PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Distribution
29 October 2013 – Nataliya Magnitskaya, the mother of the late whistle-blowing lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, has sued Russian Deputy Prosecutor Victor Grin for his role in exonerating all Interior Ministry officials who falsely arrested and tortured her son in custody. The lawsuit will be heard on Wednesday, 30 October 2013, at 11 am at the Moscow City Court(http://www.mos–gorsud.ru/sudz/apellechionnaya_instance/ua/?pn=13).
“The conclusion by Deputy General Prosecutor of Russia …unquestionably violates the rights of Mr Magnitsky’s mother ..and is in deep contradiction with the conclusions by members of the President’s Council on Human Rights,” says the complaint filed by Mrs Magnitskaya’s lawyer.
In his own review of the case, Deputy General Prosecutor of Russia Victor Grin stated that no violations were found in the acts of Interior Ministry officials on the Magnitsky case. It was issued on the request of the Russian Investigative Committee in 2011 and was used by the Investigative Committee to justify not opening any criminal investigation into those officials.
A local district court in Moscow earlier refused Mrs Magnitskaya’sapplication. The refusal was issued by district court judge Igor Alisov, who also posthumously convicted the late Magnitsky in July in the first ever trial of a dead man in Russian history. Judge Alisov has since been promoted by order of Russian President Vladimir Putin to the Moscow City Court.
The lawsuit filed by Mrs Magnitskaya’s lawyer also asserts that the decision by judge Alisov was backdated and that it was then covered up.
“The decree [by judge Alisov] is unlawful, there are signs of falsification in its issuance,” says the complaint filed with the Moscow City Court.
According to the complaint, judge Alisov told Mrs Magnitskaya’s lawyer on 17 April 2013 that he had not yet considered the complaint. A month later, judge Alisov sent a refusal to consider the complaint dated 27 March 2013, i.e. three weeks before the meeting with the lawyer.
A probe was then carried out by the Tverskoi district court chair Ms Solopova into this discrepancy which found “carelessness” in the acts of judge Alisov. The probe was based on the “oral conversation held with judge Alisov on 6 September 2013” in which judge Alisov explained the identified discrepancy by “the work overload, the lack of attention during the production of the court order.”
The challenge brought by Mrs Magnitskaya is one in a series of lawsuits in which she seeks to compel the Russian state to bring to justice those responsible for the arrest, torture and murder of her 37-year old son.
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