Limiting Russia’s Sovereign Democracy
Ever since Kremlin first deputy chief of staff Vladislav Surkov introduced the term “sovereign democracy” in 2006, senior government officials have claimed that the West does not have a right to meddle in Russia’s domestic affairs, particularly regarding human rights issues. But according to the post-World War II paradigm governing international law, gross human rights abuses are a global concern, regardless of where they occur.
Russia’s interpretation of national sovereignty is back in the spotlight after the Western coalition started bombing Libya last month. Although the military intervention was approved by United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973, with Russia abstaining, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin likened it to medieval crusades and said the West should not interfere in “internal political conflicts.”
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Net Impact – One man’s cyber crusade against Russian Corruption
Late on a snowy evening, Alexey Navalny, a lawyer and blogger known for his crusade against the corruption that pervades Russian business and government, sat in a radio studio in Moscow. Tall and blond, Navalny, who is thirty-four years old, cuts a striking figure, and in the past three years he has established himself as a kind of Russian Julian Assange or Lincoln Steffens. On his blog, he has uncovered criminal self-dealing in major Russian oil companies, banks, and government ministries, an activity he calls “poking them with a sharp stick.” Three months ago, he launched another site, RosPil, dedicated to exposing state corruption, where he invites readers to scrutinize public documents for evidence of malfeasance and post their findings. Since the site went up, government contracts worth nearly seven million dollars have been annulled after being found suspect by Navalny and his army. Most remarkably, Navalny has undertaken all this in a country where a number of reporters and lawyers investigating such matters have been beaten or murdered.
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Magnitsky Link in Tax Office Raids
Investigators on Wednesday searched the Moscow office of the Federal Tax Service and two other locations as part of a multimillion-dollar embezzlement case that could implicate officials under fire in another case — the prison death of Hermitage lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.
Investigators believe that tax officials might have assisted a St. Petersburg-based company, ES-Kontraktstroi, to make an attempt to embezzle 2 billion rubles ($71 million) in state money under the guise of value-added tax refunds, RIA-Novosti reported.
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Russian TV investigates searches at senior tax official’s office, home
REN Tv
Text of report by privately owned Russian television channel REN TV on 6 April
[Presenter] Several tax offices in Moscow today were closed to ordinary visitors as they were receiving unusual ones: early this morning searches were conducted there, including in the Federal Tax Service central office. According to some reports, the searches were linked to an investigation into fraud with VAT refunds. Valentin Trushnin has more.
[Correspondent] Reports that a deputy head of the Moscow city directorate of the Federal Tax Service [Olga Chernichuk] may have been stealing, and stealing billions, did not come as a surprise to the country’s chief tax official, [Federal Tax Service head] Mikhail Mishustin. He knew of the impending searches in advance. Ordinary people were not shocked by this news either. It was probably only Olga Chernichuk who was surprised when investigators simultaneously appeared at her office, flat and dacha. At the Federal Tax Service’s Moscow directorate she was in charge of the most corruption-intensive area, that of VAT refunds.
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Russian rights council to issue report into Magnitsky death
An advisory council to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev says it is close to finishing a report into the death in custody of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in 2009.
Magnitsky, who was defending British investment company Hermitage Capital Management against tax evasion charges, died aged 37 in a Moscow pre-trial detention facility after being refused medical treatment for pancreatitis.
“The material is almost ready,” Mikhail Fedotov, head of the president’s council on human rights and civil society, told reporters on Wednesday.
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Putin’s Shadow and Shoelaces
There was a great joke that was popular after Dmitry Medvedev became president in 2008: Prime Minister Vladimir Putin gave Medvedev a car without a steering wheel. “But where is the steering wheel?” asks Medvedev. “Don’t worry,” answers Putin. “I’ll be doing the driving.”
On April Fools’ Day, Putin played this joke out in reality. He drove a Yo-Mobile, the new hybrid automobile, to Medvedev’s residence. Posing for television crews from every national channel, Putin picked up Medvedev and drove for a while with the president in the passenger’s seat.
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Police raid Moscow tax service office, home of deputy head
Police on Wednesday raided the office of the Moscow Administration of the Federal Tax Service and the home of its deputy head as part of an investigation into the attempted theft of $70.7 million by a St. Petersburg firm, a police source said.
The case also involves ten incidences of theft committed by the firm ES – Kontraktstroi – under the guise of VAT refunds, the source said.
“From 9 a.m. raids have been continuing in the office of the Moscow administration of the Federal Tax Service…, and in the building of [Moscow’s] tax inspection number 28 ….Moreover, the home of deputy head of Moscow’s Administration of the Federal Tax Service Olga Chernichuk was also raided,” the source said.
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Who was Sergei Magnitsky?
Sergei Magnitsky was a humble Moscow lawyer who stumbled across possibly the greatest corporate tax fraud Russia has ever known. It was a discovery that would ultimately cost him his life.
His investigations uncovered a web of alleged corruption involving senior members of the police, judges, officials, lawyers and the Russian mafia. Despite death threats, he refused to leave Russia, instead deciding to probe deeper into the apparent fraud – uncovering two other suspected cases.
One of the policemen he had testified was at the heart of the crime was appointed to investigate him. Magnitsky was subsequently arrested on suspicion of tax avoidance and jailed.
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Fall guy in Russian fraud uncovered by Sergei Magnitsky paid $2.1m
Questions have been raised about the role played by a sawmill foreman convicted of Russia’s largest tax fraud after new papers emerged purporting to show that he received payments worth $2.1m (£1.3m) following his detention for an alleged separate kidnapping.
Victor Markelov, 43, confessed in April 2009 to a vastly complex $230m theft of taxes paid to the Russian people and was jailed for five years with no fine in an apparent attempt to draw a veil over what was becoming an embarrassing episode for senior state officials implicated in the crime.
According to claims filed with the Russian prosecutor’s office, Mr Markelov may have been paid to take the fall. Two days after being arrested for the alleged kidnapping of a company director in late 2006 and attempting to extort $20m out of his boss, Mr Markelov was transferred ownership of a company with a book value of $1m.
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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
