Press Release
For Immediate Distribution
23 January 2014 – A draft resolution entitled, “Refusing Impunity for theKillers of Sergei Magnitsky,” will be voted on next week by the ParliamentaryAssembly of the Council of Europe. The resolution calls on Russian authorities to stop the posthumous prosecution of Sergei Magnitsky, cease pressure on his family, and stop the persecution of other Hermitage lawyers, including barrister Eduard Khairetdinov, who represented the Hermitage Fund in Russia to defend against the $230 million fraud uncovered by Sergei Magnitsky.
The draft Magnitsky resolution says:
“The Assembly urges the competent Russian authorities…to close the posthumous trial against Mr Magnitsky and cease putting pressure on his mother and his widow to participate in these proceedings; to cease the persecution of other lawyers acting for the true owners of the fraudulently re-registered companies [of the Hermitage Fund].”(http://www.assembly.coe.int/nw/xml/XRef/Xref-DocDetails-EN.asp?fileid=20084&wrqid=0&wrqref=&ref=1&lang=EN)
Sergei Magnitsky was arrested shortly after he testified about the involvement of Russian officials in the theft of Hermitage Fund’s companies and of $230 million they had paid in taxes to the Russian government. The Russian officials also targeted all other lawyers who defended Hermitage against this fraud with criminal cases, searches and summonses. These actions by Russian authoritieshave been denounced in an earlier resolution adopted by the Council of Europe on 30 September 2009, a month and a half before Magnitsky’s killing in custody.
One of the persecuted lawyers is Eduard Khairetdinov, an independent barrister and former judge, who was responsible for filing the first complaint with Russian law enforcement bodies on behalf of the Hermitage Fund, three weeks before $230 million was stolen from the budget. The complaint sought to initiate an investigation and named Interior Ministry officers Karpov and Kuznetsov. Several months after the complaint was filed, Kuznetzov sought toopen a criminal case against barrister Khairetdinov himself.
The criminal case against barrister Khairetdinov in Russia claims that he acted on a false power of attorney because, according to the Russian Investigative Committee, the only people who could have given him a legitimate power of attorney were the people who stole the Hermitage companies. The case hasremained open for five years despite numerous appeals from associations of lawyers from around the world and the absurdity of the charges.
“The lawyers who acted on behalf of the true owners of the fraudulently re-registered companies [of the Hermitage Fund], in order to help them regain control, are now being prosecuted for acting on false power of attorney, as they had not obtained their powers from the false owners of the companies,” says the draft PACE Resolution on the plight of lawyers whose only misfortune was to represent the “wrong” client.
Sergei Magnitsky spoke in defence of his colleagues from custody. In his last written statement prepared for the court, he said:
“Investigator [of the Interior Ministry] Silchenko does not wish to identify other persons who made this [$230 million] fraud possible [other than a sawmill employee Victor Markelov]; he wishes instead that the lawyers for the Hermitage Fund who strived and continue to strive for the investigation of this case are forced to leave the country, or like me, are kept in custody.”(http://russian-untouchables.com/docs/D85-zayavlenie-magnitskogo-o-politmotivirovannosti-12-11-2009.pdf)
Earlier this month, barrister Khairetdinov filed several complaints against his unlawful prosecution, seeking the case to be closed because it is unlawful and based on false grounds. Information on the outcome of his complaints is not yet available.
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