Posts Tagged ‘deutsche welle’
US blacklists 18 Russians over case of dead lawyer Magnitsky
The Obama administration has blacklisted 18 Russians for human rights violations in relation to the case of deceased lawyer Sergei Magnitsky. The move could cause further friction between Washington and Moscow.
The US Treasury on Tuesday released the names of 16 Moscow prosecutors, investigators, tax officials and judges linked to the Magnitsky case. Two Chechens tied to other alleged rights violations were also on the list.
The list was part of a law passed last year, named after Russian human rights lawyer Sergei Magnitsky. Magnitsky died in 2009 after 11 months in Russian jails. He was arrested for tax evasion in 2008 after he exposed massive theft of state assets by Russian officials. He died in prison after allegedly being beaten and denied medical treatment.
Included on the list were Artem Kuznetsov and Pavel Karpov, two Interior Ministry officials who imprisoned Magnitsky after he accused them of stealing $230 million (175 million euros) from the state. Tax officials accused of approving fraudulent tax refunds, as well as other Interior Ministry officials accused of persecuting Magnitsky, were also on the list.
The US Treasury also named Moscow judges Aleksey Krivoruchko, Sergei Podoprigorov, Yelena Stashina and Svetlana Ukhnalyova, who were involved in Magnitsky’s detention.
Two men from Chechnya, Letscha Bogatirov and Kazbek Dukuzov, were also blacklisted. Bogatirov was accused of killing a critic of Chechnya’s Moscow-backed leader Ramzan Kadyrov in 2009, while Dukuzov was arrested, tried and exonerated in the 2004 murder of US journalist Paul Klebnikov in Moscow.
List required by Magnitsky Act.
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Hearing resumes against dead Russian lawyer
Moscow on Monday resumes a controversial hearing against a dead person: Lawyer Sergei Magnitsky uncovered massive tax evasion schemes, was arrested and died in prison, causing great concern over human rights in the West.
In principle, such a trial should not exist. “It’s impossible,” Russian premier Dmitri Medvedev said in an interview with CNN at the end of January this year. The Russian penal code, he added, does not allow for the prosecution of people after their death. According to an early 2012 decision by the Russian constitutional court, an exception is only possible in the event of posthumous rehabilitation.
Yet it does not appear to be a case of rehabilitation when on Monday (04.03.2013) a preliminary hearing in the case of Sergey Magnitsky continues. Critics claim that his case has been casting a dark shadow over the Russian judiciary system for years.
The deceased’s mother has described the court proceedings as “cynical” and “illegal.” Human rights group Amnesty International issued a statement voicing concern over “a dangerous precedent that could lead to a deterioration on the human rights situation in Russia.”
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Russian court clears prison official in Magnitsky case
A Moscow court has acquitted the only official charged with the death of whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky. Meanwhile, Russia’s president has signed a bill banning Americans from adopting Russian children.
A court in Moscow on Friday found prison doctor Dmitry Kratov not guilty of negligence causing Magnitsky’s death.
Magnitsky blew the whistle on what he claimed was a scheme in which police investigators had stolen hundreds of millions of dollars from the state through fraudulent tax refunds. He was imprisoned on tax evasion charges.
The lawyer, whose family denounced the result as a sham, died in jail in 2009 after his pancreatitis went untreated.
An investigation by Russia’s Presidential Council on Human Rights had found that Magnitsky was brutally beaten and denied medical treatment. The council accused the government of failing to prosecute those responsible.
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