Posts Tagged ‘AFP’
Russia seeks to drop charges over Magnitsky death
Russian prosecutors said on Monday the man on trial for causing the death of a whistle-blowing attorney should be freed without charge, in a surprising development in a case that has triggered a major row between Moscow and Washington.
Dmitry Kratov is the only official remaining as a defendant in the death of Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer who died of untreated illnesses in 2009 while under pre-trial arrest at a Moscow jail.
Magnitsky had claimed to have uncovered a $235 million state embezzlement scheme, before being arrested by the very officials he implicated in the crime.
His case caused international outrage and led to the passage of a US law that blacklists Russian officials allegedly involved in the death.
Moscow retaliated by introducing legislation banning adoptions of Russian children to American citizens in the biggest diplomatic scandal in years between the two powers.
In Monday’s development, prosecutor Dmitry Bokov said that Kratov, deputy head of the prison where Magnitsky died, should be acquitted of a charge of carelessness, because he acted according to the rules and did not receive any complaints from the lawyer.
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Sergei Magnitsky: symbol of prison abuse in Russia
Sergei Magnitsky, whose case triggered a US-Russia row on Thursday, was a lawyer working for a Western firm who died in pre-trial jail at 37 in Moscow in 2009 after claiming to have discovered a major tax fraud covered up by government officials.
He died after spending almost a year under pre-trial arrest that his mother said had exposed him to “torture conditions” and which his employer called retribution for his testimony against interior ministry officers.
Prosecutors said that Magnitsky died from acute heart and pancreatic failure and fluid in the brain in combination with other conditions, including diabetes.
Human rights campaigners, including the Kremlin’s human rights council, said that the lawyer was ill-treated deliberately and even tortured, handcuffed one hour before his death despite suffering from acute pain.
Magnitsky’s firm Firestone Duncan was providing legal support to what was once Russia’s largest investment fund Hermitage Capital Management, whose head William Browder fell out of favour with the Kremlin and was denied a visa in 2005.
Prior to his arrest, Sergei Magnitsky claimed to have uncovered a scheme used by police officials to reclaim about $235 million in taxes paid by his client.
However instead of looking into the claims Russia charged the lawyer with fraud and locked him up in Moscow’s Matrosskaya Tishina jail, later transferring him to Moscow’s infamous Butyrka prison.
His death caused an international outrage, whose ripple effects are still felt today.
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Magnitsky fund boss says staff received death threats
Agence France Presse
The head of the investment fund at the centre of the Magnitsky fraud scandal said Friday staff had received death threats, as British police probed the unexplained death of a Russian involved in the case.
The chief executive of investment fund Hermitage Capital, William Browder, would not say whether he believed that Alexander Perepilichnyy, 44, who died on November 10 near his home in Surrey outside London, had been murdered.
But he confirmed the Russian businessman had since 2010 been passing evidence to Hermitage of the involvement of Russian officials in a scheme to embezzle $230 million (177 million euros) by obtaining false tax returns on payments made by the fund.
Hermitage’s lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, died in a Russian jail in 2009 after he went public with allegations about the conspiracy and was in turn taken into custody accused of tax violations.
Browder said Perepilichnyy was the fourth person linked to the Magnitsky affair to have died in unexplained circumstances.
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Russia drops charges against doctor in Magnitsky case
Russia said Monday it had dropped charges against a doctor implicated in the prison death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, sparking accusations that the authorities had no interest in seeking justice in the case.
Larisa Litvinova was one of only two people, both prison doctors, to be charged after a long-running and high-profile investigation into what activists see as one of Russia’s most outrageous post-Soviet rights violations.
Magnitsky died in 2009 at the age of 37 from untreated medical conditions including acute pancreatis after being held in a notoriously squalid prison during a fraud probe against his client, US investment firm Hermitage Capital.
“The Investigative Committee has decided to drop the criminal case against doctor and laboratory assistant at the pre-trial detention centre, Larisa Litvinova,” investigators said in a statement said.
It cited “the elapsing of the statute of limitations,” saying a new law had come into force since the probe began, meaning that investigators had to bring a case to trial within two years.
Litvinova was charged last August with causing death by negligence, while her boss, the detention centre’s deputy medical chief Dmitry Kratov, was charged with negligence.
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MPs push for Russian sanctions over lawyer death
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iKqajWCd9tALa9ONbqsofn-DWzYg?docId=CNG.ea5ac78be4756c25b0f5c61782c49ad4.201
British lawmakers on Wednesday urged the government to impose sanctions on Russian officials implicated in the death of a lawyer for a British firm who claimed to have uncovered corruption in Moscow.
MPs in Britain’s lower House of Commons backed Conservative Dominic Raab’s motion to push the government into implementing asset freezes and travel bans on those suspected of involvement in the killing of Sergei Magnitsky in Russia.
Magnitsky was working for London-based Hermitage Capital Management when he alleged that he had found evidence of corruption among senior Moscow officials.
On tabling the motion, Raab said: “Between 2007 and 2008, working for Hermitage Capital, he exposed the biggest tax fraud in Russian history, worth $230 million (175 million euros).
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Nemtsov backs Canadian call for Russia visa blacklist
Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov during a visit to Canada’s parliament on Wednesday backed calls for a Canadian blacklist of 60 Russian officials linked to the death of a young lawyer.
Sergei Magnitsky died of untreated heart condition and pancreatitis in an isolation cell in November 2009.
The 37-year-old lawyer’s death after 11 months in a Moscow jail sparked global outrage and came to symbolize problems in the Russian judicial system.
In September, his mother Natalia Magnitskaya alleged that the death of her son was not caused by negligence but was a premeditated murder brought on by months of torture to keep him silent.
The blacklist proposed by Canadian Liberal MP Irwin Cotler “won’t be against Russia, but against the corrupt system in Russia,” declared Nemtsov. “I believe Canada is friendly with Russia as a country.”
Cotler — Canada’s former justice minister — introduced legislation in October calling for those individuals believed to be responsible for Magnitsky’s death to be barred from Canada.
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US lawmakers decry Russia vote, warn of blacklist
US lawmakers rebuked Moscow’s leadership Wednesday for “manipulating” recent elections, and urged legislation to blacklist any Russian believed responsible for rights violations from traveling to the United States.
At a US Senate hearing focused on corruption and rule of law in Russia, days after tens of thousands of demonstrators marched charging electoral fraud, State Department officials said they recognized a “national awakening” among Russian citizens calling for accountability of their government.
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Russian lawyer beaten on day of jail death: supporters
A Western investment fund whose attorney died in a Moscow jail published documents Monday alleging to show prison officials authorised the use of rubber batons on the day of his death.
The case of Sergei Magnitsky — a whistle-blowing lawyer who alleged mass embezzlement by the tax police — has been highlighted by the West as one of the most flagrant abuses of human rights in Russia in recent years.
The 37-year-old’s death also raised alarm over the Russian justice system’s impartiality and the ability of the police to manipulate the courts.
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Canadian lawmaker calls for Russia visa blacklist
A Canadian lawmaker on Monday urged the Canadian government to issue a blacklist of Russian officials linked to the death of a young lawyer.
Sergei Magnitsky died of untreated heart condition and pancreatitis in an isolation cell in November 2009.
The 37-year-old lawyer’s death after 11 months in a Moscow jail sparked global outrage and came to symbolize problems in the Russian judicial system.
In September, his mother Natalia Magnitskaya alleged that the death of her son was not caused by negligence but was a premeditated murder brought on by months of torture to keep him silent.
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