Press Release
For Immediate Distribution
Senior Coroner Has Ruled That Hermitage Capital is an ‘Interested Person’ in the Perepilichnyy Inquest in Surrey
6 August 2015 – Today, the Senior Coroner ruled that Hermitage Capital will be recognized as aninterested person in the Alexander Perepilichnyy inquest which took place in Surrey, England today. Hermitage Capital made the application because of specific facts which pointed to the possibilitythat Alexander Perepilichnyy was murdered in November 2012 in Surrey.
Hermitage Capital was forced to intervene in the coroners inquest because the Surrey police decided that Alexander Perepilichnyy’s death was ‘not suspicious’ and ‘did not involve third parties’. In written and oral applications submitted by Geoffrey Robertson QC and Henrietta Hill QC, Hermitage disclosed how Alexander Perepilichnyy had described fears over being murdered by members of the Russian organised crime connected to the Russian government.
“We cannot allow the Russian government to get away with murder in the UK. We will make sure that all the facts surrounding Alexander Perepilichnyy’s death, including any suggestion that it was linked with his involement in exposing the Russian organised crime connected to the Magnitsky case are elucidated in full at the inquest,” said William Browder, leader of Justice for Sergei MagnitskyCampaign.
In 2010, Alexander Perepilichnyy provided evidence to Hermitage Capital which lead to the freezing of accounts belonging to Vladlen Stepanov, husband of a senior Russian tax official held in Swiss banks. He twice testified to the Swiss prosecutors and subsequently received death threats by various elements inside the Russian government.
Alexander Perepilichnyy died on 10 November 2012 after returning from a trip to Paris. The British police closed the case but the French authorities have since opened a full murder investigation.
For more information, please contact:
Justice for Sergei Magnitsky campaign
+44 207 440 1777
