A Voice for the Voiceless

By Alexandra Halsey-Storch
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

MOSCOW, Russia–On Wednesday April 11, 2012 the Former Russian Finance Minister, Alexei Kudrin, attempted to set forth an explanation as to why $1 billion was stolen from the Russian budget while under his supervision between 2006 and 2010.

Kudrin claimed that by no fault of his own was this money stolen.  Strangely, and perhaps even unbelievably, “Employees of the Treasury cannot challenge the appropriateness of [the illegal approvals of tax refunds for millions of dollars]. Neither the leadership of the Treasury, nor, especially, the leadership of the Ministry of Finance interfere in this process.” In other words, it simply was not part of Kudrin’s duty as a Finance Minister to protect the funds.

Kudrin went on to state that, “neither the Ministry of Finance, nor I, at that time as Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister, had the authority [to investigate the thefts].”

Despite not being able to investigate the crime,  Kudrin was aware of the illegal actions taking place. In August 2008, and again on October 13, 2009, Hermitage Capital—an investment fund that has invested about $4 billion in Russia— contacted Kudrin and provided detailed evidence of the tax official’s involvement in the thefts.

The 2008 letter “described evidence of the theft of $230 million” by way of tax inspections. No Russian official responded to the letter.

The 2009 letter described 10 transactions used by the same tax inspections in Moscow to steal $470 million from the 2006-2008 Russian budget. The Deputy Finance Minister responded to the letter stating that, “the Finance Ministry does not have authority to investigate the facts of budget thefts stated in [the] application.”

19 days after the receipt of the 2009 later, a Hermitage Capital attorney, who had initially exposed the tax rebate fraud, Sergei Magnitsky, was killed at the hands of abusive Russian authorities.

Magnitsky, who gave “sworn testimony against the officials involved, had been detained shortly after divulging the scheme. At the time of his death, he had been incarcerated for about a year.

In response to Kudrin’s naïve statements made this week, a Hermitage Capital representative countered that, “It is remarkable that the man whose responsibility was to protect the finances of the Russian state could say that he shouldn’t interfere when crimes were going on under his nose, in which $1 billion was stolen directly from the Russian treasury.”

Moreover, “not a single government employee [has] been charged or prosecuted for these successive crimes…” despite having been discovered over four years prior, said a Hermitage Capital representative.

Perhaps most egregious, is the blatant hypocrisy that the Russian government has emanated in the weeks following the tax fraud exposure: “the Russian budget is no longer functioning for the Russian people, but is now an unrestrained source of financing for corrupt officials and organized crime,” said a Hermitage Capital representative.”

STRASBOURG, France — The European Court of Human Rights on Thursday denied German man’s human right to carry on an incestuous relationship with his sister.  Patrick S. of Leipzig, the man convicted in this case, failed in his assertion that a ban on incest violated his right to “respect for private and family life,” which the European Convention on Human Rights protects.

The ECHR is the judicial prong of the Council of Europe, a group of forty-sever member states located in Strasbourg, France.

In a unanimous decision the Court held that although the German law’s effect violated Patrick S.’s choice of family life, it is nevertheless permissible because it is “aimed at the protection of morals and the rights of others.”

Germany’s law is predicated on the likelihood that a child of an incestuous relationship will be born with a disability.

The story underpinning the case is unusual.  Patrick S. became estranged from his biological family shortly after his birth in 1976 and was raised in care.  It was not until 2000 that he reunited with his family.  At that point he developed a consensual sexual relationship with his biological sister.  Over the course of that relationship from 2001 to 2005 they had four children together.

Germany outlaws sexual relations between relatives and punishes such behavior with up to three years in prison or a fine.  Patrick S. was handed several prison sentences and has already spent three years in prison.

The ruling has prompted some German legislators to call for a repeal of the incest ban and join nations like France, Japan, Turkey, and Brazil in allowing family members to have sexual relationships.  Hans-Christian Ströbele of the German Green Party said, “Two grown up people should be able to decided for themselves whether they want to have sex with each other — assuming, of course, that they love each other and it happens voluntarily and there is no form of dependency in the relationship.”

The center-left German newspaper Suddeusche Zeitung also wrote in opposition to the ECHR’s ruling:

The unspoken central reason for the societal taboo and the penal ban on incest is the possibility of hereditary defects — a factor that Strasbourg only hinted at. But the intention behind the eugenic argument is one that is indefensible, and not just in Germany with its terrible Nazi past: The increased risk of hereditary defects does not justify a legal ban. Otherwise you would have to legally ban other risk groups, like women over 40 or people with genetic diseases, from having children. Does anyone truly want to prevent predictable disabilities using penal measures and thus deny disabled children the right to life in 2012? That’s absurd. And yet such fears of genetic damage are precisely what shape the punishibility of sexual intercourse between siblings.

An editorial in Die Tageszeitung, however, applauds the ruling:

The ban on incest is no arbitrary law or anachronistic rule that is irreconcilable with self-determination in sexuality and an enlightened society. To the contrary: It is, as the anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss said, a prerequisite for sociality — and a prerequisite for enlightenment and the rights of the individual.

In the aftermath of the ruling, Patrick S. says that the German law has ruined his family.  He and his sister are now separated and three of the children live in foster homes.  The fourth child remains with the mother.

For more information please see:

The Independent — European Court Supports Guilty Verdict In Incest Case — 13 April 2012

MSNBC — German Incest Couple Loses Human Rights Case — 12 April 2012

Spiegel Online — German Incest Ban Upheld By European Court — 12 April 2012

Spiegel Online — ‘Siblings Tied By Incest Don’t Belong In Courts’ — 12 April 2012

Washington Post — Germany Didn’t Violate Man’s Right Over Incest Conviction, European Court Says — 12 April 2012