BBC Hardtalk featuring Stephen Jennings, CEO, Rennaisance Capital
After two decades making money in Moscow Stephen Jennings has been described as Russia’s only foreign oligarch. He discusses the murky issues surrounding wealth creation in Russia and the impact on foreign investors following the Magnitsky Case. hairy woman срочный займ на карту https://zp-pdl.com/fast-and-easy-payday-loans-online.php zp-pdl.com микрозайм онлайн
Panels probe Yukos and Magnitsky cases
The cases of Yukos and Magnitsky came into the public focus again over the week as experts of the European Court of Human Rights discussed the trials of Khodorkovsky and Lebedev and Russia’s Prosecutor-General probed the death of Hermitage Capital lawyer Sergei Magnitsky. And a panel at the Russian president’s Human Rights Commission is currently working on a report to shed more light on these high-profile cases.
According to a report published by the European Court of Human Rights, the trial against former Yukos chief Mikhail Khodorkovsky was not politically motivated.
In 2005 Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his business partner Platon Lebedev were sentenced to eight years in prison for embezzlement and tax evasion. In spring 2009 they faced another trial on charges of stealing oil and money-laundering. In December 2010, they were sentenced to 13.5 years in prison but the term was cut by one year later. In accordance with the court’s final sentence, the two will get out of prison in 2016.
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Why Khodorkovsky Matters
Over the past six months, I’ve written three columns about Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former Russian oligarch who has been in prison since 2003, charged, tried, convicted — and recently reconvicted — on transparently bogus tax and embezzlement charges.
Partly, I keep returning to the subject because his lengthy imprisonment offends my sense of justice; his real crime, after all, was challenging Vladimir Putin, the Russian strongman. More importantly, Khodorkovsky’s fate stands as a powerful illustration of Russia’s biggest problem: the contempt the country’s corrupt rulers have for the rule of law.
Yet after each of those columns, I received feedback saying, essentially, that Khodorkovsky deserved what he got. Even if the crimes for which he went to prison were fictitious, he undoubtedly did bad things on his way to becoming Russia’s richest man. “He stole Russian national resources, truly the wealth of the nation,” read one e-mail, referring to Khodorkovsky’s role in founding the now-defunct oil company Yukos. “I have zero sympathy for him.”
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A ghost at the banquet
The general mood at VTB Capital’s “Russia Calling” forum in London was one of cautious optimism about changes under way in reforming the economy, but there was one harsh reminder of the huge mountain to climb in improving the business climate.
Former Yevroset boss Yevgeny Chichvarkin, like Banquo’s ghost at the feast in “Macbeth”, turned up outside the forum to protest that Russia is still not calling him back, despite criminal charges being dropped against him by prosecutors.
Most investors inside the forum were at pains to stress that cases such as that of Chichvarkin and Sergei Magnitsky, the hedge fund lawyer whose died in jail after his company was embroiled in a bitter dispute with law enforcement officers , are still relatively isolated, and that most foreign investors in Russia make a lot of money out of the country.
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Medvedev Makes Court Comeback
Judging by the pre-election activities of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev recently, Putin is enjoying a firm lead. But Medvedev has staged a nice comeback in the past two months — mostly in Moscow courtrooms.
The first hint came in April, when two neo-Nazis, Nikita Tikhonov and Yevgenia Khasis, were given severe prison terms for killing human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov and journalist Anastasia Baburova.
On Sunday, state-controlled NTV television aired an amazingly balanced report on Khodorkovsky, giving him a nationwide platform to maintain his innocence and to announce his plans to file for parole.
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Heritage protests Chaika’s participation in Magnitsky case investigation
Interfax
Representatives of the investment fund Hermitage Capital believe the probe conducted by the Prosecutor General’s Office into the criminal cases involving the activities and death of Hermitage Capital auditor Sergei Magnitsky will not yield results.
“The Prosecutor General’s Office has been asked to increase procuratorial supervision, which has been and still remains non-existent. It’s absence led to the inhuman arbitrariness that led to Sergei Magnitsky’s persecution by the officials whom he found to have committed crimes, which lasted for a year, and his death in a detention facility,” Hermitage Capital said in a statement received by Interfax on Wednesday.
The statement alleges that officials from the Prosecutor General’s Office have failed to take measures to stop “illegal actions taken by officials in the Magnitsky case” for 3.5 years.
“In the course of the 12 months spent by Sergei Magnitsky in a detention facility, over 20 complaints were filed with the Prosecutor General’s Office alleging violations of his rights and illegal actions taken by investigators and Interior Ministry officials. All those complaints were either illegally declined or left without a response by the Prosecutor General’s Office,” Hermitage said.
Hermitage Capital recalled that Magnitsky filed an appeal contesting Yury Chaika’s actions as “illegal and violating his [Magnitsky’s] constitutional rights” on August 17, 2009.
“The complaints filed by Magnitsky’s lawyers to Yury Chaika on September 11, 2009, alleging illegal prosecution of an innocent person, physical and psychological pressure to break his will, and denial of medical assistance and surgery was also declined,” the statement says.
For this reason, “Magnitsky’s colleagues are protesting the continuing participation by Prosecutor General Yury Chaika in the investigation into the Magnitsky case.”
Earlier on Wednesday, Marina Gridneva from the Prosecutor Generals Office said the Prosecutor General’s Office will conduct a large-scale probe into all criminal cases related to the work by Hermitage Capital auditor Sergei Magnitsky and his death at the request of the president. hairy girls срочный займ https://zp-pdl.com/get-quick-online-payday-loan-now.php https://zp-pdl.com/fast-and-easy-payday-loans-online.php unshaven girls
Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika Under Orders to Focus Attention on the Notorius Magnitsky Case
WPS: What the Papers Say
Two criminal proceedings are associated with Magnitsky, lawyer in the employ of Hermitage Capital Management who died behind the bars. One of them concerns criminal charges pressed against Magnitsky himself, the investigation is carried out by the Interior Ministry’s Investigative Committee. The other deals with circumstances of his demise in prison, investigated by the Russian Investigative Committee. The Prosecutor General’s Office is supposed to run a check on both investigations.
It should be noted that the Prosecutor General’s Office completed examination of the former criminal proceedings on the request from the Russian Investigative Committee earlier this week. It said it had uncovered no violations. Three days later, Medvedev told Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika to “boost procuracy supervision” and run another check. Meeting with his American counterpart Barack Obama last week, the president had been reminded of the importance the U.S. Administration was attaching to impartial investigation of the lawyer’s death.
Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy and Human Rights Michael H. Pozner made a statement in the meantime. He said that the U.S. Administration welcomed the judiciary reforms and reorganization of law enforcement agencies launched in Russia but was distressed by the lack of progress in the investigation of Magnitsky’s death.
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Russian ex-tycoon protests outside London forum
A Russian businessman who fled to Britain after losing his assets staged a protest in London on Wednesday to draw attention to the risks of investing in Russia.
Yevgeny Chichvarkin, who co-founded one of Russia’s biggest mobile phone companies, protested outside a state-sponsored Russian investment forum in a T-shirt showing his face above the slogan ‘Russia Calling?’ — a play on the forum’s slogan.
The fate of businessmen who have fallen foul of the Russian authorities and lost their businesses, often on charges of tax evasion or corruption, has tarnished Russia’s reputation among foreign investors.
“They (investors) think that if they agree on something with some of the corrupt officials, their business is secure”, he said. “Investors who bought Yukos shares also thought that, until they earned ‘zero’.”
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No Charges For Top Investigator In Magnitsky Case
Russian officials have exonerated one of their own in the prison death of Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer for hedge fund Hermitage Capital Management.
Russia’s powerful central prosecutors, the Investigative Committee, said Monday that Oleg Silchenko, the Interior Ministry official who ordered Magnitsky’s arrest and oversaw the investigation of the lawyer, had “not allowed” any illegal treatment in the case. The committee would not comment beyond its three-paragraph statement.
Silchenko was cleared despite a finding by the head of Russia’s prison oversight panel that Silchenko was to blame for Magnitsky’s treatment. Magnitsky died in a notorious Moscow prison in November 2009 at the age of 37. Human rights officials say he was tortured and denied adequate medical care; the latter claim was echoed by the oversight panel’s Valery Borshchev.
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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
