Posts Tagged ‘RT’
Navalny charged with embezzlement, faces up to 10 years
Russian investigators have charged Aleksey Navalny – one of the country’s leading opposition figures – with embezzlement, less than a week after he slammed the head of the Investigative Committee on his blog.
Navalny is charged with embezzlement of state funds, an official spokesperson for the Investigative Committee said on Tuesday. Two more people will also be charged in this case, the official added. Navalny was sprung from detention after signing a written pledge not to leave his place of residence before the trial.
The case against Navalny traces back to 2009, when he worked as a volunteer aide to the governor of the Kirovsk Region. He allegedly persuaded the managers of the state-owned timber company Kirovles to sign a deal that led to substantial losses. The investigation was shuttered twice due to lack of evidence, but several regional branches of the Investigative Committee were ordered by authorities to re-open the case.
If convicted, the opposition activist could face from 5 to 10 years in prison. Navalny has forcefully denied every accusation leveled against him.
Later on Tuesday, Navalny updated his blog and dismissed the charges against him as a politically motivated fabrication and a “boring joke.”“There is no motive. There is no gain. The stated damages are taken out of nowhere. All most imported testimony against me has appeared to be false. The witness who testified me himself appears to be a member of my criminal syndicate,” the political activist wrote.
Navalny enclosed a link to the full text of the official charges he is facing, but pointed at what he saw as several key inconsistencies. Kirovles, he claims, sold the timber for 14 million rubles to a dealer, which later sold it to customers. The dealer’s revenue – 16 million rubles – was listed as damages, despite the fact that the state company received 14 million rubles for the goods.
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Moscow court rules prison official not guilty in Magnitsky’s death
Moscow City Court has upheld the acquittal of former deputy head of the Butyrka detention center Dmitry Kratov, who had been accused of negligence that led to the death of Sergey Magnitsky, a lawyer for Hermitage Capital.
The court has rejected an appeal filed by Magnitsky’s relatives, contesting Kratov’s acquittal, instead seconding the original verdict.
In late December, Moscow’s Tverskoy Court ruled that there was not enough evidence that Kratov was guilty of negligence. The ex-deputy head of the prison where Magnitsky died was the only official facing a trial in connection with the tragedy.
Kratov says he has not decided yet whether he will demand compensation for the criminal proceedings lodged against him, now deemed false. But Interfax reports it’s unlikely he will take it any further.
The lawyer representing Magnitsky’s family, Nikolay Gorokhov, said he will study the motivation behind the court’s ruling before making any decisions to appeal it.
Financial lawyer Sergey Magnitsky, 37, died in pre-trial detention in Moscow in November 2009.
He was working for the British investment fund Hermitage Capital, which became embroiled in a series of scandals between 2007-2009. Magnitsky accused a group of Russian officials of embezzlement. Soon afterwards he was arrested on charges of assisting Hermitage Capital to evade tax and was awaiting trial in Moscow’s Butyrka prison. He died in jail in 2009, about a year after his detention, of what doctors said was a heart attack. Magnitsky’s family demanded an investigation into his death.
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Cyprus deposit grab is fiscal Magnitsky bill for Russia
The decision by the Cypriot government to grab up to 9.9% of deposits in its banking system is the financial equivalent of the Magnitsky bill as far as the Kremlin is concerned.
“The decision is unfair, unprofessional and dangerous,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said of the deal struck between the German-dominated EU finance ministers meeting and Cyprus over the weekend in Berlin.
The deal has been widely condemned by commentators, as it undermines the very foundations of the European banking system. All European deposits are supposed to be protected by a deposit insurance scheme that guarantees the safety of deposits irrespective of what happens to the bank holding it.
The reason why Europe has contemplated such an unorthodox solution is the political problems that Germany has with using its taxpayer money – as the bulk of the EU money will come from Germany – to bail out Russian oligarchs and gangsters hiding money abroad.
“The driver for the latest attempt to bail-in depositors appears to be German politics, and concern therein that German tax-payers’ money was likely being used to bail-out the weight of Russian deposits in the Cypriot banking system,” Timothy Ash, a strategist at Standard Bank, wrote in an emailed note. “German politicians seem to have adopted a very moralistic approach to the Cypriot bail-out, which may well now reflect ‘bail-out’ fatigue more than anything, plus the close proximity now of Bundestag elections [due in September].
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Not guilty: Court acquits official charged with Magnitsky’s death
A Russian court has acquitted the former deputy chief of the prison where lawyer Sergey Magnitsky died. A judge ruled there was not enough evidence Dmitry Kratov was guilty of negligence.
Kratov was the only official facing a trial following the death of Magnitsky who died in a Moscow prison while under investigation for tax evasion and fraud. The prosecutor also asked the court to acquit Kratov.
“Diseases revealed in Magnitsky are not related to his death. It was impossible to diagnose diseases that caused his death”, said Tverskoy Court judge Tatyana Neverova.
“Kratov’s inaction wasn’t confirmed. There was no ‘corpus delicti’ in Kratov’s action,” added the judge.
The Magnitsky case began in 2007, when British investment fund Hermitage Capital, one of the biggest foreign investors inside Russia, fell victim to a US$230 million fraud. The fund hired corporate lawyer Sergey Magnitsky, whose investigation brought forth names of officials in Russia’s Interior Ministry he believed to be involved in the scam.
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Opposition leader accused of treachery for supporting Magnistky bill
The ruling United Russia party has accused opposition figure Mikhail Kasyanov of betraying Russia’s interests for his support of the Magnitsky List bill, recently approved by the US Congress.
In doing so, Kasyanov has “openly admitted that timeserving interests of certain American politicians are more important to him than interests of his own people,” stated senior United Russia’s member Sergey Neverov.
Kasyanov, a former prime minister during President Putin’s first term, is currently not a member of parliament.
The reaction of Russian society to this move should be “definitely negative,” as it may “lead to tensions in relations between the two powers,” Neverov underlined, as cited by Interfax. That will be bad for everyone, “except, apparently, those who deliberately play into the hands of provocateurs who are trying to dictate how Russia should live.”
Earlier, Kasyanov – a co-chairman of the Republican Party of People’s Freedom, also known as Parnas – welcomed the adoption of the so-called Magnitsky List. The bill imposes visa bans and asset freezes on Russian officials allegedly involved in the death of Russian anti-corruption lawyer Sergey Magnitsky and in other human rights abuses in the country. The 37-year-old died in a Moscow pre-trial detention center in November 2009.
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The “Magnitsky list” is prepared for a reset
It is being proposed to extend sanctions to all human rights violators.
The US Congress has come close to the adoption of a bill imposing visa and economic sanctions against individuals responsible for human rights violations. The reason for the expedited review of this document is what the US is calling the “unfree and unfair” State Duma election. Experts warn that if the law is adopted, this will be a much greater blow to the “reset” between Moscow and Washington than disagreements on any other issues.
The Subcommittee on European Affairs of the US Foreign Relations Committee has held hearings on the state of human rights in Russia. The reason for the hearings was the State Duma election, which the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, characterized as “unfree and unfair.” The main topic at the hearings was the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2011, introduced in Congress in May by Ben Cardin (D-MD) and John McCain (R–AZ). It imposes visa sanctions and seizure of financial assets of individuals responsible for human rights violations in the RF.
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Legal merry-go-round over prison death
Russia’s investigative committee has brought charges against a doctor whose alleged negligence caused a high-profile death in prison.
Fifty-three-year-old Vera Trifonova, head of a real estate agency, was arrested on fraud charges in December 2010. Despite having serious health problems, she was put into a pre-trial detention center. In April 2010 she died in custody.
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Investigative Committee officer bribed to reopen Magnitsky’s case
Shortly after the first people were accused in the death of lawyer Sergey Magnitsky, there is already one more person suspected of misconduct.
Human rights activists claim that the deputy head of the Investigative Committee, Colonel Natalia Vinogradova, may have received $40,000 for reopening the case against Magnitsky, the Vedomosti newspaper reported.
Vinogradova used to be the boss of an investigator dealing with Magnitsky’s case in 2008, but it was in fact she who made all decisions regarding the lawyer.
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Prison doctors charged with causing Magnitsky’s death
Two former prison doctors have been accused of negligence resulting in the death of Sergey Magnitsky while he was on trial over large-scale tax fraud.
Among the accused are the doctor who was responsible for Magnitsky’s treatment, Larisa Litvinova, and the former deputy director of the detention center and Litvinova’s former boss, Dmitry Kratov. Both suspects were fired from the Butyrskaya prison soon after Magnitsky’s death in 2009.
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