Posts Tagged ‘gerasimov’
Lawyer for Magnitsky Requests to Be Removed From Case
A lawyer appointed by the state to represent Sergei Magnitsky in a tax evasion case said at a hearing Friday that his participation in the posthumous trial was illegal, and he asked to be removed from the case.
“I have not found a single declaration from relatives asking that the case be reopened,” Nikolai Gerasimov said in comments carried by Interfax.
People are typically tried posthumously in Russia only when a family wants to clear their names, but Magnitsky’s family fiercely opposes the trial against him. Magnitsky’s mother, Natalya, has called it “blasphemy” and refused to allow any lawyer to represent him, saying anyone who would assume such an obligation would be acting against her son’s interests.
Magnitsky’s name has become known around the world since he died in a Moscow jail in 2009 while awaiting trial on tax evasion charges, which his supporters say were retaliation for accusing officials of stealing $230 million in state funds.
A Kremlin human rights council investigation said Magnitsky was severely beaten before he died, but the Investigative Committee closed a criminal case into his death earlier this year, saying there was no evidence of a crime.
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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.
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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”.
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Russia’s trial of DEAD man gets go-ahead for next week
Russia’s bid to put a dead man on trial descended into farce today as even a state-appointed lawyer urged that the case against Sergei Magnitsky should be put on hold and sent back to the prosecutor’s office.
But the move was rejected by the judge and now the bizarre posthumous trial will go ahead on 11 March.
The 37-year-old lawyer and anti-corruption campaigner died in a Moscow detention centre after being arrested by senior law enforcement officials he had accused of large-scale $230 million financial corruption.
No-one has been found guilty of his death – and now he will be the first dead defendant in Russian or Soviet history to go on trial.
Magnitsky’s family refused to co-operate with the ‘macabre’ case, with his mother Natalya dubbing the case immoral, illegal and designed to turn her whistleblower son into a criminal.
Lawyer Nikolai Gerasimov appointed by the state against her will to act for her dead son demanded in a closed-doors session that the trial judge Igor Alisov send the case back to prosecutors due to legal inaccuracies. The bid was refused last night.
In a surprise move another lawyer Alexander Molokhov, claiming to represent Magnitsky’s friends, said he was refused permission to take part in the controversial hearing.
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