A Return Visit to Earlier Stories: The Trouble with Russia
Russia’s official version of the prison death of Hermitage Capital lawyer Sergei Magnitsky got a sharp revision on July 5, when a human-rights council appointed by President Dmitry Medvedev reported that Magnitsky had been illegally detained and had probably died from a truncheon beating inflicted by eight guards in November 2009 — and not from heart failure, as claimed by prison doctors.
When Magnitsky’s family received the body of the 37-year-old lawyer, it was bruised and his fingers were broken, said the report (“Crime and Punishment in Putin’s Russia,” April 18).
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Statement on the US President’s Meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov
Statement by the Press Secretary on the President’s Meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov
President Obama met with Foreign Minister Lavrov today and discussed a range of bilateral and international issues. The President thanked the Foreign Minister for his efforts to complete a new bilateral agreement on visa liberalization as well as a new agreement on adoptions, both of which will touch many lives in Russia and the United States.
President Obama expressed his support for Russia’s efforts to mediate a political solution in Libya, emphasizing that the United States is prepared to support negotiations that lead to a democratic transition in Libya as long as Qadhafi steps aside. Both parties discussed the need to continue cooperation towards a peaceful transition in Sudan and South Sudan.
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FSB, police officials could figure in Magnitsky death investigation
Officials from the Federal Security Service (FSB) and the Interior Ministry may be implicated in the death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in police custody, a member of the Kremlin’s human rights council said on Thursday..
Magnitsky died after almost a year in a notorious Moscow pre-trial detention center in November 2009. He had been arrested on tax evasion charges just days after claiming that police investigators had stolen $230 million from the state.
On Wednesday a council report said his death was likely to have been the result of a beating and that the charges against him were fraudulent. Human rights activists and his former colleagues allege the officers he had accused were involved in his death, which was originally said to have been the result of “heart failure.”
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The Sergei Magnitsky Case: An Admission of Guilt
On July 5 the Russian Human Rights Council published its report on the now infamous—and mysterious—death of the lawyer Sergei Magnitsky. An attorney for the Moscow-based American law firm Firestone Duncan, he represented Hermitage Capital, which was at the time the largest Western hedge fund in Russia.
Magnitsky died while in custody awaiting trial for a fabricated tax evasion charge. He was jailed after he accused Russian officials of fraudulently obtaining $230 million in tax rebates from the Russian Treasury using a sophisticated swindle. These were the same officials who prosecuted Hermitage and barred its owner, Bill Browder, from returning to Russia for reasons the state refused to reveal.
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Inside Russia, new light shines on Magnitsky case
Investigators, prison doctors, prosecutors and judges are responsible for the death of the Hermitage Capital fund lawyer, the presidential council on human rights stated. The international community watches to see what happens next.
The Russian lawyer who once worked for a U.S. investment fund died after a brutal beating from prison guards, the presidential council on human rights confirmed last week. Investigators, prison doctors, prosecutors and judges are all responsible for the death of the Hermitage Capital fund lawyer, the Presidential Council on Human Rights also found.
Their findings have international implications, as the case is seen as another litmus test for how the Kremlin can handle cases of alleged official corruption and abuses of power. In death, Magnitsky has become an international cause celebre: The 37-year-old lawyer died alone in prison in November 2009. He had accused officials of tax fraud before his arrest.
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Podcast: Hitchens On Iran, Nightmare In An Egyptian Jail, Balalaikas, and Boney M — It’s The Best of ‘The Blender’!
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
“The Blender” is reaching its sixth-month mark, so for Episode 26, we decided to take a look back at some of the highlights of the first half-year.
All four of “The Blender” hosts — Daisy Sindelar, Pavel Butorin, Bruce Jacobs, and Grant Podelco — get together in the studio to talk about some of their favorite highlights so far.
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Report on Lawyer’s Death Provides a Chance for Medvedev to Redeem Himself
Russia’s president needs to do far more than just listen to the damning findings on the case of Sergei Magnitsky.
Even by the dubious standards of the Russian system of justice, the Sergei Magnitsky case is an outrage. Magnitsky died in a Moscow prison in November 2009 after 11 months in custody. He was arrested by senior police officials who had fraudulently seized control of assets of the U.K.-based Hermitage investment fund and had thereby secured a $230 million tax refund – the largest in Russian history. Magnitsky, an attorney, was working on behalf of Hermitage to recover the assets. In an appalling reversal of fate, Magnitsky himself was accused of tax fraud.
On 5 July President Dmitry Medvedev heard a report from his Council on Civil Society and Human Rights. The report covered a broad range of topics, from terrorism in the North Caucasus to children’s rights. Buried in the middle of the report, which was orally presented to Medvedev by council members, were their findings on the Magnitsky case. Their material was explosive. Not only did they confirm that Magnitsky had been illegally detained and denied medical treatment, they also revealed that immediately before his death he had been beaten by eight guards in the medical facility to which he had been transferred – and where he had again been denied medical treatment. This final tragic detail had not previously been known. It is an almost unbelievably cruel footnote to an already horrific tale.
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Russia’s Summer of Fire, Intrigue, Political Mystery: World View
Bloomberg
Is lightning striking twice in the same place? Kommersant has sounded the tocsin, warning that once again peat bogs around Moscow are burning: “According to the Ministry of Emergency Situations, on Sunday in the region around Moscow sixteen wildfires broke out simultaneously.”
Authorities said that the fires have been extinguished, but Kommersant quoted Grigory Kuksin, of Greenpeace Russia, who refuted the good news. “In the Gus-Khrustalny district alone, five fires are burning,” Kuksin said. “The situation in the region is bad. There aren’t enough resources to put out fires or even contain them.”
The bogs currently ablaze may prefigure a return of the catastrophic wildfires that last summer coincided with a record-shattering heat wave and raged for weeks, generating lethal smog that blanketed the capital, wrought billions of dollars worth of damage and, at least indirectly, caused tens of thousands of deaths.
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Report Blames Prison Officials In Magnitsky Death, Russian President Cites ‘Criminal Actions’
Nearly two years after Sergei Magnitsky died in a Moscow prison, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev called his treatment “criminal” in the wake of a damning report blaming prison officials for the hedge fund lawyer’s death.
A report issued yesterday by Medvedev’s investigative council concluded that Magnitsky, who represented Hermitage Capital Management, “was completely deprived of medical care. Additionally, there are grounds to suspect that Magnitsky’s death was the result of a beating,” and not merely the pancreatitis he contracted during the year he spent behind bars on suspicion of tax evasion.
One member of the investigative committee went even further, telling The Telegraph, “we have concluded he died of a beating. It was real torture to beat an ailing man with truncheons.”
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To learn more about what happened to Sergei Magnitsky please read below
- Sergei Magnitsky
- Why was Sergei Magnitsky arrested?
- Sergei Magnitsky’s torture and death in prison
- President’s investigation sabotaged and going nowhere
- The corrupt officers attempt to arrest 8 lawyers
- Past crimes committed by the same corrupt officers
- Petitions requesting a real investigation into Magnitsky's death
- Worldwide reaction, calls to punish those responsible for corruption and murder
- Complaints against Lt.Col. Kuznetsov
- Complaints against Major Karpov
- Cover up
- Press about Magnitsky
- Bloggers about Magnitsky
- Corrupt officers:
- Sign petition
- Citizen investigator
- Join Justice for Magnitsky group on Facebook
- Contact us
- Sergei Magnitsky
