Stop the Untouchables. Justice for Sergei Magnitsky.

Russia’s posthumous trial of lawyer shows corruption is still rife

The Guardian

This week it was announced that the Russian authorities are planning to resubmit a tax evasion case for trial. Nothing out of the ordinary, you might think, except for the fact that the defendant is deceased.

The accused in question is Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer who died in a Moscow prison cell in November 2009. Magnitsky was initially detained in November 2008 on suspicion of assisting one of his clients – UK-based investment fund Hermitage Capital – evade about $17.4m in taxes. Although the original allegations were lodged against Hermitage, during the investigation Magnitsky discovered what he believed to be a cover-up for Russian state officials to embezzle an estimated $230m from the Russian treasury.

Subsequently, Magnitsky testified against two senior officials in the interior ministry, Lt Col Artyom Kuznetsov and Major Pavel Karpov, and accused them of tax fraud. Shortly after, Magnitsky himself was arrested and detained in prison on charges of fraud and tax evasion. It is thought that the charges placed against him were designed to make him back down and sweep the whole embezzlement scandal under the carpet. However, Magnitsky never made it to trial. After a year of being detained, he died in a prison cell aged 37 and the exact causes and circumstances surrounding his death remain a mystery.