06
July 2011

Kremlin rights council hints lawyer case fabricated

Reuters

The Kremlin human rights council appeared to blame authorities on Tuesday for fabricating a case against anti-graft lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who died in jail.

“People whom Magnitsky had long accused of being involved in a crime were somehow included in the investigative groups … This points to a personal interest in their further course of action,” council member Yelena Panfilova told reporters.

The council rejected claims by Russian investigators who blamed medics on Monday for the death in 2009 of the 37-year-old lawyer after nearly a year in Russian jails. He worked for Russia’s biggest equity fund Hermitage Capital and his death spooked foreign investors and sparked a global outcry.

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06
July 2011

Russian Lawyer Was Beaten by 8 Jail Guards Before He Died, Report Says

ABA Journal

A jailed Russian lawyer who had accused government officials of corruption was chained to a cot and beaten by eight guards immediately before he died in 2009, according to a report to the country’s president by an advisory human rights council.

When an ambulance crew that had been called in advance and then kept waiting for an hour was finally admitted to the cell, they allegedly found Sergei Magnitsky, 37, dead and with most of his knuckles smashed,the Los Angeles Times reports.

Officials said the Firestone Duncan partner had died of heart failure in the prison’s intensive care ward.

“It is clear to us,” Valery Borshchov of the Moscow Helsinki Group tells the Times, “that they wanted to apply pressure on Magnitsky, to teach him a tough lesson. But they went too far and their actions together with lack of urgent medical help caused his death.”

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06
July 2011

Lawyer beaten in Moscow jail just hours before he died

The Independent

An investigation into the death of Sergei Magnitsky in custody has suggested that the 37-year-old lawyer was beaten by eight prison guards with truncheons shortly before he died.

Mr Magnitsky claimed to have uncovered a huge tax fraud involving officials at the Russian Interior Ministry but he was then accused of being involved in the fraud himself. He was arrested in November 2008, and died in a Moscow prison in November 2009.

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06
July 2011

Medvedev Admits Lawyer Died From ‘Criminal Actions’

Radio Free Europe

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has admitted the death in prison of a Russian lawyer who accused officials of corruption was the result of “criminal actions.”

Medvedev said the case of Sergei Magnitsky, who died in November 2009 after nearly a year in Russian prisons, was a “sad one.”

“Magnitsky’s case is a very sad one,” Medvedev said. “Ailing people shouldn’t die in prison. If they fall ill, they must be taken out for treatment before a court decides their fate.”

Medvedev made his remarks at a meeting with top Russian human rights officials in the southern city of Nalchik, the hometown of Magnitsky, who worked for Russia’s top equity fund, Hermitage Capital.

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05
July 2011

Former ambassador to Russia demands UK act on Magnitsky death

Daily Telegraph

Britain’s former Ambassador to Russia has attacked the Government for failing to crack down on a group of Russian officials allegedly linked to the death of the anti-corruption lawyer Sergei Magnitsky and implicated in a $230m (£140m) alleged fraud.

In a letter to The Daily Telegraph today, Sir Tony Brenton, Ambassador to Russia from 2004 to 2008, urges the UK authorities to make “publicly clear their abhorrence at what has happened” and to ban those concerned from entry into the UK.

His comments follow a unanimous vote in the Dutch Parliament for the 60 Russian officials identified by UK-based hedge fund Hermitage Capital Management and law firm Jamison Firestone, for which Mr Magnitsky worked, to be barred entry into the country.

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05
July 2011

Activists say they’ll show how prison guards’ beating contributed to Russian attorney’s death

Associated Press

Activists plan to present evidence Tuesday that a Russian lawyer who accused officials of corruption died after a brutal beating by prison guards, saying investigators’ findings that a lack of medical treatment killed the man fell short of the full truth.

Sergei Magnitsky, a 37-year-old lawyer who worked for a large U.S. investment fund, died in prison in November 2009 after the pancreatitis he developed there went untreated. He had been arrested by Interior Ministry officials after he had accused them of using false tax papers to steal $230 million from the state.

Magnitsky’s case is being scrutinized by human rights activists and potential Western investors as a gauge of the Kremlin’s commitment to addressing corruption and allowing an independent legal system. Several prison officials were fired but no one has been charged either for his death or in the alleged tax fraud.

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05
July 2011

Russia blames doctors, not police, in death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky

The Washington Post

Russian authorities, under persistent international pressure to charge police officials in the pretrial detention death of a 37-year-old lawyer, on Monday blamed prison doctors instead.

Human rights activists, colleagues of Sergei Magnitsky and even U.S. senators have urged Russia to call Interior Ministry officials to account for arresting, prosecuting and then denying medical treatment to Magnitsky, who died in custody in November 2009.

But on Monday, Vladimir Markin, a spokesman for the Russian Investigative Committee, told the Interfax news agency that doctors would be prosecuted because of “flaws” in treatment that caused Magnitsky’s death.

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05
July 2011

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.

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05
July 2011

Poor Care Led to Death of Lawyer, Russia Says

New York Times

Russia’s Investigative Committee on Monday acknowledged for the first time that 37-year-old Sergei L. Magnitsky died in pretrial detention because prison authorities denied him medical care, setting the stage for prosecution in a case that has come to epitomize Russia’s trouble establishing rule of law.

Mr. Magnitsky was drawn into a feud between his employer, an international investment company, and Russian law enforcement authorities, testifying that senior Interior Ministry officers had used his employer’s companies to embezzle $230 million from the Russian treasury. He was arrested and held without bail on charges of evading about $17.4 million in taxes. He died in 2009 after 11 months in custody.

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