Posts Tagged ‘bastrykin’
Seeking guilty in Russian whistleblower’s death
If the legal system here worked, a 75-page report titled “The Torture and Murder of Sergei Magnitsky and the Coverup by the Russian Government” would be submitted to a court of law. Instead, it is being delivered Monday to the court of international opinion.
The report, full of links to official documents and the result of a thousand man-hours of work, comes not from officers of the law but an American-born businessman who is convinced that Russian officials are getting away with murder.
William F. Browder, who runs an investment firm based in London, has taken on the role of virtual prosecutor in the death of Sergei L. Magnitsky, who died at the age of 37 in police custody because of his work as a tax adviser to Browder’s Hermitage Capital Management when it operated in Russia.
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Russian lawyer says Magnitskiy tax evasion case reopened illegally
The tax evasion case against late Hermitage Capital lawyer Sergey Magnitskiy, who died in a Moscow remand centre on 16 November 2009, has been reopened illegally, Dmitriy Kharitonov, lawyer of Magnitskiy’s widow, told Russian news agency Interfax on 24 November. Kharitonov also said the investigators should not seek the views of Magnitskiy’s relatives on the case.
Under the law, the case of Magnitskiy can only be reopened for his rehabilitation, however, the Interior Ministry is not ready to take this step, Kharitonov told radio station Echo Moskvy on 24 November.
“They reopened the case not because the family members had asked so but on the initiative of the Prosecutor-General’s Office. If they did so on the initiative of the Prosecutor-General’s Office, then, as far as I understand it, they did this for his rehabilitation. If they want his rehabilitation together with the Prosecutor-General’s Office, let them drop the criminal case on exonerative grounds and let the relatives alone,” Kharitonov told Interfax.
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Investigation against Russian lawyer who died in jail extended despite his family’s pleas
Russian investigators on Thursday declined to close a probe against a Russian lawyer who died in jail of an untreated illness, extending the investigation by another two months despite his family’s pleas to end it.
Sergei Magnitsky died of an untreated pancreatitis in November 2009 after spending almost a year in a Moscow jail on tax evasion charges. Investors working in Russia have said the lawyer’s death and allegations of torture highlight corruption in the judicial system and presents a litmus test for President Dmitry Medvedev’s pledge to cement the rule of law in the country.
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Russian rights activist criticizes scope of Magnitskiy investigation
Two years on from the death of the Hermitage Capital lawyer Sergey Magnitskiy in a Moscow pre-trial detention centre, human rights activists say that there has been no full investigation of the tragedy.
“Something was done: criminal proceedings were instituted over Magnitskiy’s death. Some people face charges as part of these proceedings; they are the doctors, and that is where the problem lies,” Kirill Kabanov, head of the National Anticorruption Committee and a member of the presidential council for human rights [Council for Promoting the Development of the Institutions of Civil Society and Human Rights], told Interfax on Tuesday [15 November].
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European Human Rights Commissioner Criticizes Russia’s ‘Atmosphere Of Impunity’
To mark the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the murder of investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya, RFE/RL Russian Service correspondent Danila Galperovich spoke with Council of Europe Human Rights Commissioner Thomas Hammarberg about that case, as well as about other high-profile murder investigations and key human rights issues in Russia.
RFE/RL: We are now speaking on a very sad occasion — the fifth anniversary of the murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya. What must the Russian authorities do so that Europe will say that Russia is trying to identify and prosecute those who are responsible?
Thomas Hammarberg: The most important thing is to clarify the case totally so that those who are responsible are brought to justice and punished. And that would include everyone who was involved — not only the killer himself, but also those who guided the killer, those who financed the killing, those who ordered the killing. Everyone involved, not least those who have the political or moral responsibility behind the decision that she should be killed.
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No way in
Kommersant has a letter written by Russian opposition members, human rights activists and cultural figures in the US Senate which contains a request to impose the same restrictions on officials involved in the Yukos case as those which are being imposed on authorities associated with the Sergey Magnitsky case. The list compiled by the opposition includes 305 people: Prosecutor General Yury Chaika, head of the Investigation Committee Aleksandr Bastrykin, Moscow City Court Chairwoman Olga Yegorova, investigators, state prosecutors and judges associated with all parties in the Yukos case. The authors of the letter are hoping that the people whose names have been blacklisted will be banned entry to the United States and their foreign bank accounts, if they exist, will be frozen.
In particular, the letter addressed to the US Senate was signed by co-chairmen of the People’s Freedom Party Boris Nemtsov and Vladimir Ryzhkov, human rights activists Lyudmila Alekseeva and Lev Ponomarev, film director Eldar Ryazanov, People’s Artists of Russia Lia Akhedzhakova and Natalia Fateeva.
“With this letter we are showing support for the pending Sergey Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2011,” reads the letter. “However, Magnitsky’s case is not the only of its kind in our country.”
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A death in a Russian prison; Rights panel calls for inquiry on treatment of jailed lawyer
He was chained to a cot, a lone prisoner in a small cell facing eight guards who beat him while a summoned ambulance crew was kept waiting outside. When the doctors were finally admitted to the prison, they found Moscow lawyer Sergei Magnitsky dead, his body bruised, most of his knuckles smashed, one of his arms dark blue from a grip of the handcuffs lying nearby.
The attorney’s death in Moscow’s infamous Sailor’s Silence prison was described Tuesday in a report delivered to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev by his advisory human rights council. The panel called for an investigation of possible corruption on the part of officials involved in the nearly yearlong imprisonment of Magnitsky on tax evasion charges.
Medvedev, who had ordered the official investigation shortly after the Nov. 16, 2009, death of Magnitsky, met with members of the council in the southern city of Nalchik.
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U.S. Senators Seek Magnitsky Sanctions
Fourteen U.S. senators have submitted a bipartisan bill that would sanction Russian officials implicated in the death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in a Moscow jail and others guilty of human rights violations.
“While this bill bears Sergei Magnitsky’s name in honor of his sacrifice, the language addresses the overall issue of the erosion of the rule of law and human rights in Russia,” Senator Benjamin Cardin, a Democrat, said Thursday when he introduced the legislation in Washington, according to a transcript of his remarks.
The U.S. legislation, whose sponsors include Republican John McCain and independent Joseph Lieberman, would impose a visa ban and asset freeze on the 60 officials implicated in the Magnitsky case. They are from the Federal Security Service, the Interior Ministry, the Prosecutor General’s Office, the Federal Tax Service and the Federal Prison Service.
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Browder’s Russia Money-Laundering Allegations Spark Swiss Investigation
Switzerland has opened a money- laundering probe at the request of Hermitage Capital Management Ltd., the first criminal investigation outside Russia linked to the death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in a Moscow prison.
The allegations involving a former Russian tax official are the most recent lodged by Hermitage founder William Browder as he asks authorities around the world to sanction officials he blames for Magnitsky’s death. The lawyer, who alleged Interior Ministry officials fraudulently collected a $230 million tax refund using documents seized from Hermitage, died in 2009 after a year in pre-trial detention.
“It’s been impossible to get any kind of real criminal investigation in Russia,” Browder said yesterday by phone. “It’s highly significant that a Western law enforcement agency is taking this seriously and is launching an investigation.”
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