Posts Tagged ‘posthumous’
Chaos in Moscow court for trial of dead whistle-blowing lawyer Sergei Magnitsky as legal team fail to show
There was mayhem in a tiny courtroom in Moscow today after one of the most controversial trials in recent Russian history – that of the deceased whistle-blowing lawyer Sergei Magnitsky – failed to start.
The case was prevented from proceeding after the lawyers for the late defendant did not show up. Mr Magnitsky, who died in prison in 2009 after being beaten and refused medical treatment, will be judged in the first posthumous trial in modern Russia.
He is accused of tax evasion, along with his former employer, William Browder, a US-born British investor.
Mr Browder has been banned from entering Russia and is being tried in absentia. He is the head of the investment fund Hermitage Capital and was accused of tax evasion after falling foul of the Russian government. Mr Magnitsky was investigating these charges in 2008, and discovered that the disputed tax payments had been stolen by police and tax officials. When he reported these findings, he himself was thrown into jail.
Mr Magnitsky’s family and lawyers have refused to participate in the trial, so the court has appointed lawyers to represent the deceased defendant. These lawyers have been told they could risk being debarred if they did not take on the case, but nevertheless were not present at court yesterday. It is unclear if their no-show was a political statement, as they were not available for comment, though the lawyers had told the court they needed more time to read the case documents.
Earlier, Mr Magnitsky’s widow had called on all of the participants to boycott the trial. “I think that if any of its participants have a conscience – and this is key not only in human morality, but also in Russian criminal law – they have a duty to refuse to participate in this blasphemy,” said Natalia Zharikova.
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Russia adjourns dead lawyer trial to March 22
A Moscow court on Monday put dead Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky on trial for tax evasion in defiance of his family’s complaints it was “desecrating” his memory, but swiftly adjourned the process to March 22. Duration: 00:33
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No defendant and no lawyers in Sergei Magnitsky trial farce
The Russian trial of a dead whistleblower was hit by new farce today as state-appointed lawyers failed to show up on day one of the case.
Sergei Magnitsky is being tried posthumously for tax evasion, a move that has led to international criticism of the Moscow authorities.
Before his death aged 37 while in detention in 2009 — which his family and friends believe was murder — he uncovered alleged £154 million corruption among the same senior interior ministry officials who ordered his arrest. The trial has already been dubbed “farcical” and “Stalinist”.
Lawyers appointed by the Russian state failed to appear. They are representing the dead man and his co-accused, William Browder, the London-based head of Hermitage Capital Investment who is being tried in his absence.
The lawyers sent a petition to the court demanding more time to prepare the defence of Mr Magnitsky. They claimed they would need until May to read 60 volumes of “evidence” against the men. The judge ruled the trial would go ahead on March 22 despite objections from lawyers representing the Russian authorities.
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Push For Magnitsky Sanctions Intensifies In Europe
The battle over the Sergei Magnitsky case is moving to Europe. After being lobbied by activists for nearly three years, the U.S. Congress passed legislation in late 2012 to sanction Russian officials implicated in the prosecution and death of Magnitsky, a whistle-blowing Moscow lawyer who died in pretrial detention. The case has come to symbolize Russia’s perceived rights failings.
The U.S. law, which provides for asset freezes and visa bans on Russian officials who violate human rights, was never meant to be an end in itself. Instead, the legislation was a stepping stone to passing something similar in the European Union.
And that effort is now gaining momentum.
“Russians consider themselves, really, like a part of Europe — Europeans,” says Kristiina Ojuland, a member of the European Parliament from Estonia who has spearheaded the push. “And therefore it’s significant that Europe reacts, not only [to] the Magnitsky case, but in broader terms, reacts against this corrupt, black money that is flying into the EU countries.”
Asset freezes and visa bans in Europe would hit Russian officials considerably harder than similar sanctions in the United States. As Ojuland notes, Russian officials are fond of vacationing, shopping, and educating their children in EU countries. They are also more likely to keep money in European banks.
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Magnitsky trial: Russia accused of ‘travesty’ over dead lawyer
“Absurd” and “a travesty” are some of the words used to describe Russia’s trial of the dead lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, set to open on 22 March.
The European Parliament says the trial “is a violation of international and national laws and clearly shows the malfunctioning of the Russian criminal justice system”.
The Russian interior ministry has accused Mr Magnitsky and the UK-based fund manager who employed him, Bill Browder, of tax evasion. Mr Browder will also be tried – but in absentia, because he believes his life would be in danger were he to return to Russia.
According to a ministry official, Boris Kibis, the Magnitsky case remains open because there has been no request from his relatives to halt it.
Legal experts contacted by the BBC said they could find no parallels for the Magnitsky trial – whether in Russia or internationally. They say there are dubious legal grounds for such a case.
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Trial of dead Russian whistleblower postponed
A Russian court on Monday postponed the trial of a dead lawyer who accused law-enforcement authorities of massive corruption and whose case sparked a dispute between Washington and Moscow.
Lawyer Sergei Magnitsky was jailed in 2008 on charges of tax evasion. The charges came after he alleged officials and organized criminals conspired to claim $230 million in tax rebates. He died in prison the next year of untreated pancreatitis while awaiting trial. The Russian presidential council on human rights said in a 2011 report that Magnitsky had been repeatedly beaten and deliberately denied medical treatment.
The death attracted wide international attention. The United States last year enacted a law named after Magnitsky that allows sanctions against Russians considered human rights violators. Russia retaliated by banning Americans adopting Russian children.
The posthumous trial for Magnitsky was to open Monday.
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Russia delays trial of dead lawyer Sergei Magnitsky
Judge postpones hearing in controversial case of lawyer who died in detention while awaiting trial over alleged tax evasion.
A Russian court has postponed the trial of the dead lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in the latest move to drag out the controversial case.
Magnitsky, the first person to be tried posthumously in Russia, stands accused of tax evasion, alongside his former employer, London-based investor William Browder. Magnitsky died in pre-trial detention in 2009.
Browder has been banned from entering Russia. The head of the investment fund Hermitage Capital was accused of tax evasion after falling foul of the Russian government.
Investigating the charges in 2008, Browder’s auditor and lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, discovered that police and tax officials had colluded to steal Hermitage’s tax payments for their own enrichment. The case has come to exemplify Russia’s corrupt justice system.
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Lawyers of Browder, Magnitsky unprepared, court hearings adjourned till March 22
Moscow’s Tverskoi Court on Monday postponed till March 22 hearings on the criminal case against the auditor of the British fund Hermitage Capital Management, Sergei Magnitsky, who died in a detention center, and the fund’s director, British subject William Browder, as the defense lawyers proved unprepared.
The court opened hearings on the case in the presence of 50 journalists. Judge Igor Alisov read out a request from the lawyers of Magnitsky and Browder for a postponement by one month, because they had no time to study the case.
The prosecutor and the representative of the plaintiff agreed, but at the same time asked the judge to pay attention to what they claimed was deliberate procrastination by the defense lawyers.
“The court rules the session should be adjourned till March 22. The head of the corresponding body of lawyers was asked to pay attention to the need for observing the deadlines for studying the case, “the judge ruled.
Magnitsky and Browder are accused of evading 522 million rubles of taxes. The investigators say they forged tax declarations and abused benefits established for disabled persons. Also, the Interior Ministry suspects Browder of involvement in the misappropriation of Gazprom shares.
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Justice is put to the sword by Moscow’s greed and corruption
Today, in Moscow, there begins the trial of a 37-year-old accountant by the name of Sergei Magnitsky. Mr Magnitsky is accused of tax offences dating back perhaps 10 years.
What is astounding about this case is that Magnitsky is not only innocent of all charges. He is also dead. He died in prison in November 2009, after almost a year in which he was kept in squalor, denied family contact and deprived of medical treatment — detention that culminated in a savage and fatal beating by his captors.
It says something about the Russian state that it should now put this ghost on trial, in what must be the most grotesque parody of legal proceedings since the animal trials of the Middle Ages. It says something about Russian justice that Magnitsky — and his family — are now being persecuted by the very legal establishment whose corruption he exposed. And that message is that there are no lengths to which the Russian kleptocrats will not go to protect themselves and their ill-gotten loot, and to grind the faces of their enemies.
Magnitsky was a whistleblower. He uncovered a scam, a gigantic criminal conspiracy by which the Russian police and tax officials colluded with the judiciary and mafia to steal millions from the Russian state. When he refused to change his evidence and give in to his interrogators, they killed him – only eight days before they would have been legally obliged to bring him to trial or let him go.
Magnitsky’s tragedy was to be hired by a US-born British citizen called Bill Browder, who runs Hermitage Capital Management — a fund that used to be one of the biggest investors in Russia. Bill Browder’s misfortune was to fall out with Vladimir Putin, and in a big way. To understand the Magnitsky affair, you have to go back to the collapse of communism and the decision of a semi-inebriated Boris Yeltsin to allow the assets of the Russian people, and incalculable wealth, to fall into the hands of about two dozen more or less cunning and opportunistic businessmen — the oligarchs.
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