Stop the Untouchables. Justice for Sergei Magnitsky.

Russia reopens tax case linked to lawyer’s death

Agence France Presse

A Moscow court on Tuesday reopened a hearing into the alleged theft of hundreds of millions of dollars from a US investor by Russian police in a case that led to the death of his jailed lawyer.

The November 2009 death in Butyrka prison of ailing 37-year-old attorney Sergei Magnitsky sparked Western outrage and refocused investor concerns about corruption and the lack of judicial independence in Russia.

Magnitsky claimed to have unravelled a clandestine scheme through which Russian interior ministry officers won control of three subsidiary companies formed by the US investment firm Hermitage Capital.

Executives at Hermitage — formed in 1996 and once ranked as the world’s best-performing fund in emerging markets — discovered the theft after learning that their own companies had inexplicably moved to different cities.