Show trial strengthens the case for an EU Magnitsky Act
The posthumous trial of Sergei Magnitsky, the anti-corruption lawyer beaten to death in a Moscow jail, is not just the moment Russia’s legal system becomes the theatre of the absurd, but something worse. It is a show trial that harks back to the blackest days of the Soviet Union. Even in the Stalin era, however, such trials took place before defendants met their deaths in the dark recesses of the penal system, not after.
Posthumous trials are not unheard of in history. Pope Formosus (891-896AD) was tried post mortem by political enemies in the Cadaver Synod. Joan of Arc’s sentence was annulled in a retrial after her death; Oliver Cromwell’s body was exhumed to be posthumously “executed”. The Nazi Martin Bormann was named as a defendant in the 1945 Nuremberg trials, his whereabouts unclear, and later proved to be dead.
But in modern legal practice, posthumous trials are usually held to provide justice for victims, or to clear a defendant’s name. A 2011 constitutional court ruling in Russia allowed such a hearing if the defendant’s family pressed for it. In this case, none of those elements applies.
Mr Magnitsky’s trial on trumped-up tax evasion charges is a clear attempt to blacken his name. It comes as Bill Browder, his former employer, embarks on a push to persuade European capitals to adopt measures similar to the US Magnitsky Act – which imposed visa bans and asset freezes on officials implicated in the lawyer’s death. Yet if the Kremlin believes a “guilty” verdict obtained in such bizarre fashion will alter perceptions outside Russia, that shows how divorced from reality it has become.
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Dead Russian lawyer to go on trial next month
The trial of the whistleblowing Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky is to begin next month, even though he died in prison three years ago.
A Russian court ruled on Monday that the trial would begin on 4 March. Prosecutors accuse Magnitsky and his former client William Browder, a London-based investor, of evading $16.8m (£10.8m) in taxes.
The trial will be held under procedures allowing for posthumous trials to clear the deceased. Magnitsky’s relatives are boycotting the proceedings.
Magnitsky was arrested in 2008 while investigating an alleged $230m (£148m) tax fraud and died the following year after developing pancreatitis that was left untreated.
The US Congress passed a law sanctioning officials whom Browder accuses of involvement in the fraud. Russia in response banned adoptions by Americans. buy over the counter medicines hairy girl https://zp-pdl.com https://www.zp-pdl.com payday loan
Magnitsky Hearing Put Off for 2 Weeks
The opening of a tax evasion trial against deceased whistle-blowing lawyer Sergei Magnitsky and business associate Bill Browder, who founded what was once one of Russia’s largest foreign investors, has been postponed to March 4 so the state-appointed defense team can familiarize itself with some 60 tomes of case documents.
Magnitsky, whose name titled a recently passed U.S. law imposing international sanctions on alleged human rights abusers, died in a Moscow pretrial detention facility in 2009, about a year after he accused high-ranking Russian officials of a multimillion-dollar embezzlement. Soon after he made that accusation, Magnitsky was jailed on tax evasion charges.
In April 2012, the Prosecutor General’s Office moved to revive the case because, it said, Magnitsky’s mother had on many occasions said she wanted official acknowledgement that her son was innocent. In 2011, Russia’s Constitutional Court had ruled that dead people could be tried in a court of law if close relatives sought vindication for the accused.
But Magnitsky’s mother, Natalya, has publicly condemned her son’s posthumous trial as “unlawful” and refused to allow any lawyer to represent him.
Ahead of Monday’s hearing, in which Moscow’s Tverskoi District Court honored the defense’s request to delay the trial, Magnitskaya’s lawyer read a statement saying she did not authorize anyone to represent her son. “Any person who assumes such an obligation acts against my son’s interests,” the statement said.
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Russia appoints lawyer to represent Magnitsky ahead of posthumous trial
The Russian government has appointed a lawyer to represent Sergei Magnitsky in a trial now set to take place on 4 March.
The court date was announced during a preliminary hearing earlier today at Moscow’s Tverskoi District Court. The hearing date was originally scheduled for 28 January but was postponed after Magnitsky’s family and their lawyers refused to take part in the trial (29 January 2013).
It was confirmed today that the state has now appointed Nikolai Gerasimov to represent dead lawyer Magnitsky and Kirill Goncharov to represent Bill Browder, the founder of UK-based investment fund Hermitage Capital, throughout the trial.
Both lawyers are members of the Moscow Bar Association and their appointments come in spite of a formal appeal by Natalya Magnitskaya, Magnitsky’s mother, to Bar Association chairman Henri Reznik to urge all of its members to not participate as ‘state-appointed counsel’ in the trial (29 January 2013).
According to a statement by the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office in November 2012, both Magnitsky and Browder stand accused of evading an estimated 522 million roubles in taxes. The decision to try Magnitsky posthumously first emerged in August 2011, when a Russian constitutional court ruled that the death of a defendant should not automatically render an investigation closed.
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Russia puts dead lawyer Sergei Magnitsky on trial
Russia is to press ahead with an extraordinary trial to put a dead man in the dock, in a move his family has described as “inhuman”.
The whistleblowing lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who died in pre-trial detention three years ago, tried to expose a $230 million scam – and now faces posthumous prosecution for alleged tax evasion.
“It is cynical and inhuman,” said Mr Magnitsky’s mother Natalya, in a statement read out in court by the family lawyer. Mrs Magnitsky has been urging defence lawyers not to come forward to represent her dead son since that would legitimise the case.
However, a Moscow court today shrugged off the family’s protests, appointed defence lawyers against their will and indicated that the trial is likely to go ahead, some time after a second preliminary hearing on March 4.
The case of Mr Magnitsky has become a thorn in US-Russian relations.
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Now Russia puts a DEAD man on trial: Whistleblowing lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in the dock three years after his death
A crusading Russian lawyer who died in custody three years ago is set to go on trial accused of tax evasion.
In what is believed to be the first trial of a dead defendant in Russian or Soviet history, Sergei Magnitsky, who died in prison in 2009, will be accused of tax evasion in a Moscow courtroom.
Today’s pre-trial hearing and subsequent trial will be held under rules designed to allow innocent parties to clear their names posthumously, but experts in the case expect a speedy conviction.
Mr Magnitsky, who was 37 when he died, represented London-based Hermitage Capital Management (HCM) and uncovered what he said was a web of corruption involving Russian tax officials and police officers.
In retaliation for his reporting his findings to authorities, he was arrested on charges of organising tax evasion for company executives. On November 16th 2009, he died of pancreatitis in a Moscow prison after being tortured and denied proper medical treatment.
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Judge sets trial date in case against Russian whistleblower who died in prison
The trial of whistleblowing Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky is to begin next month, even though he died in prison three years ago.
A Russian court on Monday ruled the trial is to begin March 4. Prosecutors accuse Magnitsky and his former client, investor William Browder, of evading $16.8 million in taxes.
The trial will be held under procedures allowing posthumous trials to clear the deceased. Magnitsky’s relatives are boycotting proceedings.
Magnitsky was jailed in 2008 by officials he claimed colluded with organized crime to claim a $230 million tax rebate through illegally obtained subsidiaries of Browder’s company. He died in 2009 after being repeatedly beaten and denied medical treatment.
Congress passed a law sanctioning officials Browder accuses of involvement in the fraud. Russia in response banned adoptions by Americans.
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Russia holds hearing in posthumous Sergei Magnitsky trial
A Russian court has held a pre-trial hearing in the case against late anti-corruption lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.
The court said the trial would start on 4 March. It is believed to be the first time in Soviet or Russian history a defendant has been tried posthumously.
Mr Magnitsky was arrested in 2008 after accusing officials of tax fraud but was later himself accused of those crimes.
His death in custody a year later has led to a diplomatic dispute between Russia and the US.
Last year the US passed the Magnitsky Act, which blacklists Russian officials accused of human rights violations.
In response, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a Russian law barring Americans from adopting Russian orphans.
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Dead Russian Lawyer Magnitsky’s Trial Political, Family Says
A Russian court delayed by two weeks the start of the posthumous trial of Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer for Hermitage Capital Management Ltd. who died in prison, as his family said the case is “politically motivated” and boycotted the beginning of court hearings.
Magnitsky’s prosecution violates his constitutional rights and the family refuses to take part in the proceedings, their lawyer, Nikolai Gorokhov, said in a statement read out to reporters today outside the Moscow court holding the trial.
The Tverskoi District Court delayed the first hearing on March 4, the tribunal’s press service said. The trial had been set to open today with court-appointed lawyers for Magnitsky because his family has refused to mount a legal defense.
Magnitsky died in November 2009 at the age of 37 while in pre-trial detention after alleging the biggest known tax fraud in Russia, a theft of $230 million from the national treasury. The case sparked a diplomatic row, with the U.S. imposing sanctions on Russian officials accused of playing a role in Magnitsky’s death and Moscow retaliating by barring American citizens from adopting Russian orphans.
Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, who as president in 2008-2012 made the fight against corruption a priority, last month defended Magnitsky’s prosecution for tax evasion.
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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
