Posts Tagged ‘Alisov’
Putin Promotes Judge Who Posthumously Convicted Magnitsky
Russian President Vladimir Putin has promoted a judge who presided over the landmark trial and conviction of whistle-blower Sergei Magnitsky after Magnistky died in police custody.
Hermitage Capital, the investment fund that employed Magnitsky, released information on October 25 from the Kremlin website showing Judge Igor Alisov was promoted from the Tverskoi district court to the Moscow City Court.
The August 29 decree promoting Alisov came just one month after Alisov became the first person in Russia to preside over the trial of a dead man.
“This looks like Judge Alisov’s payback for selling his soul to Vladimir Putin,” Hermitage Capital said in a statement.
Magnitsky, a lawyer for Hermitage Capital, died under torturous jail conditions in 2009 after exposing a massive scheme by Russian officials to defraud the government.
Judge Alisov also exonerated all the officials Magnitsky implicated in embezzling $230 million.
займ онлайн онлайн займ https://zp-pdl.com/best-payday-loans.php https://zp-pdl.com/best-payday-loans.php unshaven girl
Facebook
Twitter
Google Buzz
LinkedIn
del.icio.us
Google Bookmarks
Yahoo! Buzz
Tumblr
StumbleUpon
FriendFeed
NewsVine
Digg
Dead Lawyer, a Kremlin Critic, Is Found Guilty of Tax Evasion
The steel cage reserved for the defendants was empty Thursday, which was not surprising since one of them is dead and the other lives in London. As the judge, his voice nearly inaudible, read out his verdict, one of the main defense lawyers paid no attention, tapping nonchalantly on his tablet computer instead.
If the posthumous prosecution of Sergei L. Magnitsky, the lawyer who was jailed as he tried to expose a huge government tax fraud and died four years ago in a Russian prison after being denied proper medical care, seemed surreal from the moment the authorities announced it, the verdict and sentencing on Thursday did not disappoint.
By all accounts, it was Russia’s first trial of a dead man, and in the tiny third-floor courtroom of the Tverskoi District Court, it took the judge, Igor B. Alisov, more than an hour and a half to read his decision pronouncing Mr. Magnitsky guilty of tax evasion.
Mr. Magnitsky was convicted along with a former client, William F. Browder, a financier who lives in Britain and was tried in absentia on the same charges. Mr. Browder, once Russia’s largest foreign portfolio investor, was sentenced to nine years in prison — a sentence that he will almost certainly never serve. Interpol in late May refused a request by the Russian government to track Mr. Browder’s whereabouts, a relatively rare instance of a law enforcement inquiry’s being set aside as politically motivated.
Mr. Browder, who has been barred from Russia since 2005, said in a telephone interview from London on Thursday that he believed that the Kremlin was acting out of desperation.
“Russia is a criminal regime,” Mr. Browder said. “The Russian state is a criminal state. And in order to operate in Russia, you have two options as a businessman: you can become part of the criminality, in which case you become a criminal, or you can oppose it, in which case you become a victim, and there’s no way you can avoid it.”
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
The height of absurdity’: Moscow court finds whistle-blowing Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky guilty of fraud – three years after his death
One of the more grotesque trials of recent Russian history came to an end as a Moscow court posthumously convicted the whistle-blowing lawyer Sergei Magnitsky of tax evasion.
Mr Magnitsky died in prison in 2009 after being ill-treated and not receiving treatment for pancreatitis. He had uncovered what he described as a massive fraud scheme that he alleged involved a number of Russian officials, but was then locked up by some of the same officials he was investigating.
Moscow’s Tverskoy Court was packed with journalists, but the defendant’s cage stood empty, as Judge Igor Alisov handed down the bizarre verdict. He convicted Mr Magnitsky of tax evasion, though for obvious reasons was unable to hand down a sentence.
“Magnitsky masterminded a massive tax evasion scheme in a … conspiracy with a group of people,” said Mr Alisov in barely audible tones as he took 90 minutes to read out the verdict. The court claimed that Mr Magnitsky was aided by William Browder, the British head of Hermitage Capital, the investment fund that had hired Mr Magnitsky to look into corruption. Mr Browder was sentenced in absentia to nine years in prison.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
Magnitsky Found Guilty In Posthumous Trial; Ex-Boss Also Convicted
A Moscow court has found late whistle-blowing lawyer Sergei Magnitsky and his former boss guilty of tax evasion.
Magnitsky, who represented the Hermitage Capital investment fund, died in pretrial detention at age 37 after being allegedly beaten and denied medical treatment.
It is the first time Russia has put a dead man on trial, deepening concerns over human rights and the rule of law in the country.
Magnitsky was accused of tax evasion in 2008 after exposing a $230 million tax scam implicating Russian police and government officials. The case against him was organized by some of the same officials he exposed.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
DEAD RUSSIAN LAWYER MAGNITSKY FOUND GUILTY
More than three years after he died in prison, whistle-blowing Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky was found guilty of tax evasion by a Moscow court Wednesday.
The posthumous trial of Magnitsky was a macabre chapter in a case that ignited a high-emotion dispute between Russia and Washington that has included U.S. sanctions against Russians deemed to be human rights violators, a ban on the adoption of Russian children by U.S. citizens and calls for the closure of Russian non-governmental organizations receiving American funding.
Magnitsky was a lawyer for U.S.-born British investor William Browder when he alleged in 2008 that organized criminals colluded with corrupt Interior Ministry officials to claim a fraudulent $230 million tax rebate after illegally seizing subsidiaries of Browder’s Hermitage Capital investment company.
He subsequently was arrested on tax evasion charges and died in prison in November 2009 of untreated pancreatitis at age 37.
His death prompted widespread criticism from human rights activists and the presidential human rights council found in 2011 that he had been beaten and deliberately denied medical treatment.
Announcing his verdict Thursday, Judge Igor Alisov said “Magnitsky masterminded a massive tax evasion scheme in a … conspiracy with a group of people,” according to the ITAR-Tass news agency.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
Russian court brushes aside lawyer’s protest in posthumous trial
A Russian judge said on Friday the posthumous trial of whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky would continue despite a protest from a court-appointed defense lawyer who argued the state had no right to try a dead man without his relatives’ consent.
Judge Igor Alisov’s decision appeared to underscore Russia’s determination to press ahead with a trial that has caused an outcry among rights groups and added to Western concerns about human rights and the rule of law under President Vladimir Putin.
Magnitsky, a lawyer working for Hermitage Capital Management, once one of the biggest investors in Russia, was arrested shortly after accusing Russian officials of stealing $230 million from the state through fraudulent tax refunds.
He died in November 2009, after nearly a year in jail during which he said he was denied medical treatment. A Kremlin human rights council has aired suspicions he was beaten to death, but Putin has dismissed allegations of foul play.
Russia has abandoned investigations into Magnitsky’s death, for which nobody has been held criminally responsible, and in 2011 reopened a tax evasion case against the dead lawyer despite opposition from his family.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
Sergei Magnitsky trial: ‘it’s not illegal to try a dead man’, says judge
A Moscow judge has refused calls to halt the posthumous prosecution of Sergei Magnitsky, ruling on the first day of the trial that it was not illegal to try a dead defendant.
Mr Magnitsky, a lawyer whose case became an international cause célèbre, died in a pretrial detention centre in the city in 2009 aged 37 after being arrested by senior Russian police officers whom he had accused of colluding with tax officials in a £140m fraud. He was denied vital medical treatment and beaten in custody.
In November 2012, prosecutors charged the dead man himself with tax evasion, citing a recent Russian Constitutional Court decision that suggested a deceased defendant could be tried if his family requests it in order to clear his or her name.
Mr Magnitsky’s widow, Natalya Zharikova, 40, said in an interview with the Daily Telegraph this week that she and his mother had repeatedly informed authorities that they did not want such a trial, making it illegal.
That view was supported on Friday by the Human Rights Institute of the International Bar Association, a lawyers group, which issued a statement saying the posthumous trial was “unlawful and breaching both domestic and international covenants”.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
Posthumous trial of Russian lawyer delayed
The trial of Russian lawyer and whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky officially began yesterday, but has been postponed for several weeks. This was not, as one might expect, because Magnitsky died in prison more than three years ago, but because his defense team has chosen not to participate in the bizarre proceeding:
In Monday’s hearing, it was unclear who or what, exactly, went on trial. Mr. Magnitsky’s co-defendant, William F. Browder, the manager of the Hermitage Capital hedge fund, has been barred from entering Russia since 2005, so he did not appear in court.
The hearing was of a type in Russian practice that indicates that the police consider their work complete, and that the case can go to trial, Aleksandra V. Bereznina, a spokeswoman for Tverskoi Regional Court, said in an interview.
Judge Igor B. Alisov promptly postponed the trial because the defendants did not appear in the courtroom — as expected — but neither did lawyers representing their interests.[…]
The hearing took place in a closed courtroom. The defendants’ chairs were unoccupied, Ms. Bereznina said. Mr. Browder and relatives of Mr. Magnitsky have said they will boycott the proceedings.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
‘Magnitsky List’ Court Chairman Fired
MOSCOW, April 28 (RIA Novosti) – Moscow’s Judicial Qualification Committee has suspended a judge who was previously involved in the Sergei Magnitsky scandal, from his post as chairman of the Tverskoy district court, Kommersant daily reported on Saturday.
Judge Igor Alisov personally considered one of the criminal cases against Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer who died in pre-trial detention in 2009, accused of embezzlement of 5.4 billion rubles ($175.29 million) from the Russian budget, in the form of income tax rebates by companies controlled by the investment fund Hermitage Capital. Magnitsky was arrested by the same law enforcement officers he had suspected of embezzling the money by taking over Hermitage subsidiaries illegally in conjunction with corrupt tax officials.
Alisov was subsequently included in the so-called Magnitsky list of legal and political figures against whom the EU and the U.S. are introducing sanctions.
The Committee suspended Alisov from his post as Chairman of the court but he will continue to serve as a judge in the court.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
