Press Release
Originally sent by Hermitage Capital 2/27/12

Following the annual meeting of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly in Vienna last week, Coskun Coruz, the OSCE Human Rights Rapporteur and MP from the Netherlands called for the prosecution of Russian officials in Magnitsky case, the termination of his posthumous trial and the end of intimidation of his family by the Russian authorities.

Coskun Coruz, OSCE Parliamentary Assembly Rapporteur of the Committee on Democracy, Human Rights and Humanitarian Questions, said:

“As a member of the OSCE, Russia should fulfill its human rights obligations and adhere to the norms and values of the OSCE. In the harrowing death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, Russia’s lawlessness is absolutely not fitting into OSCE ‘s values. What is particularly shocking is the unprecedented prosecution of a dead man. As a lawyer and politician, I will do everything in my power and the power of the OSCE to call on Russia to prosecute Magnitsky’s killers, to cease the posthumous prosecution against him and to protect his family.”

Mr Coruz was responding to an appeal from Ludmila Alexeeva, chair of the Moscow Helsinki Group, Russia’s leading human rights NGO. Ms Alexeeva called upon OSCE’s leadership and parliamentarians to intervene in the case of Sergei Magnitsky. In a strongly-worded letter sent on the eve of the OSCE winter meeting in Vienna, Ms Alexeeva urged OSCE members to do everything possible to bring to justice those responsible for Mr Magnitsky’s horrific death in Russian police custody. She called for an end to the unprecedented posthumous trial of Sergei Magnitsky as well as pressure put on his family by the Russian authorities.

“The prosecution of the dead lawyer and the intimidation and harassment of his family by police is a new low and an alarming symptom of the complete degradation of the Russian justice system and the absent rule of law. Posthumous prosecutions were not practiced even during the Stalin purges,” said Ms Alexeeva in her appeal to the OSCE.“They are clearly carried out …to intimidate and silence victims of police abuse and their relatives and to exonerate police officers implicated in serious crimes.”

In addition to Mr Coruz’s call for justice, William Browder, CEO of Hermitage Capital, was invited to testify at the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly in Vienna last week. In his testimony, Mr Browder described in detail the torture and murder of Mr Magnitsky in custody and the pressure on his surviving family. He called on all parliaments in OSCE countries to pass visa sanctions and asset freezes on the Russian officials in the Magnitsky case.

“Selectively cancelling visas and freezing assets may not be real justice in a case like this, but if we are successful in creating some real and painful consequences in a situation where, until now, these people have enjoyed absolute impunity, perhaps the next time a Russian investigator is asked by his boss to torture a false confession out of an innocent prisoner, he may think twice… This is a new weapon in the fight against human rights abuses,” said Mr Browder.

In her appeal to OSCE, Ms Alexeeva reiterated Russia’s international obligations as a member of the OSCE to ensure that law enforcement officers pursue “legitimate aims” and “are subject to judicial control and are held accountable” as per paragraph 21 of the Document of the Moscow Meeting of the Conference on the Human Dimension.

“In no way such actions [posthumous trial of Mr Magnitsky and pressure on his family by the Russian authorities] can be viewed as an internal affair of Russia as they run contrary to Russia’s international obligations. The duty of the OSCE is to safeguard universally recognized human rights and freedoms and the rule of law in the territory of the participating countries,” said Ms Alexeeva.

“I ask you to adopt a special Resolution of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly and undertake all other possible efforts to protect the family of Sergei Magnitsky from the police tyranny and to urge the Russian government without any further delay to bring to account law enforcement officers implicated in massive corruption, false arrest and torture of Magnitsky, and to put an end to the intimidation of his family,” said Ms Alexeeva in her letter addressed to Petros Efthymiou, OSCE Parliamentary Assembly President, Eamon Gilmore, OSCE Chairperson-in-Office and Irish Deputy Prime Minister, Coskun Coruz, Rapporteur of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly’s Committee on Human Rights, and OSCE Vice Presidents.

Last week, a Moscow court rejected two lawsuits from the Magnitsky family against the Russian Investigative Committee for its failure to investigate and bring high-ranking Russian police officers to trial for the false arrest, torture and murder of the 37-year old whistle-blowing lawyer. Russian courts also rejected Magnitsky mother’s requests for access to her son’s tissue samples and their independent medical examination. The Investigative Committee in charge of Magnitsky’s death investigation is the same body that concealed Mr Magnitsky’s testimonies about the $230 million corruption of Interior Ministry and tax officials. The Investigative Committee also refused to investigate the illicit multi-million dollar wealth of the families of those officials.

Magnitsky Press Release

Press Release, Hermitage Capital Fund
Originally Sent 28 November 2011

Today, Hermitage Capital released a 75-page report with new documentary evidence showing how Sergei Magnitsky was murdered in Russian police custody and how the Russian government has consistently lied in public about Sergei Magnitsky’s false arrest, torture and death to cover up the criminal liability of the Russian officials involved.

The report entitled “The Torture and Murder of Sergei Magnitsky and the Cover Up by the Russian Government” is the result of 1000 man hours of work conducted by a team of pro-bono lawyers, forensic investigators and Sergei Magnitsky’s colleagues, who have reviewed Russian court filings, criminal case materials and public statements by government officials in the Magnitsky case. The report shows in more than 100 documents, photographs and media links how Russian government officials systematically tortured Sergei Magnitsky in custody, and how every single department of the Russian law enforcement system has been involved in the cover-up of the crimes.

“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 starts out by showing, for the first time, graphic and disturbing images of the deep lacerations and bruises on Sergei Magnitsky’s body after he was beaten by eight riot guards with rubber batons one hour before he was found dead on the floor of an isolation cell at Matrosskaya pre-trial detention center. It shows an internal report from Matrosskaya Tishina, which has never been seen before, where its head, Fikhret Tagiev authorized the use of rubber batons in those fatal beatings and then ordered the closure of any further probe eight days after Sergei Magnitsky died.

The report then presents another key document, which has never been seen before, showing how an official from the Preobrazhensky office of the Russian State Investigative Committee reviewed the evidence of Sergei Magnitky’s death three days after he died and wrote a recommendation to his superiors that a murder investigation should be opened. This recommendation was never acted upon and concealed until it came to light in this review of case files recently.

The Magnitsky report reveals evidence provided by civilian doctors showing how detention center officials falsified the time, place and other circumstances of Magnitsky’s death in their care. Detention center officials stated that Magnitsky was delivered to a prison hospital at Matrosskaya Tishina in Moscow, where he was examined by medical personnel, and fell suddenly ill and died at 9:50 pm on a hospital bed after resuscitation attempts failed. However, testimony from the civilian doctor present at the time of Magnitsky’s death indicate that he did not have an opportunity to examine Magnitsky because he found Magnitsky’s dead body on the floor of an isolation cell before 9 pm.

The Magnitsky report contains links to seven formal requests for medical attention (out of 20 in total) that Sergei Magnitsky filed to all branches of the Russian state, including the Russian Interior Ministry, General Prosecutor’s Office, Federal Penitentiary Service, and the Moscow Court.
These requests were filed after he fell ill, lost twenty kilos and was diagnosed with Pancreatitis, Gallstones and Cholecystitus.

The report then provides links to the six letters from each branch of the Russian law enforcement apparatus systematically refusing his increasingly desperate pleas for medical attention. These refusals come from:

–          Judge Alexei Krivoruchko of the Moscow Tverskoi Court on 14 September 2009;

–          Judge Elena Stashina of the Moscow Tverskoi court on 12 November 2009;

–          Prosecutor Andrei Pechegin, of the Russian General Prosecutor’s office on 9 October 2009;

–          Major Oleg Silchenko of the Russian Federal Interior Ministry on
2 September 2009;

–          Lieutenant Colonel Dmitri Komnov Head of ButrykaPre-Trial DetentionCenteron 7 October 2009;

–          General Vladimir Davydov, Head of MoscowPenitentiary Service on
7 October 2009.

The report then highlights the contradiction between the many requests and denials of medical attention and the public statements made by Russian officials about their non-existence. Among senior Russian government officials exposed in the report as having publicly lied about Magnitsky’s medical conditions in custody were:

–          Irina Dudukina, the official spokeswoman for the Interior Ministry’s Investigative Committee, who said on 17 November 2010 that “there has not been a single complaint from Magnitsky about his health in the criminal case file.” http://www.interfax.ru/society/txt.asp?id=110496

–          Alexei Anichin, the Deputy Russian Interior Minister, who said on 23 December 2009 that “Out of 111 complaints from pre-trial detention reviewed by the Interior Ministry, not a single complaint contained anything to do with his health or conditions of his detention”
http://www.infox.ru/accident/crime/2009/12/23/Dyelo_Magnitskogo_za.phtml

–          Oleg Logunov, Chief of Legal Department of the General Prosecutor’s Office, who said on 7 June 2010 that “for the whole period of his detention, the investigation did not receive a single compliant about his health” http://www.polit.ru/news/2010/06/08/logunov/

–          Olga Egorova, Head of the Moscow City Court, who said on 14 September 2010 that “Magnitsky did not request to be released due to his health. The judges probably did not know about his health”
http://www.echo.msk.ru/news/710430-echo.html

–           Konstantin Kosachev, Head of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Russian Parliament, who said on 18 May 2010 that “Magnitsky in many of his petitions … to the investigators complained about everything, but never about his illness and non-receipt of medical care”
http://echo.msk.ru/blog/kosachev/680621-echo/

–          Yuri Kalinin, former head of the Russian Penitentiary Service and currently a member of the Russian Parliament who said on 4 April 2011 that “The death of Magnitsky was an accident that was hard to foresee. He received medical care for his diagnosed illness”
http://www.vz.ru/politics/2011/4/4/480494.html

–          Alexander Bastrykin, Head of the Russian State Investigative Committee who said on 7 September 2010 “There is no ground to think that his death was connected to actions of officials who prosecuted him. There is no objective information showing that he was prosecuted illegally or that physical and psychological pressure was applied to him”
http://www.rg.ru/2010/09/07/skp.html

“Most shockingly, this report proves that nearly every single high level Russian official in the law enforcement system publicly lied to cover up the fact that he was systematically denied medical care for a life threatening illness,” said a Hermitage Capital spokesman.

“The report dispels any myths that Magnitsky did not complain about his medical condition or that he complained to the wrong state authorities or that the authorities did not have the knowledge of his diagnoses of pancreatitis and gallstones. The report shows that all state bodies received his complaints and flatly refused them,” added the Hermitage Capital representative.

The report concludes that the Russian government has failed to investigate Magnitsky’s torture and murder and the corruption he had uncovered. It further shows that the Russian investigation is conducted and supervised by the very same officials who have been implicated in the crimes and therefore does not meet any standard of independence and impartiality.

All petitions from Magnitsky’s family filed with the Russian authorities seeking to open a torture and murder probe were rejected, most recently in September 2011. Requests from Magnitsky”s family for an independent medical expertise have also been repeatedly rejected by Russian authorities and courts, most recently in October 2011.

The Russian General Prosecutor’s Office, the same agency which was responsible for a number of the violations of Magnitsky’s rights in custody, was ordered by President Medvedev to oversee the probe into the Magnitsky case after his death. As a result of this probe, the Russian Interior Ministry officials who were involved in the $230 million corruption uncovered by Magnitsky and his subsequent arrest and persecution were absolved from any wrong-doing, promoted and decorated with state honors, with the most recent conclusions issued in November 2011.

The official Russian investigation into Magnitsky’s death has been extended ten times, as a result of which two medical officials were accused in October 2011 of failing to diagnose “diabetes and hepatitis”, two diseases which Magnitsky never had. The authorities refused Magnitsky’s family access to his personal and medical records by denying over 30 requests for information. In a final development, the Russian Prosecutor’s Office re-opened a criminal case against Sergei Magnitsky twenty months after he died, and assigned to the case the same Interior Ministry officials who arrested and tortured him to death. Requests from the family to cease this unprecedented misuse of the justice system have been denied by prosecutorial authorities and Russian courts.

The 75-page Magnitsky report has already been submitted to the US Congress, the Canadian Parliament, five EU Parliaments, and the Russian Human Rights Council. It is now being publicly released more broadly as part of an on-going campaign to obtain visa sanctions and asset freezes all over the world for all the officials involved in the Magnitsky’s false arrest, torture and death and the subsequent cover-up.

Sergei Magnitsky was a 37-year old lawyer who served as an outside counsel to the Hermitage Fund when he uncovered the largest-known tax refund fraud in Russian history perpetrated by Russian officials. He testified about it and was arrested on trumped-up charges by the same officials, tortured for 358 days and murdered on 16 November 2009 in Russian police custody. None of the officials Magnitsky reported for their role in the embezzlement of
$230 million of public funds and who were involved in his false arrest, torture and murder have been prosecuted for these crimes. After two years of investigation, two medical officials were charged with unintentional negligence in proceedings which deprived the Magnitsky family and their counsel from access to most of his personal records and case files.

Last April, the US Helsinki Commission has published a list of 60 Russian officials involved in the $230 million corruption uncovered by Magnitsky and his subsequent arrest, torture and death. Last November, Sergei Magnitsky was posthumously awarded the Integrity Award by Transparency International for his personal stance against the Russian corruption. This October, lawmakers from 29 countries in Europe signed a Magnitsky Declaration calling upon Russia to immediately prosecute killers of Sergei Magnitsky.

Press Release originally sent 23 Oct 2011
by The Hermitage Fund

23 October 2011 – Mrs. Natalia Magnitskaya, mother of the 37-year old anti-corruption lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who died in a Russian pre-trial detention center two years ago after being subjected to torture and denied medical treatment, has sued a senior Moscow judge for the denial of access to justice. A hearing of her lawsuit is scheduled for Monday, 24 October, 13:30 at the Moscow City Court (8 Bogorodsky Val).

Mrs. Magnitskaya is suing Judge Igor Alisov, Chairman of the Tverskoi District Court in Moscow, for failure to consider her legal action to stop the prosecution by Russian authorities of her dead son, a prosecution denounced as barbaric and medieval by friends of her late son. In refusing to accept Mrs. Magnitskaya’s claim, Judge Alisov said that the criminal prosecution of a dead lawyer does not violate his mother’s rights and does not obstruct her access to justice.

Explaining the grounds for her lawsuit against Judge Alisov, Mrs. Magnitskaya says:

“Judge Alisov, in his position as Chairman of Tverskoi District Court, deprived me of the right to protection from courts. I believe he was obviously aware that this denial of justice was against the law. I consider his actions as a hidden form of mockery and manifestation of his conflict of interest.”
“Earlier, the Deputy General Prosecutor of Russia issued an unlawful and unconstitutional decree to prosecute my dead son making me a participant in that criminal proceeding. The fact that it is directly relevant to my rights is evidenced by summonses for questioning that I have received from Interior Ministry Investigator Sapunova who personally prosecuted my son,” says Mrs. Magnitskaya in the lawsuit.

On 30 July 2011, Deputy General Prosecutor of Russia (whose name has been withheld by authorities from the public and the Magnistky family) ordered the reopening of the prosecution against Mr. Magnitsky, who had been dead for 20 months by then. This was done under the pretext of a recent Constitutional Court ruling which allowed cases to be reopened against deceased defendants on application from their relatives for the purposes of reinstating their good name and rehabilitation. However, Mr. Magnitsky’s relatives did not apply for the case to be reopened. Instead of rehabilitation, the case is being used by the Russian Interior Ministry to prosecute Mr. Magnitsky after his death, using the same evidence that the Russian President’s Human Rights Council concluded was fabricated, and led by the same team of investigators that the Human Rights Council concluded in its report in July 2011 had a gross conflict of interest. Prior to his arrest in October 2008, Mr. Magnitsky testified against these investigators for their role in the theft of his client’s companies and the embezzlement of $230 million of public funds. He later gave testimony from detention regarding their role in the cover-up of these acts.

Instead of prosecuting the officials named by the Human Rights Council for the false arrest of Mr. Magnitsky on trumped-up charges, Russian authorities are now prosecuting Mr. Magnitsky. As part of this case, in August and September 2011, Mr. Magnitsky’s mother was summoned for questioning as a witness by the same Russian Interior Ministry officials who arrested Mr. Magnitsky to silence him and who tortured Mr. Magnisky or authorised his torture while he was  in custody.

On 5 September 2011, Mrs. Magnitskaya filed a lawsuit against the Deputy General Prosecutor for prosecuting her son after his death.

On 12 September 2011, Judge Igor Alisov refused to consider Mrs. Magnitskaya’s lawsuit against the Deputy General Prosecutor claiming—despite a very detailed filing setting out the grounds for her suit—that she was not a party to the proceedings and she did not justify how her rights have been violated by the reopening of the case against her son.

On 20 September 2011, Mrs. Magnitskaya filed a lawsuit against Judge Igor Alisov for failure to consider her lawsuit against Deputy General Prosecutor.

The lawsuit against Judge Alisov will be heard on Monday, 24 October, in the Moscow City Court. Mrs. Magnitskaya is represented by her counsel, lawyer Nikolai Gorokhov.

Judge Alisov is the same judge who in March 2011 absolved from any responsibility all of the officials named by Sergei Magnitsky as perpetrators of the $230 million theft. The judge instead convicted an ex-felon, previously convicted for burglary, of what has been called the largest financial crime in Russian history. This was done in a special proceeding that examined no evidence. Judge Alisov sought no compensation of the embezzled $230 million from the convict.

For further information please contact:

Hermitage Capital

+44 207 440 17 77
info@lawandorderinrussia.org
http://lawandorderinrussia.org

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