By Alexandra Halsey-Storch
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

MOSCOW, Russia–On March 6, 2012 the Khamovnichesky District Court of Moscow heard a lawsuit filed by Ivan Cherkasov, a Hermitage Capital executive based in London, England, against the Russian Interior Ministry. The lawsuit challenges a fairly new law, enacted in April 2010, which allocates power to the Interior Russian Ministry to “arbitrarily deny any person the right to leave the country.”

In September of 2011, Cherkasov, a colleague of the late Sergei Magnitsky, applied for a new passport through the Russian Embassy in London. The Embassy thereafter denied his application in December “on orders from the Russian Interior Ministry,” but refused to provide any further detail. Last week, however, the Embassy stated that Cherkasov’s request for a renewed passport had been denied based on paragraph 3 of Article 15 of the Russian Federal law entitled “On Procedure of Exit and Entry to the Russian Federation.”

The law provides that, “the right of citizens of the Russian Federation to leave the Russian Federation may be temporarily restricted in cases where the citizen is suspected or involved as a defendant, and for as long as the decision is made on the case or the court verdict comes into force.”

Denying Cherkasov’s request for a new passport appears to be yet another glimpse into the corrupt workings of the Russian government and the latest twist in a tax rebate fraud case. In May 2007, the Russian Secret Police and the Russian Interior Ministry began a “fabricated criminal case” against Cherkasov as a means to “gain access to” Hermitage Fund’s documents and files and then to steal $230 million of taxes that Hermitage had paid the year prior. The tax rebate fraud was exposed by an attorney, Sergei Magnitsky, who gave “sworn testimony against the officials involved.” Magnitsky was  then arrested and detained; he died a year later at the hands of abusive Russian authorities. Cherkasov’s case has remained open for the past five years, thus allegedly falling within the bounds of the above-stated law.

As Cherkasov points out, he left Russia six years ago and has, since that time, lived abroad. “By refusing to issue me a passport of a citizen of Russian, the Russian Interior Ministry in fact denies me Russian citizen and denies me the right to emigrate.”

Cherkasov claims that, “with the new law in place, anyone who is being persecuted by the authorities no longer has the freedom to emigrate. The constitutional right of citizens of Russia to freedom of movement is left at the mercy of corrupt law enforcement officers.”  Indeed, restricting one’s ability to emigrate has been method exercised by such totalitarian regimes under both Mussolini between 1922 and 1943 and Hitler from 1933 to 1945.

For more information, please visit:

Impunity Watch—UK Parliament Calls for Sanctions on Russia For Magnitsky Death—9 March 2012

Law and Order in Russia–Magnitsky’s Colleague Challenges Russia’s New Restriction on Emigration—6 March 2012

Impunity Watch—Deceased Russian Whistleblower to be Tried Posthumously—12 Feb. 2012