Stop the Untouchables. Justice for Sergei Magnitsky.

New Bill With Bipartisan Support Would Blacklist Group of Russian Abusers

U.S. News & World Report

27 June 2012, 16:02 GMT

For months, freezing wind blew through an overcrowded, smoky jail cell where Sergei Magnitsky was being tortured and held. Magnitsky, a Russian attorney who revealed the largest alleged tax-refund fraud in the country’s history, was held in conditions so poor, he contracted gallstones. Despite appealing for medical attention on 20 separate occasions, he was never treated.

After being relocated to multiple prisons, being poorly fed (if at all) and enduring deplorable conditions for nearly a year, Magnitsky died on Nov. 16, 2009, shortly after eight riot troopers handcuffed him to a bed and beat him with rubber batons.

William Browder, the Chief Executive Officer of Hermitage Capital Management, has recounted the horrifying tale repeatedly in senators’ and representatives’ offices across Capitol Hill in an effort to pass legislation that would blacklist all of those responsible for Magnitsky’s death.

Magnitsky worked as Browder’s lawyer at Hermitage, when he discovered $230 million in taxes the company paid were embezzled in an elaborate scheme by police, government officials, bankers and the Russian mafia. Magnitsky researched the crimes and testified against those involved and six weeks later was arrested. Browder estimates more than 60 people were involved in his death, from the guards who beat him to the ring of government officials who were responsible for his capture and imprisonment.