PRESS RELEASE

10 July 2013 – Today, at the Tverskoi district court in Moscow, judge Igor Alisov, is expected to find Sergei Magnitsky guilty of tax evasion in the first ever posthumous trial in Russian history. It is also expected that judge Alisov will find William Browder guilty of the same crimes in absentia. The proceedings against Magnitsky and Browder have been condemned around the world as illegitimate, politically motivated andincompatible with international and Russian law.

“This show trial confirms that Vladimir Putin is ready to sacrifice hisinternational credibility to protect corrupt officials who murdered an innocent lawyer and stole $230 million from the Russian state,” said a Hermitage Capital representative.

The motivation for the posthumous trial has been to cover-up the complicity of Russian tax officials, police officers and judges in the largest tax theft in the history of Russia.

In June 2007, police officers raided the offices of Hermitage and its law firm and seized corporate documents that were then used by corrupt officials and criminals to steal $230 million from the Russian state. Hermitage complained to the Russian authorities in December 2007 about the involvement of Interior Ministry officers in the crime. Two months later, some of the same officers opened a retaliatory criminal case againstMr Browder. In June and October 2008, Sergei Magnitsky testified to the Russian authorities about the involvement of the same Interior Ministry officers in the theft. Shortly thereafter, he was added to the same criminal case as Browder and arrested. In pre-trial detention, Sergei Magnitsky was held for 358 days, denied medical care, family visits, access to clean and hot water, and sleep, in order to force him to retract his testimony. He refused and was subsequently beaten by riot guards with rubber batons, until he was found dead on the cell floor on November 16th 2009.

In response to the impunity of all the Russian officials involved in SergeiMagnitsky’s false arrest, torture and death, the US Congress passed thethe Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act, which imposes visa and financial sanctions on all the Russian officials involved in the ill-treatment and death of Mr Magnitsky and in other gross human rightsabuses in Russia. In July 2012, the OSCE Parliamentary Assemblypassed the Magnitsky Resolution calling on all OSCE countries to impose similar sanctions as the US. In June 2013, the Rapporteur to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe issued a report on the Magnitsky case in which he found the allegations by the Russian government to be legally and factually unfounded.

Specifically the Rapporteur to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe found that:

“The detailed and well-documented replies received have gone a long way to convince us that Hermitage did not violate the law. This was also confirmed by an audit carried out by the competent tax authorities…“

He went on to say that the case couldn’t be tried because the statute of limitations had already elapsed:

 

“Legal pursuits for any tax underpayments concerning 2001 would also appear to be time-barred…Consequently, the formal indictments dated 22 March 2013 and the posthumous trial against Sergei Magnitsky and the trial in absentia against Bill Browder appear to violate Russian law.”

Lawyers for Mr Browder have identified numerous violations of the law and falsifications in the criminal case file. After they filed a series of complaints against the Russian authorities detailing the falsifications, the Russian court denied them any further access to case files, thereby preventing them from fulfilling their professional duties. Subsequentlystate-funded lawyers were appointed for the posthumous trial to create an impression of a legal representation.

For further information, please see:

Law and Order in Russia

by Tony Iozzo
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

MOSCOW, Russia – A Russian journalist was shot dead outside of Mackhachkala, the capital of the violent Russian Republic of Dagestan, on Tuesday.

Akhmednabi Akhmednabiyev, deputy editor for the local newspaper Novoe Delo and a contributor to Kavkazky Uzel, an online news publisher, was fired on while in his car just outside of his house at about 7:00AM local time.

While no particular motive or any specific articles authored by Akhmednabiyev are currently tied to the murder, the Investigative Committee has stated the “most likely version is that Akhmednabiyev’s murder is linked to his professional activities.”

Akhmednabiyev was notorious for accusing local authorities of persecuting and kidnapping Muslims in an extrajudicial manner. He also regularly reported on human rights violations during counterterrorism operations. According to Khadzhimurad Sagitov, editor in chief of Novoe Delo, Akhmednabiyev regularly received threatening phone calls and text messages from anonymous sources.

“We expected this… We knew that if not today, then it would happen tomorrow, or the next day,” Sagitov stated.

Russia is widely considered one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists, as 55 assassinations of individuals in the media have been confirmed since 1992. Just last month, a preliminary hearing was held in Moscow for the trial of five men charged with the murder of prominent investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was similarly gunned down near her apartment back in 2006.

The North Caucasus Republic of Dagestan is viewed as a particularly perilous region for journalists, as Akhmednabiyev is the 17^th journalist to be killed in the region since 1993. The region has reportedly seen continuing low-level Islamist insurgency, high levels of organized crime, and regional corruption.

In 2009, Akhmednabiyev’s name was included on a “hit-list” of individuals that were being targeted allegedly as revenge for the deaths of security forces and civilians. The list was distributed on leaflets in Mackhachkala.

Another journalist included on the list, Khadzhimurad Kamalov, the founder of the Chernovik newspaper, was shot to death outside the newspaper’s office in Mackhachkala in 2011.

Akhmednabiyev survived an assassination attempt earlier this year, when his car had been shot at in a similar fashion to the incident Tuesday, but the police only investigated property damage in that case.

“He said that he will remain here, no matter what. I think he understood something like this could happen to him,” Sagitov stated.

Hundreds of mourners carried Akhmednabiyev’s body in a procession from a mosque to a local cemetery in Mackhachkala on Tuesday.

For more information, please see:

BBC News – Journalist Shot Dead in Russia’s Dagestan – 9 July 2013

The Independent – Russia: Journalist Murdered in Dagestan – 9 July 2013

New York Times – Journalist Assassinated in Violent Russian Republic – 9 July 2013

Reuters – Journalist Shot Dead in Russia’s Dagestan Province – 9 July 2013

RIA Novosti – Journalist Gunned Down in Dagestan – 9 July 2013

Impunity Watch – Five Defendants in Russian Journalist’s Murder Are Granted Jury Trial – 4 June 2013

Impunity Watch – Human Rights Watch Researcher’s Life Threatened – 8 October 2012