Stop the Untouchables. Justice for Sergei Magnitsky.

Russia tries dead man who dobbed in tax scam

Sydney Morning Herald

The defendant cage stood eloquently empty as the posthumous trial of the whistle-blowing auditor Sergei Magnitsky got under way in Moscow’s Tverskoi District Court on Friday.

Mr Magnitsky, who died in custody in 2009 after having exposed a scam by Russian tax officials, is accused of tax evasion, for which a six-year jail sentence could be handed down. His co-defendant, American-born investor William Browder, is being tried on the same charges in absentia.

The case is widely seen as an attempt by Moscow to justify itself following the adoption in the US of the Magnitsky Act, barring officials connected with the auditor’s death entering America.

Mr Magnitsky died in pretrial detention from a mixture of medical neglect and physical abuse but no officials have been brought to justice; indeed on Tuesday Russia closed the investigation into Magnitsky’s death for ”lack of evidence”.

Rather, the authorities believe they can show that Mr Magnitsky and his client, Mr Browder, evaded $US16.8 million in taxes.

The posthumous prosecution had nothing to do with Mr Magnitsky’s claims to have uncovered official corruption, the Investigative Committee said.

Mr Magnitsky’s mother Natalya and widow, also called Natalya, have expressed their anguish at the trial, saying it added to the loss they had already suffered.

But Judge Igor Alisov said the court had ”the right to examine the case against the dead man, including with the aims of rehabilitating him”.