Stop the Untouchables. Justice for Sergei Magnitsky.

Moscow plans to put dead lawyer on trial

Financial Times

Russian investigators have said they may prosecute a dead lawyer who worked for a foreign investment fund in the latest bizarre twist to a case that has come to exemplify investor fears about Russia’s rule of law.

Investigators said they would proceed with a posthumous trial against Sergei Magnitsky over tax fraud following a judicial precedent set last summer, allowing cases to be concluded in spite of the death of the defendant.

The decision comes two years after Magnitsky, a lawyer for Hermitage Capital, died in a pre-trial detention centre where he was held for almost a year after accusing the police of complicity in a $230m tax fraud.

Although investigators have accused Magnitsky and Hermitage’s chief executive William Browder with tax evasion, a presidential human rights commission found last summer that the charges against the lawyer had been fabricated. The federal prison service has already assumed partial responsibility for Magnitsky’s death, which occurred after he was denied access to urgent medical care.