Posts Tagged ‘posthumous’
Russia resumes hearings against dead lawyer
A Moscow court resumed preliminary hearings Monday in the posthumous trial of a Russian lawyer whose death in jail after accusing state officials of tax fraud has upset the Kremlin’s delicate ties with the US.
The Tverskoi District Court began the latest preliminary hearing against Sergei Magnitsky — Russia’s first legal procedure against a dead man — behind closed doors at 0600 GMT, a court spokeswoman told AFP.
The hearing is expected to set a date for the start of the trial in the case, after the state appointed an attorney to defend Magnitsky despite protests from his family.
“A lawyer is not allowed to take an instruction in a case that is clearly unlawful, and to take a position against the will of the client,” said a complaint written by Magnitsky’s relatives and distributed by his former employer Hermitage Capital.
“The assertion by prosecutors that the case was initiated at the request from the relatives is a lie,” the letter said.
Magnitsky’s mother Natalya and her own lawyers are boycotting the trial.
Read More →
Facebook
Twitter
Google Buzz
LinkedIn
del.icio.us
Google Bookmarks
Yahoo! Buzz
Tumblr
StumbleUpon
FriendFeed
NewsVine
Digg
Trial against dead Russian lawyer to proceed
A Russian court has ordered the trial of a dead anti-corruption lawyer to proceed next week, ignoring calls by his family and lawyers to abandon a case they say is absurd and politically motivated.
Moscow’s Tverskoy Court said after a pre-trial hearing on Monday that the hearing on Sergei Magnitsky’s tax fraud case will open on March 11.
Defense lawyers said the 37-year old’s trial will be the first for a dead person in Russia.
“The trial is indeed absurd,” said lawyer Alexander Molokhov after the court rejected his application to defend Magnitsky.
The court had already appointed a legal team to defend Magnitsky after his own lawyers refused to take part in a trial, which his relatives say is politically motivated.
Magnitsky died while in custody in 2009, after he had complained repeatedly of being denied medical treatment. His death has damaged Russia’s image and triggered an ongoing diplomatic row with the United States.
Magnitsky’s mother, Natalya, has said previously that the case is a farce and her lawyer Nikolai Gorokhov likened the proceedings to “dancing on the grave of a dead man”.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
Trial due to start in Russia of lawyer who died in police custody
The controversial trial of the lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who died in police custody, is due to begin in Moscow next week.
Mr Magnitsky was arrested in 2008 after accusing officials of tax fraud but was later himself accused of those crimes.
His death has led to a diplomatic dispute between Russia and the United States.
Daniel Sandford reports.
See news clip here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-21652438 payday loan займы на карту без отказа https://zp-pdl.com/fast-and-easy-payday-loans-online.php https://zp-pdl.com/online-payday-loans-in-america.php hairy woman
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
Sergei Magnitsky: Dead Russian lawyer trial to proceed
A judge in Moscow has ruled that the trial of the dead lawyer Sergei Magnitsky should go ahead next week, despite last-minute efforts to stop it.
Mr Magnitsky died in prison in 2009.
An investment fund auditor, he said he had uncovered a $230m (£150m) tax fraud involving Russian government officials.
The case has strained relations between Russia and the US. Amnesty International said the trial would “open a whole new chapter in Russia’s worsening human rights record”.
His family and lawyers refused to attend the pre-trial hearing on Monday, saying the case was politically motivated.
Also to be tried in absentia is Bill Browder, the head of Hermitage Capital Management, which employed Mr Magnitsky.
He was barred from Russia in 2006 and is in Britain.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
RUSSIA TO CHARGE MAGNITSKY’S EX-EMPLOYER
Russia’s Interior Ministry is preparing to bring criminal charges against U.S.-born investor Bill Browder, the latest turn in a feud which has led to U.S. sanctions against on some Russian officials, a Russian ban on adoptions of Russian children by Americans, and the upcoming trial of a dead man.
The dead man is Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer who worked for Browder’s Hermitage Capital, once a minority shareholder in the state-controlled gas giant, Gazprom.
Magnitsky died in jail in 2009 after his pancreatitis went untreated. The Russian presidential council on human rights said in a 2011 report that Magnitsky had been repeatedly beaten and deliberately denied medical treatment. The lawyer’s death became a litmus test for the Russian government’s commitment to the rule of law: no one has yet been found responsible for his killing.
Magnitsky and Browder are due to be put on trial next week for tax evasion.
Russia’s top court ruled in August 2011 that posthumous trials are allowed, with the intention of letting relatives clear their loved ones’ names. In Magnitsky’s case, prosecutors re-filed charges although family members said they didn’t want another trial.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
Russia to try dead whistleblower on March 11
A Russian court will start the posthumous trial of a dead anti-corruption lawyer next week after ignoring calls by his family and lawyers to abandon a case they say is absurd and politically motivated.
Sergei Magnitsky’s death in custody in 2009, after he had complained repeatedly of being denied medical treatment, has damaged Russia’s image and strained ties with the United States.
But Moscow’s Tverskoy Court said after a pre-trial hearing on Monday that the trial itself would open on March 11, a court spokeswoman said.
Lawyers say Magnitsky, who was 37 and was accused of tax fraud after investigating similar claims against his accusers, will be the first dead person to go on trial in Russia.
“The trial is indeed absurd,” said lawyer Alexander Molokhov after the court rejected his application to defend Magnitsky.
The court had already appointed a legal team to defend Magnitsky after his own lawyers refused to take part in a trial which his relatives say is politically motivated.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
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.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
Preliminary hearings of Browder and Magnitsky tax case due at Tverskoy court
Moscow’s Tverskoy district court on Monday will have preliminary hearings of the tax-evasion case of the head of Hermitage Capital investment fund William Browder and the late lawyer of the fund Sergei Magnitsky.
The sides will file their motions after which the date of hearing of the merits of the case will be set. The interests of the sides will be represented by appointed attorneys Nikolai Gerasimov and Kirill Goncharov. They were given time until March 4 to examine the findings of the case.
The lawyer of Magnitsky mother, Natalia Magnitskaya, before the beginning of the Feb. 18 session read out for the press her message to the judge of Tverskoy court saying that she finds the trial illegal and the relaunching of criminal persecution after her son’s death without a corresponding application from the family cynical.
“I am not authorizing anyone to represent the interests of my son in Tverskoy court. The person who assumed this duty will be acting contrary to his interests,х” the statement says.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
Russia: The Logic Of Putting A Corpse On Trial
In a case compared to the show trials of the Stalin era, lawyer Sergei Magnitsky is being tried, despite dying in November 2009.
The posthumous prosecution of Sergei Magnitsky must make sense to someone senior here – the will of the Russian courts tends not to stray far from that of those in power.
The official narrative is that Mr Magnitsky was being investigated for tax fraud at the time of his death, death is not a bar to prosecution in Russia, and in the interests of justice the case should continue.
To the rest of the world it looks like they are putting a corpse on trial.
This case perhaps perfectly illustrates the apparent disconnect in thinking between those inside the Kremlin and the international community.
To understand the logic on the Russian side, you need to understand the background.
Mr Magnitsky was a Moscow lawyer hired to work on the account of British-based investment fund Hermitage Capital.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
