Sergei Magnitsky – a Tragic Metaphor for Russia’s Judicial, Law Enforcement and Governance Systems
Henry Jackson Society
16 November 2010 – One year ago this very day, Sergei Magnitsky passed away in what was a tragic and unjust death. And yet, the past three-hundred sixty five days have seen little in the way of justice or accountability. In fact, a vast array of questions remains unanswered – questions which are posed in the direction of the Russian state. Many believed that Russia had caught up with the 21st century; that Russia had become at least some semblance of a democracy, providing governance and security for its citizens and adhering to the rule of law. The truth, however, is that Sergei Magnitsky’s death is a tragic metaphor for Russia’s judicial, law enforcement and governance systems, systems in which justice is slowly and painfully killed by the state’s defiance of the rule of law.
The story of Sergei’s death is well documented. Sergei Magnitsky was a man who believed in the virtues of his motherland’s legal system; a lawyer who sought to uncover the largest tax fraud in Russian history committed by officials within the Russian Interior Ministry (MVD) to the tune of $230 million; and a man who was acting out of the interest of both his client and the Russian state. A month after his efforts to bring justice to light, Sergei Magnitsky was arrested by the officials he stood against and was placed in detention for over 11 months where he was forced to endure appalling conditions with no access to medical treatment. On 16 November 2009, as a result of the denial of medical care in prison, he tragically passed away.
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One Year Later, Magnitsky’s Death Overshadows Case He Sought To Prosecute
“I don’t understand why this happened to him,” says Natalia Magnitskaya, the mother of Moscow attorney Sergei Magnitsky. “I never thought that something like this could have happened to him.”
Magnitskaya is one of the many family members, friends, and coworkers featured in a new documentary that celebrates Magnitsky’s life and questions the circumstances of his death, on November 16, 2009.
In 2008, Magnitsky implicated top Russian officials in what he said was a massive fraud scheme. The authorities responded by arresting him. One year after his agonizing death in custody, his own case has overshadowed the one he sought to prosecute. Magnitsky’s supporters around the world are marking the day with renewed vows to continue their fight for justice.
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More Congressional Attention for Dead Russian Whistleblower
Maryland Senator Ben Cardin notes today’s grim anniversary of the death of Russian attorney and whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky. That death in a Moscow detention center has become an international incident and the subject of proposed Capitol Hill legislation. It’s also the topic of a new documentary that airs tonight.
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A year on, Magnitsky probe stalls
The Moscow News
15 November 2010 – On 16th November, it will be a year since Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer for Hermitage Capital, died in jail after repeated refusals by investigators to get him treated for gall bladder disease. Despite the ordering of a criminal investigation and a series of high-profile sackings by President Dmitry Medvedev, who tacked prison reform onto his ambitious overhaul of law enforcement, no one has been brought to justice.
“They’re doing something, but to this day, we have neither suspects nor accusations,” Magnitsky’s lawyer Yelena Oreshnikova told The Moscow News. “The time for a hot pursuit has been wasted. It’s difficult to recreate what happened a year ago. But I’d like to believe that the guilty will be punished.”
Three investigators connected to Magnitsky’s case – people who refused to get him medical treatment – have been promoted and given awards.
Another, Artyom Kuznetsov, is suing Hermitage Capital over videos implicating him in helping embezzle $230 million and blaming Magnitsky for tax evasion. In a Kafkaesque saga, despite an international outcry and calls from the Kremlin to pursue the investigation, the probe’s deadline has now been put back for a third time, until next February. NGOs conducting their own, unofficial investigation into Magnitsky’s case believe that high-placed officials – possibly within the Federal Security Service or other law enforcement structures – are the reason that the negligence case launched with Medvedev’s backing isn’t going anywhere.
The Interior Ministry’s investigative committee has repeatedly refused to launch a criminal probe against Oleg Silchenko, one of the three decorated with the Best Investigator Badge last week. But Valery Borshchev, a member of the Moscow Helsinki Group who is heading an independent investigation into Magnitsky’s death, says he submitted its findings to the Investigative Committee of the Prosecutor’s Office in December 2009. Last month, he met top prosecutors who promised a reply – but none came.
“It was Silchenko who refused to give his approval for a medical examination when lawyers asked him,” Borshchev told The Moscow News. “When we talked to doctors at the Butyrka jail, they said that they tried to get him examined, but they met with resistance” from the investigators. “We had believed that our materials would be of interest to the investigation, but apparently the [Investigative Committee of the Prosecutor’s Office] didn’t find it useful, since no one approached us for additional information or clarifications. It was a dead-end wall.”
Borshchev found it “strange” that after Hermitage’s accusations against Artyom Kuznetsov and Pavel Karpov, another investigator involved in Magnitsky’s case, that no action was taken against them, and that Karpov received a professional decoration. “I think that high-placed officials are involved. And a political decision cannot be made about what measures to take against them. That is my opinion.”
Browder’s visa
The reasons for the stalled investigation – and, indeed, for Magnitsky’s death – go back to a dispute between Hermitage Capital, once Russia’s largest hedge fund, and a group of Interior Ministry officials.
It began in 2005, when William Browder, head of the fund, was denied an entry visa. An investigation by the firm led them to implicate investigator Artyom Kuznetsov in a $230 million tax fraud scheme, according to Firestone Duncan, the law firm. In 2007, Hermitage’s offices were raided as part of an investigation Kuznetsov helped launch. Magnitsky was arrested on Nov. 14, 2008, on charges of helping Hermitage Capital to evade $3.25 million in taxes, while an extradition request is still out for Browder.
“The Hermitage story is what’s keeping Magnitsky’s case from being investigated,” Kirill Kabanov, a former FSB officer who now heads the National Anti-Corruption Committee, told The Moscow News.
As a member of the Presidential Council for Civil Society Development, he has been piecing the case together for over a year now, and is due to submit his findings to Medvedev in the next few days. “If the investigators are probed, they will testify about those in whose interests they acted,” Kabanov told The Moscow News. “And among them are officials of the Federal Security Service. It’s not a group of one or two people.”
Kabanov says he has evidence of contacts between the investigators and security officials – evidence that he plans to submit to the president and the Investigative Committee of the Prosecutor General’s Office. Asked if he could identify the security officials involved, he said he knew their names, but could not reveal them in the interests of the investigation. The problem, he said, is systemic, possibly suggesting rivalries within law enforcement structures.
“I don’t understand how a year goes by after the president issues a command, and it turns out that the Investigative Committee [of the Interior Ministry] has not carried out an internal probe.” Nor is the Investigative Committee of the Prosecutor General’s Office questioning anyone from the Interior Ministry, Kabanov said.
A spokesman for the Investigative Committee could not immediately comment on the status of the case.
International outcry
Meanwhile, Magnitsky’s cause has been taken up abroad. Hermitage Capital has called on the European Parliament and legislators in Britain, U.S., Canada and Poland, to impose a visa ban on 60 officials the fund’s officials claim are connected to Magnitsky’s death. In September, US Senator Benjamin Cardin and Congressman James McGovern introduced a bill in Washington that would freeze assets and ban visas of the officials.
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Die Qualen des unbequemen Anwalts
Spiegel Online
16 November 2010 – Sergej Magnitzki starb vor einem Jahr unter unerträglichen Schmerzen in einer Zelle: Die Behörden ließen ihn leiden, verweigerten ihm einen Arzt. Präsident Medwedew entließ zwar einige Beamte, doch verurteilt wurde niemand. Ein Film erinnert nun an das Schicksal des Anwalts.
Moskau/Hamburg – Sie hatten Sergej Magnitzki gesagt, er dürfe sich von einem Arzt behandeln lassen – aber erst, wenn er aus der Haft entlassen werde. Elf Monate war er da bereits im russischen Untersuchungsgefängnis “Matrosenstille”. Als er unter quälenden Schmerzen litt, riefen seine Wärter keinen Doktor. Sie bestellten den psychiatrischen Dienst, der ihn an sein Bett band. So starb Sergej Magnitzki vor genau einem Jahr, am 16. November 2009, an einer Entzündung von Gallenblase und Bauchspeicheldrüse.
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Alleged Russian corruption detailed
CBC News
16 November 2010 – A Dutch documentary about a Russian lawyer who exposed alleged fraud by government officials is set to be shown in the legislatures of Canada, Britain and the U.S. on Tuesday.
That is exactly a year after Sergei Magnitsky, a 37-year-old father of two, died in a Russian jail — tortured to death, according to his supporters.
Russia is expected to be asked to join a European missile-defence system at a meeting next weekend with the NATO countries. However, “it can’t be business as usual with Russia so long as there is this pervasive culture of corruption but, more important, this culture of impunity,” said Liberal MP Irwin Cotler, who is leading the effort in Canada,
Magnitsky was working for Hermitage Capital Management, an international investment fund that at one time was the largest portfolio investor in Russia, CEO William Browder told a parliamentary subcommittee in video testimony on Nov. 2.
Hermitage’s Russian companies were reregistered under another name after police raided its office and took away documents, he said. Magnitsky was among the lawyers hired to deal with the situation, and he found that the documents had been used to create $1 billion worth of fake liabilities for the companies.
Fake documents, lawyers, liabilities
“Those documents were then presented in a Russian court. Fake defence lawyers whom we had never hired showed up in court and pleaded guilty to $1 billion of fake liabilities. Those fake liabilities were then used by the police to go around to all of our banks to try to find all the assets that we had in Russia,” Browder said.
Hermitage had already removed its assets from Russia, but then Magnitsky found out that the fake liabilities had been used to apply for a $230-million tax refund. “On Christmas Eve of 2007, the largest refund in Russian tax history was granted with no questions asked,” Browder said.
Magnitsky testified against the police officers who raided the Hermitage office. Within a month, he was arrested and pressured to withdraw his testimony.
“After six months of sleep deprivation, freezing temperatures, unsanitary conditions, and bacteria-ridden water, Sergei became sick. He lost 48 pounds and started having severe abdominal pains,” Browder told the committee.
An operation was recommended, but denied. He died in jail.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev called an investigation, but the Interior Ministry on Monday accused Magnitsky of participating in a Hermitage plan to embezzle $175 million from the government, the Moscow Times reported.
The documentary Justice for Sergei was made by Hans Hermans and Martin Maat, who founded the Dutch company ICU Documentaries. They made the film because they were “touched by the horrific ordeal of Mr. Magnitsky,” the company website said. онлайн займы payday loan https://www.zp-pdl.com https://zp-pdl.com/get-quick-online-payday-loan-now.php buy over the counter medicines
Adding Insult to Murder
Foreign Policy
15 November 2010 – One year ago tomorrow, Sergei Magnitsky was, for all intents and purposes, murdered after being held in a Russian jail for 358 days. Last week, Russian authorities figuratively spit on his grave as five officials connected to Magnitsky’s case were awarded commendations by the Interior Ministry. The evident absence of any accountability or justice in Russia has lead two members of the U.S. Congress to propose a visa ban and asset freeze against 60 Russian officials involved in the Magnitsky matter. Their efforts should be embraced by President Barack Obama’s administration, and European governments should adopt similar measures.
Magnitsky was a 37-year-old lawyer working for the Moscow firm Firestone Duncan where he represented the investment fund Hermitage Capital Management. Hermitage had been Russia’s largest foreign investor during the early Putin years — until, that is, its head, William Browder, ran afoul of certain Russian officials and had his visa revoked in 2005 on “national security” grounds. A British citizen, Browder had been pushing for greater rights for minority shareholders and better corporate governance among Russian companies. It seemed he pushed too far, especially against such prized state assets as Gazprom. In 2007, Russian authorities opened an investigation against him and Hermitage for tax evasion to the tune of $16.2 million.
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Kremlin Says New Evidence Ties Lawyer Who Died in Jail to Theft of $230 Million
The New York Times
16 November 2010 – Senior Russian police officials, stung by accusations that they had framed a lawyer and then allowed him to die of an untreated illness in jail, sought on Monday to defend themselves by disclosing what they said was new evidence of his guilt.
The police officials contended that the lawyer, Sergei L. Magnitsky, had helped to mastermind a complex tax scheme to steal $230 million from the government. Their announcement, scheduled for the eve of the anniversary of his death last year, represented an effort to turn the tables on Mr. Magnitsky’s supporters, who have organized a concerted campaign in Russia and abroad to show that high-ranking police officials themselves embezzled the money.
The Interior Ministry called a news conference to offer what it called the new information about Mr. Magnitsky. Col. Irina V. Dudukina, a spokeswoman, said the ministry had arrested a person she called an accomplice of Mr. Magnitsky’s who was ready to testify against him.
”Magnitsky was an accountant and participated, in particular, in tax evasion schemes,” Colonel Dudukina said. ”It is not possible to say that he simply fulfilled the will of this employer without being informed of the final goal of his actions.”
In response, Mr. Magnitsky’s colleagues assailed the ministry, saying it was smearing a dead man.
Mr. Magnitsky had been caught in a feud between an international investment fund, Hermitage Capital Management, and law enforcement authorities.
Hermitage has contended that senior Interior Ministry officers raided its offices in Moscow in 2007, took documents related to three of its subsidiaries and used those documents to illegally assume ownership of the subsidiaries. The officers then filed fake tax returns for the subsidiaries and received an illegal $230 million tax refund, Hermitage said.
William Browder, the founder of Hermitage, who was expelled from Russia in 2005 and now lives in London, called the Interior Ministry’s announcement abhorrent.
”Sergei Magnitsky reported a crime committed by police officers,” Mr. Browder said. ”They then arrested him, tortured him and killed him. Now, one year later, they are accusing him of the crime that they committed. There is a special place in hell for people like this.”
Mr. Browder has circulated documents showing that two investigators assigned to the Hermitage case spent a combined amount of more than $4 million on real estate and vehicles during the period that followed the tax fraud.
Colonel Dudukina said the Interior Ministry had looked into these charges as part of a slander case initiated by ministry officials. She said the properties in question were all bought before the tax fraud occurred.
Colonel Dudukina was scathing about a measure put forward by Senator Benjamin L. Cardin, Democrat of Maryland, that would impose financial penalties and visa bans on officials implicated in Mr. Magnitsky’s case. She said the list was ”aimed at preventing investigators from taking part in investigative actions on the territories” of countries that have such measures. She said only 7 or 8 of the 60 names on the list were of people involved in the investigation.
”We don’t know why the other people are on that list,” she said.
Mr. Magnitsky documented repeated requests for medical care in prison, and numerous Russian officials have acknowledged that official misconduct contributed to his death. President Dmitri A. Medvedev ordered an official inquiry and dismissed about 20 prison officials. But a year later, the investigation has not led to any arrests, a fact that human rights advocates planned to protest on Tuesday. buy viagra online займы онлайн на карту срочно https://zp-pdl.com/get-quick-online-payday-loan-now.php www.zp-pdl.com займ срочно без отказов и проверок
Police in Russian fraud case implicate dead lawyer
The Washington Post
16 November 2010 – A year ago, lawyer Sergei Magnitsky died in prison here months after testifying about police involvement in the theft of millions of dollars in tax receipts. On Monday, the police accused the dead man of that very theft.
William F. Browder, a U.S.-born investor who was Magnitsky’s client, calls the accusation evil.
“It’s beyond absurd, beyond cynical – it is pure evil,” Browder, the head of Hermitage Capital Management, said Monday. “They are trying to blacken the name of Sergei on the anniversary of his death at their hands, accusing him of the very crime they committed.”
Magnitsky died Nov. 16, 2009, at age 37, after more than a year in pretrial detention. He had not been given medical treatment, although he was suffering from pancreatitis, and a public oversight committee called the conditions of his detention “torturous.”
Well before that, Browder, whose Hermitage Capital had been the largest foreign investment fund in Russia, had become a business dissident, an activist stockholder who was denied entry to the country in late 2005. Magnitsky provided legal work for Hermitage, and Browder has been tireless in his efforts to pressure Russia into pursuing those involved in Magnitsky’s arrest and death.
Last year, President Dmitry A. Medvedev ordered an investigation into Magnitsky’s death, and about 20 prison officials were fired, but no charges have been filed. On Monday, the Interior Ministry – the police department – informed reporters that it had thoroughly investigated during the past year and pronounced Magnitsky guilty.
The case dates to October 2007, when Magnitsky alleged that three Hermitage companies had been stolen and registered in other names, using documents police had seized in a raid on Hermitage that June. Hermitage filed three criminal complaints in early December, describing a complicated scheme involving police and fake tax deductions that would result in a tax refund of $230 million to the stolen, shell companies.
Those complaints failed to prevent the fraud, Browder said. On Dec. 24, 2007, the swindle was carried out with a $230 million tax refund – the largest ever paid in a single day.
In June 2008, Magnitsky testified that police were involved in the scheme. In November, some of the same people he accused were appointed to investigate the missing $230 million, and later that month Magnitsky was arrested. One year later, he died.
“They spent the last year trying to figure out how to make this go away,” said Jamison Firestone, managing partner of Firestone Duncan, the law firm where Magnitsky worked. “Now they want to pin it on Magnitsky.”
Firestone, who left Russia while Magnitsky was in prison, said Magnitsky died refusing to falsely implicate Browder and Hermitage in the scheme.
On Monday, at a Moscow news conference, Irina Dudukina, spokeswoman for the Ministry of Interior Investigative Committee, accused Magnitsky of the crime.
“Magnitsky had a degree in economics and worked as an accountant and auditor. He was not a lawyer,” she said. “And as an accountant, he was developing a tax-evasion scheme.”
She said results of the investigation would be sent to prosecutors for action. And she offered Browder a deal: If he repaid the missing money, she said, criminal charges against him in another tax-evasion case would be dropped.
Casting a wide web of blame, Dudukina accused Congress of interfering with the investigation. In September, after hearing passionate testimony from Browder, Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.) and Rep. James P. McGovern (D-Mass.) introduced bills that would bar visas for about 60 Russian officials connected to the case.
“We believe this . . . is aimed at preventing investigators from taking part in investigative actions on the territories of these countries,” Dudukina said.
Last week, at a conference in Bangkok, Transparency International, a worldwide anti-corruption organization, gave Magnitsky its Integrity Award for courage in pursuing corruption.
Before that, the Interior Ministry made annual awards for Russian Police Day. Five officials whom Firestone connects to the Magnitsky case were honored for their service, including spokeswoman Dudukina.
The Interior Ministry says it will pursue the case. So does Browder, who is promoting a documentary scheduled to be shown Tuesday in the Capitol Visitors Center and at parliaments in five other countries. It’s called “Justice for Sergei.” займ на карту hairy woman https://zp-pdl.com/online-payday-loans-cash-advances.php https://zp-pdl.com/online-payday-loans-in-america.php займы на карту срочно
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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
