Posts Tagged ‘Silchenko’
Inside Russia, new light shines on Magnitsky case
Investigators, prison doctors, prosecutors and judges are responsible for the death of the Hermitage Capital fund lawyer, the presidential council on human rights stated. The international community watches to see what happens next.
The Russian lawyer who once worked for a U.S. investment fund died after a brutal beating from prison guards, the presidential council on human rights confirmed last week. Investigators, prison doctors, prosecutors and judges are all responsible for the death of the Hermitage Capital fund lawyer, the Presidential Council on Human Rights also found.
Their findings have international implications, as the case is seen as another litmus test for how the Kremlin can handle cases of alleged official corruption and abuses of power. In death, Magnitsky has become an international cause celebre: The 37-year-old lawyer died alone in prison in November 2009. He had accused officials of tax fraud before his arrest.
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Report Blames Prison Officials In Magnitsky Death, Russian President Cites ‘Criminal Actions’
Nearly two years after Sergei Magnitsky died in a Moscow prison, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev called his treatment “criminal” in the wake of a damning report blaming prison officials for the hedge fund lawyer’s death.
A report issued yesterday by Medvedev’s investigative council concluded that Magnitsky, who represented Hermitage Capital Management, “was completely deprived of medical care. Additionally, there are grounds to suspect that Magnitsky’s death was the result of a beating,” and not merely the pancreatitis he contracted during the year he spent behind bars on suspicion of tax evasion.
One member of the investigative committee went even further, telling The Telegraph, “we have concluded he died of a beating. It was real torture to beat an ailing man with truncheons.”
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Russia blames doctors, not police, in death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky
Russian authorities, under persistent international pressure to charge police officials in the pretrial detention death of a 37-year-old lawyer, on Monday blamed prison doctors instead.
Human rights activists, colleagues of Sergei Magnitsky and even U.S. senators have urged Russia to call Interior Ministry officials to account for arresting, prosecuting and then denying medical treatment to Magnitsky, who died in custody in November 2009.
But on Monday, Vladimir Markin, a spokesman for the Russian Investigative Committee, told the Interfax news agency that doctors would be prosecuted because of “flaws” in treatment that caused Magnitsky’s death.
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Russia Probe Cites Officials in Death
Russian investigators on Monday blamed prison personnel in the 2009 death of a jailed hedge-fund attorney—the first time the government has acknowledged any official wrongdoing in the case.
Human-rights activists welcomed the announcement, but said they feared that the government could use the prison officials as scapegoats while ignoring any higher-level complicity.
The lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, had accused Interior Ministry officials of stealing $230 million in Russian budget funds in concert with tax officials.
Mr. Magnitsky’s employer, the U.K.-based hedge fund Hermitage Capital, has alleged that instead of investigating the theft, investigators tried to force him to recant by jailing him in squalid conditions and withholding vital medical care.
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Poor Care Led to Death of Lawyer, Russia Says
Russia’s Investigative Committee on Monday acknowledged for the first time that 37-year-old Sergei L. Magnitsky died in pretrial detention because prison authorities denied him medical care, setting the stage for prosecution in a case that has come to epitomize Russia’s trouble establishing rule of law.
Mr. Magnitsky was drawn into a feud between his employer, an international investment company, and Russian law enforcement authorities, testifying that senior Interior Ministry officers had used his employer’s companies to embezzle $230 million from the Russian treasury. He was arrested and held without bail on charges of evading about $17.4 million in taxes. He died in 2009 after 11 months in custody.
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Russia to Prosecute Officials Linked to Magnitsky’s Death
Bloomberg
Russian prosecutors plan to charge officials linked to the death of Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer for Hermitage Capital Management Ltd. who died in a Moscow prison in 2009 after almost a year in pre-trial detention. Officials will face criminal prosecution for refusing timely medical treatment to Magnitsky, who was 37 when he died of heart failure, including on the day of his death, Russia’s Investigative Committee said today on its website.
“The failure to provide Magnitsky with adequate medical treatment was a direct cause of his death,” the committee said, citing the results of a medical probe.
The announcement came less than two months after President Dmitry Medvedev said all guilty parties in Magnitsky’s “tragic” death should be punished. The lawyer said he was abused and denied medical care to force him to drop allegations of a $230 million tax fraud by Interior Ministry officials.
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No Charges For Top Investigator In Magnitsky Case
Russian officials have exonerated one of their own in the prison death of Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer for hedge fund Hermitage Capital Management.
Russia’s powerful central prosecutors, the Investigative Committee, said Monday that Oleg Silchenko, the Interior Ministry official who ordered Magnitsky’s arrest and oversaw the investigation of the lawyer, had “not allowed” any illegal treatment in the case. The committee would not comment beyond its three-paragraph statement.
Silchenko was cleared despite a finding by the head of Russia’s prison oversight panel that Silchenko was to blame for Magnitsky’s treatment. Magnitsky died in a notorious Moscow prison in November 2009 at the age of 37. Human rights officials say he was tortured and denied adequate medical care; the latter claim was echoed by the oversight panel’s Valery Borshchev.
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Russian Investigator Cleared in Prison Death
Russian prosecutors exonerated the lead investigator in the case of Sergei Magnitsky, a hedge-fund attorney who died in jail after what colleagues said was an attempt to expose a massive theft of government funds in 2009.
Acitivists conducting an independent probe of the case called the ruling a whitewash of the case, despite President Dmitry Medvedev’s repeated promises of a full investigation. The handling of Mr. Magnitsky’s death has emerged as a litmus test of Mr. Medvedev’s willingness to investigate corruption in the security services, whose strength and clout have crept throughout the Russian economy.
Russia’s powerful Investigative Committee issued a three-paragraph statement Monday absolving the investigator in the case, Oleg Silchenko, of any blame, saying he had “not allowed” any legal violations in the case.
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Investigation into Magnitsky’s case continues
Russia’s Prosecutor General has found no violations on the part of the investigator, who handled the case of Sergei Magnitsky, a spokesman for Russia’s Investigative Committee, Vladimir Markin, said on Monday. At the request of Russia’s Investigative Committee, the Office of the Prosecutor General checked the legality of actions, taken by the investigators regarding the Hermitage Capital Investment Fund worker Sergei Magnitsky.
Lawyer Sergei Magnitsky was accused of tax evasion regarding his revenues from the work of the companies belonging to the investment fund. According to the investigators, the Hermitage Capital Investment Fund and the Firestone Duncan Consulting Firm, where Magnitsky headed the Tax and Audit Department, created a scheme of tax evasion with the use of a ramified network of branch companies. As a result, more than 5 billion roubles were stolen.
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