Sergei Magnitsky and in the cover-up.Their assets were frozen. In this secret list, there would be a friend of Putin, the FSB Number 3, General Viktor Voronin.

For the Russian elite, another threat looms, much more serious. In Washington, senators – led by Democrat Benjamin Cardin just submitted a bill called the “Magnitsky Act.” If adopted, this text will expand the list of persona non grata to all Russian officials involved directly or indirectly in the unsolved murders of activists and human rights of journalists (such as Anna Politkovskaya) and the concealment of guilt. “For the authorities, it is extremely serious: between two and three thousand people could be involved,” says an adviser to Dmitry Medvedev, Igor Yurgens. Eighteen months after his death, what posthumous revenge for the little lawyer!

When it starts, in 2007, Sergei Magnitsky 35 years. It is the archetype of the new middle class in Moscow. Father of two, he bought a small apartment on credit, in the suburbs. He has no car. It moves underground. For his vacation, he never travels abroad, except once in Turkey. His only luxury: a subscription concerts of classical music. He works hard for a law firm that represents the interests of an investment firm American Capital Hermitage.All smiles. Until June 4, 2007 when his life changed. That day, police have raided the headquarters of Hermitage. Without explanation, they seized a mass of documents. Sergei is charged by his company to find out who ordered this operation and for what purpose. The vicious circle is started. It will not stop until sixteen months later by the death of the young Russian.
Through its research, the lawyer understands that the American company is the subject of a vast conspiracy orchestrated by a group of tax inspectors, officers of the FSB officers and key police, assisted by judges , lawyers and Mafia – a plot covered at the highest level of the state. The rogue operation takes place in three stages. First, corrupt judges are willing to falsify ownership of three companies owned by Hermitage Capital. By a stroke of the pen, their owners are now fugitives from justice, police accomplices.Then, thanks to the documents seized on June 4, the new “bosses” seeking state reimbursement for all taxes paid in previous years by the three firms.Total: $ 260 million. Reason? Whatever. Director of tax administration are in cahoots. The request is accepted within a week. And December 24, 2007, the state pays the entire $ 260 million on the accounts of three companies, which have previously been opened in a bank can set up in Moscow for the occasion. Finally, the last stage in the coming days, the shell bank transfers all the loot to the various accessories on offshore accounts, the Virgin Islands or Switzerland. That’s it.

This gigantic fraud, the largest ever discovered in Russia, Sergei Magnitsky will put ten months apart. In October 2008, it has overwhelming evidence. He testified before a Moscow court against major accomplices, two police officers: Major Karpov and Lieutenant-Colonel Kuznetsov. But a month later, he, not them, who is in prison. He is accused of tax evasion! Worse, the officers responsible for the arrest are other than Kuznetsov Karpov and he denounces. The trap closes. The ordeal begins Magnitsky.

In prison, everything is done to humiliate and disorient. It changes the cell continuously. Each time we “lose” his personal effects. The dungeons are more and more sordid. Sometimes there are only four beds for eight prisoners. He is denied his weekly shower. “For a year, he was even unable to call her children, says journalist Svetovit Zoia, who investigated the death of the lawyer. He said that he was entitled to do, but we could not give him the technical. ”

Soon, Sergei Magnitsky falls seriously ill, a bad pancreatitis. A doctor prescribed an ultrasound and surgery. To avoid the treatment, the change is in prison for the worst, Butyrki, which does not have adequate medical equipment. It does not give him his medication. He lost 20 pounds and writhes in pain all day. He still refuses to withdraw his testimony. Instead, in October 2009, after eleven months of preventive prison, he finds the strength to write a note more overwhelming than the previous ones. As a result, prison conditions worsen again. A month later, when he was dying, he was finally transferred to an institution where he could be treated. But on arrival, a doctor is seized by eight guards, who beat him and then lock, handcuffed, in a tiny room, where one hour and eighteen minutes later his heart stopped.”An hour and eighteen minutes” is the title of the magnificent piece of Mikhail Ougarov devoted to the death of Sergei Magnitsky.

During the ordeal of a lawyer, his executioners lead in great style. The head of Hermitage, Bill Browder, who decided to avenge his employee so brave, has investigated the patrimony of the alleged accomplices in the fraud. His teams have discovered that in 2009, police Kuznetsov Karpov and traveled around the world, bought luxury cars, Porsche, Mercedes, and apartments in Moscow worth millions of dollars, all registered in the name of their parents.

Officials who authorized the tax “refunds” of taxes have them, accumulated a wealth of tens of millions of dollars. They have accounts in Switzerland. They became owners of complexes in Dubai and huge villas in Roubliovka, ultra-chic suburb of Moscow. One of these houses, 800 m2, has even received an architectural award from a magazine connected. Yet despite the obvious evidence of wrongdoing, none of these officials has been arrested. Russian court has never held any charge against them. In March 2011, the head of the investigative committee said that officials believed would not be any prosecution. Both officers have even been promoted. In short, the assassins of Sergei Magnitsky are untouchable.

Why such impunity? “It’s simple: part of 260 million is raised to the top of the state, where exactly? Mystery … “And then, the operation Hermitage is just the tip of the iceberg,” Evidently, this diversion was not the first of its kind, says Zoia Svetovit. In all likelihood, billions of rubles are diverted each year from the state budget using the same methods. Complicity back necessarily to the highest level. ”

How far? These would include the Defence Minister, Anatoly Serdyukov. At the material time he was head of the Russian tax authorities. Could ignore such a fraud? One thing is troubling. When both Moscow tax officials who authorized the “reimbursement” of $ 260 million have quietly left their posts, they were resettled by Serdyukov to the state agency in charge of arms sales abroad. Serdyukov added that the same who was head of tax in St. Petersburg, is a personal friend of Putin. We understand why the executioners of Sergei Magnitsky are untouchable.

For several months, the Kremlin has dealt with this issue like the billionaire Khodorkovsky: by blaming the victim. But the Russian public was not fooled.”Some Russians believe that the former oligarch Khodorkovsky was jailed for good reasons, but everyone knows that Sergei Magnitsky, he was an honest type, who was tortured to hide turpitude officials said Elena Panflova.If the Kremlin does not continue, it appears as their accomplice. “But the elections approach
Dmitry Medvedev has taken some sanctions. He dismissed several senior officials of the prison. And early July, just before the State Department does not disclose its blacklist, the authority opened a case against two prison doctors for “negligence”. But these maneuvers do not fool anyone. “Doctors are only charged lamplighters, not even those who refused to treat Serguei the day of his death, let alone the organizers of the fraud which, themselves, are still not worried,” says Zoia Svetovit journalist.

Pressed by public opinion, Russian and international, the president will go there later? It is, he says, very attached to the rule of law. Some think that if he had a free hand, if the clan Putin was watching it, it would pursue the real culprits. Assure his followers that he already has the power and will. “You see, said his adviser, Igor Yurgens, other heads will soon fall. “Time is short.If the file is still dragging, the European Union could follow the lead of the United States and draw, too, a black list of Russian officials. This is what requires a resolution passed in Parliament in Strasbourg in December 2010. For now, Paris and Berlin, very attached to their links with the Kremlin against it. But that does suffragan perhaps not. If a Member State of the Schengen zone prohibits entry on its territory to Russian officials, they will almost automatically rejected by other countries in the area. Now the threat is clear. July 4, Dutch MPs have unanimously called on their government to implement the resolutions of the European Parliament. For now, The Hague, Ministry of Foreign Affairs procrastinate. For how long? Elena says Panflova, director of Transparency International in Moscow.

And there are U.S. Senators, burning to punish the Putin regime, which they regard as the gravedigger of the rule of law. If in the coming weeks no Russian official is prosecuted for the death of the lawyer, the Congress could adopt the Magnitsky Act. This would be the beginning of a new era of East-West tensions. The Kremlin has already announced that it would take retaliatory measures “asymmetric”: it would review its strategic agreements with Washington on Iran, Afghanistan and Libya. Such a change would have considerable geostrategic implications.

Barack Obama believes that the warming of US-Russian relations as one of the few diplomatic successes of his term, trying to prevent the passage of this legislation. According to “Washington Post,” it is wrong. In an editorial in early August, the great American newspaper wrote that, as long as there Magnitsky business, “Russia will never be a reliable partner for America.” It will not be either for France.

Vincent Vincent Jauvert – published in the Nouvel Observateur of August 25, 2011. срочный займ на карту срочный займ на карту https://zp-pdl.com/get-a-next-business-day-payday-loan.php https://zp-pdl.com/get-a-next-business-day-payday-loan.php займ на карту срочно без отказа