30 May 2016 – The widow of Sergei Mag­nit­sky has writ­ten to the Nor­we­gian Kort­film­fes­ti­valen request­ing the fes­ti­val to with­draw the film, which posthu­mously slan­ders her mur­dered hus­band, from its June 2016 program.

 

“The fam­ily of Sergei Mag­nit­sky opposes the dis­tri­b­u­tion of “The Mag­nit­sky Act” film by Russ­ian film­maker Andrei Nekrasov in any form, given its false and defam­a­tory con­tent, highly degrad­ing of the deceased Sergei Mag­nit­sky and hurt­ful to the feel­ings of the Mag­nit­sky mother and widow,” said the Mag­nit­sky fam­ily in their statement.

 

“There is no pub­lic inter­est in pub­lish­ing and dis­trib­ut­ing infor­ma­tion that is know­ingly false, espe­cially when this infor­ma­tion causes pain and suf­fer­ing to the fam­ily of the deceased and is degrad­ing to his mem­ory. The know­ing dis­tri­b­u­tion of mali­cious false­hoods about a deceased per­son will make the fes­ti­val com­plicit in it,” said Sergei Magnitsky’s widow.

 

Russ­ian film­maker Andrei Nekrasov claimed in his inter­view in a Nor­we­gian news­pa­per Dag­bladet on 26 May 2016 that he had con­ducted ”inten­sive research” on which the film is based.

 

The Mag­nit­sky fam­ily strongly dis­agrees, saying:

 

“Had Andrei Nekrasov gen­uinely con­ducted the research, he would have come across pub­licly avail­able evi­dence that con­tra­dicts his asser­tions, and demon­strates that they are untrue.” “It is clear from the review of the pub­lic record on the Mag­nit­sky case, how­ever, that no respon­si­ble research was conducted.”

 

In his film, Andrei Nekrasov claims that Sergei Mag­nit­sky was not a lawyer, when offi­cial Russ­ian court records and Magnitsky’s own tes­ti­mony demon­strates the fal­sity of this claim, show­ing that Mag­nit­sky rep­re­sented clients in courts and iden­ti­fied him­self as a lawyer.

 

Next, Nekrasov falsely claims that Sergei Mag­nit­sky did not blow the whis­tle on the com­plic­ity of Russ­ian police offi­cers in the fraud in his tes­ti­mony before his arrest, when Sergei Mag­nit­sky named the offi­cers 27 times in his 5 June 2008 testimony.

 

Nekrasov also falsely claims that Sergei Mag­nit­sky had not been beaten before his death in cus­tody, when this is con­tra­dicted by offi­cial autopsy pho­tos show­ing seri­ous injuries. It is also con­tra­dicted by: the Russ­ian state death cer­tifi­cate refer­ring to a cere­bral cra­nial injury; the Russ­ian government’s record describ­ing the use of rub­ber batons on Mag­nit­sky the night he died; and the Russ­ian government’s expert con­clu­sion describ­ing Magnitsky’s injuries com­ing from blunt force trauma.

 

In addi­tion, Andrei Nekrasov falsely claims that some­body else, not Sergei Mag­nit­sky, reported the US$230 mil­lion fraud, despite the doc­u­men­tary evi­dence that the first report about the US$230 mil­lion fraud was made in July 2008 by Her­mitage on the basis of Magnitsky’s inves­ti­ga­tion into the crime.

 

Because of the demon­stra­bly false and defam­a­tory con­tent, the screen­ing of the film by Andrei Nekrasov has been can­celled at the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment, by French TV sta­tion ARTE and Ger­man TV sta­tion ZDF.

 

The false and defam­a­tory infor­ma­tion about Sergei Mag­nit­sky pre­sented in this film is con­trary to the evi­dence from Russ­ian gov­ern­ment bod­ies, inves­ti­ga­tions by inde­pen­dent Russ­ian human rights organ­i­sa­tions, find­ings and con­clu­sions by numer­ous inter­na­tional organ­i­sa­tions includ­ing the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment, the Par­lia­men­tary Assem­bly of the Coun­cil of Europe, the Par­lia­men­tary Assem­bly of the OSCE, the Moscow Helsinki Group, theUS Helsinki Com­mis­sion, the US Con­gress, the Nor­we­gian Helsinki Com­mit­tee, the UN Rap­por­teur on Tor­ture and Other Cruel, Inhu­man and Degrad­ing Treat­ment, and others.

 

“In addi­tion to pre­sent­ing false infor­ma­tion about Sergei Mag­nit­sky, degrad­ing his mem­ory and his sac­ri­fice, the film presents a fic­tion­alised por­trayal of Sergei Mag­nit­sky as a per­son, cre­ates a fic­ti­tious iden­tity of him and presents his fic­ti­tious con­ver­sa­tions with oth­ers, that are untrue, and removed from real­ity, that also do not jus­tify and con­tra­dict the depic­tion of this film as ”doc­u­men­tary,” said the Mag­nit­sky family.

 

Kort­film­fes­ti­valen in Nor­way has been informed of the Mag­nit­sky family’s con­cern against dis­play­ing or in any other way dis­trib­ut­ing the film’s con­tent, con­trary to the Nor­we­gian Dam­ages Act, which pro­hibits dis­tri­b­u­tion of false infor­ma­tion to cause harm to people’s reputation.

 

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion please contact:

 

Jus­tice for Sergei Magnitsky

+44 207 440 1777

e-mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org

www.lawandorderinrussia.org

www.billbrowder.com

https://twitter.com/Billbrowder

27 May 2016 – A US crim­i­nal grand jury has been con­vened to exam­ine the involve­ment of Denis Kat­syv, son of Russ­ian gov­ern­ment offi­cial Petr Kat­syv, in the US$230 mil­lion fraud uncov­ered by Sergei Mag­nit­sky.  In 2008, Pre­ve­zon, a Cyprus-based com­pany owned by Denis Kat­syv, received funds traced by the US Depart­ment of Jus­tice and the Swiss Gen­eral Prosecutor’s office to the US$230 mil­lion fraud uncov­ered by Sergei Magnitsky.

 

Since Sep­tem­ber 2013, Denis Katsyv’s com­pa­nies have been sub­ject to a U.S. civil for­fei­ture case brought by the US Depart­ment of Jus­tice for money laun­der­ing. Under that case the US gov­ern­ment has frozen $14 mil­lion of assets belong­ing to Katsyv’s companies.

 

“The defen­dants [com­pa­nies owned by Denis Katsvy] were involved in the laun­der­ing of the pro­ceeds of the Russ­ian fraud, which itself amounts to an elab­o­rate series of crim­i­nal offences,” said US Jus­tice Depart­ment in its court fil­ing in New York.

 

“It is …entirely proper for the grand jury to inves­ti­gate whether the defen­dants [Katsyv’s com­pa­nies], who received pro­ceeds from the fraud, were involved in it,” said the US Depart­ment of Justice.

 

A Crim­i­nal Grand jury is a form of crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion in the United States used to deter­mine whether crim­i­nal charges should be brought against poten­tial defendants.

 

Pre­vi­ously, Katsyv’s com­pa­nies tried to chal­lenge the US and Swiss asset freez­ing orders, but courts in the US and Switzer­land denied those motions and con­firmed that the freez­ing was justified.

 

The wire trans­fers to Pre­ve­zon from the $230 mil­lion fraud uncov­ered by Sergei Mag­nit­sky showed highly unusual pay­ments. Pre­ve­zon dis­guised incom­ing pay­ments for “san­i­tary equip­ment” and “auto parts,” which were sup­posed to be sup­plied but never deliv­ered because Pre­ve­zon was in fact a real estate company.

 

Accord­ing to the US Depart­ment of Jus­tice, the fal­si­fied con­tracts used to jus­tify Prevezon’s incom­ing wire trans­fers claimed that Pre­ve­zon was sup­posed to deliver 500 acrylic bath sets under the brand name “Doc­tor Jet,” man­u­fac­tured in Sicilia, Italy, with dimen­sions of 190 x 120/95 x 65, to two shell com­pa­nies in Moldova which did not do any legit­i­mate busi­ness and never in fact pur­chased the bath sets.

 

Pre­ve­zon explained these sus­pi­cious wire trans­fers to the US Court stat­ing that an agree­ment existed between its Russ­ian direc­tor, a stu­dent named Tim­o­fei Krit, and “investor Petrov,” and denied knowl­edge of false wire descriptions.

 

How­ever, dur­ing its inves­ti­ga­tion, the US Jus­tice Depart­ment iden­ti­fied fur­ther false and ques­tion­able wire trans­fers to Pre­ve­zon from com­pa­nies in Belize, BVI, etc. for an addi­tional amount of US$2 mil­lion. These wire trans­fers were sim­i­larly dis­guised as pay­ments for com­put­ers, video, home equip­ment, etc. that again were never delivered.

 

Pre­vi­ously, Denis Katsyv’s firm Mar­tash paid US$8 mil­lion under the 2005 money laun­der­ing case by the State of Israel.

 

Denis Katsyv’s father, Petr Kat­syv, has been Vice Pres­i­dent of OAO Russ­ian Rail­ways, a state trans­porta­tion monop­oly, since 2014. Before that, he was Vice Pre­mier of the Gov­ern­ment and Trans­porta­tion Min­is­ter in the Moscow Region. Con­tracts with Moscow Region’s gov­ern­ment struc­tures sup­ported the busi­ness of his son, Denis Kat­syv.

 

Sim­i­larly, Denis Katsyv’s Russ­ian lawyer Natalia Vesel­nit­skaya devel­oped her busi­ness in part on con­tracts with Moscow gov­ern­ment agen­cies, where her hus­band is Deputy Min­is­ter of Trans­porta­tion (and was deputy to Kat­syv senior dur­ing his time as Min­is­ter of Trans­porta­tion), and pre­vi­ously, between 1984 – 2000 was offi­cial within the Moscow Region’s Prosecutor’s Office.

 

Accord­ing to court fil­ings, Petr Kat­syv was pre­vi­ously in con­tact with the FBI to pro­vide infor­ma­tion on Russ­ian orga­nized crime but with­drew his pro­posal, when he was informed by the US author­i­ties that his coop­er­a­tion would not help set­tle the money laun­der­ing and civil for­fei­ture case by the US Jus­tice Depart­ment pend­ing in the South­ern Dis­trict Court of New York.

 

Sergei Mag­nit­sky, who uncov­ered the US$230 mil­lion fraud and tes­ti­fied about the com­plic­ity of Russ­ian offi­cials in it, was tor­tured and killed in Russ­ian police cus­tody at the age of 37. The unprece­dented events of this case are described in the New-York Timesbest-seller by William Brow­der, leader of global ‘Jus­tice for Sergei Mag­nit­sky’ cam­paign, called “Red Notice. How I Became Putin’s No 1 Enemy,” and in a series of jus­tice cam­paign videos on Youtube chan­nel “Russ­ian Untouch­ables.”

 

For more infor­ma­tion, please contact:

 

Jus­tice for Sergei Magnitsky

+44 207 440 1777

e-mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org

www.lawandorderinrussia.org

billbrowder.com

https://twitter.com/Billbrowder