Stop the Untouchables. Justice for Sergei Magnitsky.

Russian Probe of Prison Death Stalls

The Wall Street Journal, By GREGORY L. WHITE

More than seven months after the jailhouse death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky prompted Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to order a full investigation, official probes into the case appear stalled, according to members of a Kremlin group monitoring the case.

“According to our information, the president’s orders to conduct a full investigation of all the agencies involved haven’t been fully implemented,” said Kirill Kabanov, an anticorruption activist who is part of the working group set up by the Kremlin’s human-rights advisory panel to follow the case. The group sent a report to President Medvedev on the issue early this month, but there has been no public reaction.

BAN DEATH PLOT RUSSIANS’

Express, by Tracey Boles

A BRITISH-BASED financier whose lawyer died in a Russian jail is calling for the 60 people he says are responsible to be banned from entering Europe.

Bill Browder, an American-born British citizen who founded hedge fund Hermitage Capital Management, met representatives from the European Parliament last week to seek “visa sanctions” for the 60 Russian officials.

They are accused of helping to carry out a $230million (£150million) theft from the Russian treasury that was uncovered by Hermitage’s lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, 37.

When Mr Magnitksy gave evidence he was arrested, tortured and died in state custody.

EU-Russia human rights talks making little impact

EUobserver, ANDREW RETTMAN

Lack of hard evidence, boilerplate answers from Russian envoys and poor follow-up have seen the past six years of EU-Russia human rights talks add up to little more than diplomats getting to know each other.

EU delegates at the 11th EU-Russia “human rights consultations,” held in Brussels on 28 April, gave the Russian side a list of needling questions about 31 individual cases, including big names such as oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky and anti-fraud lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, as well as several hardly-known victims.

Fear takes over Russia’s businesses

Asia Times, By Claire Bigg and Kevin O’Flynn

Vladimir Romanov looks forward to celebrating his company’s birthday this month. The small family start-up he created a decade ago has since grown into a sprawling business with more than 300 employees. Today, the firm provides mobile-phone services and leases payment terminals from a dozen offices across Russia.

Proud of his success, the 34-year-old Moscow entrepreneur never misses his company’s anniversary. This year, the festivities have taken on special significance.

“Thankfully, I can celebrate this 11th anniversary,” he says. “I spent my own birthday, on March 5, in the town of Mozhaisk – not in a restaurant, but in pre-trial jail.”

Magnitsky’s Final Hours A Theater Success In Moscow

Radio Free Europe. Ashley Cleek

The small theater stage is the world and all the people on it are to be judged, says the director of a play based on the diary of a Russian lawyer who died in prison last year.

The production — based on the daily writings of Sergei Magnitsky, who died in a Moscow prison in October after awaiting trial for nearly one year — has been running in Moscow for more than a month and is completely booked through August, organizers say.

The venue, Teatr.doc, doesn’t sell the tickets to “One Hour and 18 Minutes” but rather gives them away on a first-come, first-serve basis.