By Greg Hall
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe
GUERNSEY, Britain – Hermitage Capital has released a 74-page report allegedly proving that Russian police murdered Sergei Magnitsky and explaining in detail how the Russian police carried out the murder. The report, called, “The Torture and Murder of Sergei Magnitsky and the Cover Up by the Russian Government” also shows how Russian authorities have consistently lied and tried to cover up Magnitsky’s death. The document contains pictures and other documents showing how Russian officials arrested, tortured, and eventually killed Magnitsky.
“This report shows irrefutable documentary evidence of the roles of specific high level officials in the false arrest, torture and murder of Sergei Magnitsky and the cover-up that followed. This is a unique record of the injustice that was done to Sergei Magnitsky, and it also lays bare the inner workings of the corruption inside the Russian criminal justice system,” said a Hermitage Capital spokesman.
The report contains photos of Magnitsky just hours before he died. The photos reveal deep lacerations and bruises believed to be caused by being beaten by rubber batons. It also contains a Russian internal report from Matrosskaya Tishina showing that Fikhret Tagiev authorized the use of the rubber batons and then ordered the closure of any further probe eight days after Magnitsky died.
The report also contains documents revealing Magnitsky’s repeated requests for medical attention. According to the report, he wrote at least seven letters to top Russian officials in different agencies requesting medical attention but his requests were never granted. The time, place, and other circumstances surrounding Magnitsky’s death were also fabricated by the detention center officials, according to the report. Finally, the report also shows how Russian officials refuse to open an investigation despite the Kremlin’s human rights council admitting Magnitsky was beaten before he died.
The report concludes that the Russian government failed to investigate Magnitsky’s death and the ensuing cover up in an impartial and independent way. In fact, the “investigation” of his death was conducted by the very same authorities that arrested Magnitsky. Russian authorities have absolved anyone of wrongdoing and have even promoted and granted state honors to some of those individuals. None of the people that Magnitsky accused of tax fraud, torture and unlawful arrest have been prosecuted.
Magnitsky was originally arrested in 2009 by Russian authorities on charges of tax evasion. He died nearly a year later at age 37. It is believed that Russian authorities withheld necessary medical care that could have saved his life. Magnitsky accused Russian authorities of withholding and stealing Hermitage fund documents as part of scheme to pocket hundreds of millions of dollars. If true, this would have been the largest known tax refund fraud in Russian history.
The United States retaliated by banning certain Russian officials from entering into its country as a result of the alleged human rights violations. Russia responded by blacklisting several United States authorities on alleged similar grounds.
The report was the result of a private investigation believed to be funded by the British-based investment fund Hermitage Capital Management, for which Magnitsky worked before his arrest.
For more information, please see:
Law and Order in Russia – The Story Behind the Largest Tax Fraud in Russian History – 28 November 2011
The Moscow Times – Magnitsky’s Deadly Beating Documented – 28 November 2011
Voice of America – Report: Russian Lawyer Beaten to Death in Jail – 28 November 2011
