Originally published by Interfax News, The Russia And CIS Business And Financial News Wire
July 1st, 2011
MOSCOW. July 1 (Interfax) – Human rights activists intend to name the officials who may be involved in Hermitage Capital lawyer Sergei Magnitsky’s case, who died in a Moscow detention facility.
The names will be mentioned in the interim report on the Magnitsky case, which the presidential Human Rights Council plans to pass to President Dmitry Medvedev on July 5, Kirill Kabanov, the head of the public organization National Anti-Corruption Committee, told Interfax on Friday.
“We will raise questions about the names of the people who may be interested in the Magnitsky case,” Kabanov said.
The working group of the presidential Human Rights Council is actively working with the Russian Investigations Committee, which is investigating Magnitsky’s death.
“We have come to the following interim conclusion: Unfortunately, it may be impossible to subject all participants in this trial to criminal liability. Agencies are covering them. Courts have made many illegal decisions. Dealing with courts is a big problem,” Kabanov said.
The interim report will not state the final conclusion on the cause of Magnitsky’s death, Lyudmila Alekseyeva, a member of the presidential human rights council, a member of the Council’s working group on the Magnitsky case, and head of the Moscow Helsinki Group, said.
Magnitsky, a lawyer for the investment foundation Hermitage Capital, died in the Matrosskaya Tishina detention facility on November 16, 2009, at the age of 37. He was charged with tax evasion.
Magnitsky’s death drew a broad public response. The Investigations Committee opened a criminal case on charges of failure to provide assistance to a patient and negligence.
According to two forensic evaluations, Magnitsky died of acute heart insufficiency. The experts confirmed that Magnitsky was suffering from the illnesses he was diagnosed with earlier, but said those illnesses were not at an acute stage.
Despite the dismissals in the Federal Service for the Enforcement of Punishments, human rights activists believe no real investigation into the causes of Magnitsky’s death was conducted.
