Posts Tagged ‘Hermitage’
A ghost at the banquet
The general mood at VTB Capital’s “Russia Calling” forum in London was one of cautious optimism about changes under way in reforming the economy, but there was one harsh reminder of the huge mountain to climb in improving the business climate.
Former Yevroset boss Yevgeny Chichvarkin, like Banquo’s ghost at the feast in “Macbeth”, turned up outside the forum to protest that Russia is still not calling him back, despite criminal charges being dropped against him by prosecutors.
Most investors inside the forum were at pains to stress that cases such as that of Chichvarkin and Sergei Magnitsky, the hedge fund lawyer whose died in jail after his company was embroiled in a bitter dispute with law enforcement officers , are still relatively isolated, and that most foreign investors in Russia make a lot of money out of the country.
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Heritage protests Chaika’s participation in Magnitsky case investigation
Interfax
Representatives of the investment fund Hermitage Capital believe the probe conducted by the Prosecutor General’s Office into the criminal cases involving the activities and death of Hermitage Capital auditor Sergei Magnitsky will not yield results.
“The Prosecutor General’s Office has been asked to increase procuratorial supervision, which has been and still remains non-existent. It’s absence led to the inhuman arbitrariness that led to Sergei Magnitsky’s persecution by the officials whom he found to have committed crimes, which lasted for a year, and his death in a detention facility,” Hermitage Capital said in a statement received by Interfax on Wednesday.
The statement alleges that officials from the Prosecutor General’s Office have failed to take measures to stop “illegal actions taken by officials in the Magnitsky case” for 3.5 years.
“In the course of the 12 months spent by Sergei Magnitsky in a detention facility, over 20 complaints were filed with the Prosecutor General’s Office alleging violations of his rights and illegal actions taken by investigators and Interior Ministry officials. All those complaints were either illegally declined or left without a response by the Prosecutor General’s Office,” Hermitage said.
Hermitage Capital recalled that Magnitsky filed an appeal contesting Yury Chaika’s actions as “illegal and violating his [Magnitsky’s] constitutional rights” on August 17, 2009.
“The complaints filed by Magnitsky’s lawyers to Yury Chaika on September 11, 2009, alleging illegal prosecution of an innocent person, physical and psychological pressure to break his will, and denial of medical assistance and surgery was also declined,” the statement says.
For this reason, “Magnitsky’s colleagues are protesting the continuing participation by Prosecutor General Yury Chaika in the investigation into the Magnitsky case.”
Earlier on Wednesday, Marina Gridneva from the Prosecutor Generals Office said the Prosecutor General’s Office will conduct a large-scale probe into all criminal cases related to the work by Hermitage Capital auditor Sergei Magnitsky and his death at the request of the president. hairy girls срочный займ https://zp-pdl.com/get-quick-online-payday-loan-now.php https://zp-pdl.com/fast-and-easy-payday-loans-online.php unshaven girls
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Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika Under Orders to Focus Attention on the Notorius Magnitsky Case
WPS: What the Papers Say
Two criminal proceedings are associated with Magnitsky, lawyer in the employ of Hermitage Capital Management who died behind the bars. One of them concerns criminal charges pressed against Magnitsky himself, the investigation is carried out by the Interior Ministry’s Investigative Committee. The other deals with circumstances of his demise in prison, investigated by the Russian Investigative Committee. The Prosecutor General’s Office is supposed to run a check on both investigations.
It should be noted that the Prosecutor General’s Office completed examination of the former criminal proceedings on the request from the Russian Investigative Committee earlier this week. It said it had uncovered no violations. Three days later, Medvedev told Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika to “boost procuracy supervision” and run another check. Meeting with his American counterpart Barack Obama last week, the president had been reminded of the importance the U.S. Administration was attaching to impartial investigation of the lawyer’s death.
Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy and Human Rights Michael H. Pozner made a statement in the meantime. He said that the U.S. Administration welcomed the judiciary reforms and reorganization of law enforcement agencies launched in Russia but was distressed by the lack of progress in the investigation of Magnitsky’s death.
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No Charges For Top Investigator In Magnitsky Case
Russian officials have exonerated one of their own in the prison death of Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer for hedge fund Hermitage Capital Management.
Russia’s powerful central prosecutors, the Investigative Committee, said Monday that Oleg Silchenko, the Interior Ministry official who ordered Magnitsky’s arrest and oversaw the investigation of the lawyer, had “not allowed” any illegal treatment in the case. The committee would not comment beyond its three-paragraph statement.
Silchenko was cleared despite a finding by the head of Russia’s prison oversight panel that Silchenko was to blame for Magnitsky’s treatment. Magnitsky died in a notorious Moscow prison in November 2009 at the age of 37. Human rights officials say he was tortured and denied adequate medical care; the latter claim was echoed by the oversight panel’s Valery Borshchev.
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Russian Investigator Cleared in Prison Death
Russian prosecutors exonerated the lead investigator in the case of Sergei Magnitsky, a hedge-fund attorney who died in jail after what colleagues said was an attempt to expose a massive theft of government funds in 2009.
Acitivists conducting an independent probe of the case called the ruling a whitewash of the case, despite President Dmitry Medvedev’s repeated promises of a full investigation. The handling of Mr. Magnitsky’s death has emerged as a litmus test of Mr. Medvedev’s willingness to investigate corruption in the security services, whose strength and clout have crept throughout the Russian economy.
Russia’s powerful Investigative Committee issued a three-paragraph statement Monday absolving the investigator in the case, Oleg Silchenko, of any blame, saying he had “not allowed” any legal violations in the case.
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After Swiss Freeze Millions, Stepanov Swings Back
An abbreviated version of this story ran in May 28 edition of Barron’s Magazine.
Swiss prosecutors have frozen Eur. 8 million in Credit Suisse bank accounts of Vladlen Stepanov, a subject of our story about a $230 million tax scam in Russia that victimized the hedge fund firm Hermitage Capital and led to the death in police custody of Hermitage’s whistle blowing lawyer Sergei Magnitsky (“Crime and Punishment in Putin’s Russia,” April 16).
Stepanov isn’t taking the Swiss action lying down. Last week he placed a self-justifying advertisement in a Russian newspaper, and this week he appeared for a video-taped interview at the Russian financial daily Vedomosti. In both forums, Stepanov denies that the Swiss bank money, and other riches detailed in our article, were illicitly obtained or derived from the hundreds of millions in dubious Russian tax refunds doled out by Olga Stepanova, a former tax official from whom Stepanov says he’s been divorced since 1992.
The evidence of corruption amongst police and other officials involved in the Magnitsky case has created enough of a stink that President Dmitry Medvedev called a press conference last week to discuss an independent inquiry into the scandal.
“I do not want to be a wood chip,” is the headline of Stepanov’s May 17th ad in the RBK Daily newspaper – an allusion to a Russian proverb suggesting that he sees himself as an innocent victim who’s been ground up in the chainsawing of a forest. He dismisses as “recreational arithmetic,” the estimates of his wealth presented in “horror videos” about the Magnitsky case produced by Hermitage Capital’s founder William F. Browder (see www.russian-untouchables.com).
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Investigation into Magnitsky’s case continues
Russia’s Prosecutor General has found no violations on the part of the investigator, who handled the case of Sergei Magnitsky, a spokesman for Russia’s Investigative Committee, Vladimir Markin, said on Monday. At the request of Russia’s Investigative Committee, the Office of the Prosecutor General checked the legality of actions, taken by the investigators regarding the Hermitage Capital Investment Fund worker Sergei Magnitsky.
Lawyer Sergei Magnitsky was accused of tax evasion regarding his revenues from the work of the companies belonging to the investment fund. According to the investigators, the Hermitage Capital Investment Fund and the Firestone Duncan Consulting Firm, where Magnitsky headed the Tax and Audit Department, created a scheme of tax evasion with the use of a ramified network of branch companies. As a result, more than 5 billion roubles were stolen.
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Kremlin Ombudsman Urges Prosecution Over Hermitage Death
A senior Russian investigator should be prosecuted for his role in the death of Sergei Magnitsky, the Hermitage Capital Management Ltd. lawyer who died in November 2009 after almost a year in pre-trial detention, a presidential human rights ombudsman said.
The comments from Valery Borshchev, a member of the human rights council set up by President Dmitry Medvedev, came a day after the Investigative Committee said Oleg Silchenko hadn’t committed any legal violations in prosecuting Magnitsky, who was 37 when he died of heart failure. Borshchev’s committee is conducting its own probe.
Silchenko refused Magnitsky’s request for an ultra-sound scan and operation, Borshchev said today by telephone. “This refusal played a central role in Magnitsky’s death, so this is enough to bring charges against Silchenko,” he said.
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Murder case puts pressure on EU-Russia diplomacy
EU diplomacy should be guided by basic moral imperatives and open parliamentary politics, not behind-closed-doors strategising, a prominent campaigner has said.
Bill Browder, a US-born British venture capitalist who a few years ago was the biggest foreign investor on the Russian stock market, is targeting the European Parliament and national EU assemblies to make the European Council impose sanctions on Russian officials.
Browder has put together a list of 60 people in the Russian interior ministry, justice system and the secret police, the FSB, who he says tortured and murdered his lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, after he exposed their multi-million-euro tax scam.
On Monday (30 May), the Russian general prosecutor in a statement said one of the top men on the list, Oleg Silchenko, committed “no violations of federal law”, in what Browder’s side called an ongoing “whitewash” that “damages the credibility” of the Russian government.
Browder, who has published hard evidence of how the Russian officials scammed the Russian taxpayer, wants the EU to impose an asset freeze and travel ban on the men and women involved.
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