Stop the Untouchables. Justice for Sergei Magnitsky.

Magnitsky, the Accidental Symbol of Global Injustice

The Moscow Times

Magnitsky’s life reveals a man who was in many ways ordinary and felt compelled to fight a state machine he had trusted his whole career.

When a childhood friend said he was thinking of not returning to Russia after a concert tour abroad in 2000, Sergei Magnitsky gave him a copy of “Brat 2,” a popular movie released earlier that year, in the hope of dissuading him from emigrating.

“Brat 2” tells the story of a justice-seeking rebel, played by the actor Sergei Bodrov Jr., who goes to the United States to rescue his brother from gangsters. He quickly becomes disillusioned with the country, where he thinks people “seek truth in money” and, after helping his brother, returns home to Russia.

Described as “a very Russian man” by friends, Magnitsky also was not impressed by London’s narrow streets when there on business, and he enjoyed traveling around Russia. He once made a trip to Odessa, where he was born.

“The word ‘patriot’ might sound vulgar, but he loved Russia,” said Tatyana Rudenko, Magnitsky’s aunt, who was close to her nephew throughout his life.

Magnitsky, a senior auditor and tax attorney for the Moscow-based law firm Firestone Duncan, died on Nov. 16, 2009, in a Moscow prison, where, according to a Kremlin human rights council investigation, he was badly beaten by guards shortly before he died.

A criminal investigation was carried out, but no senior prison or police officials have been prosecuted in connection with his death.

On Nov. 16 of this year, the third anniversary of Magnitsky’s death, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act, which seeks to punish Russian officials implicated in his death as well as other Russian officials linked to human rights abuses.