U.S. Congress urged to support visa sanctions and assets seizures targeting Russian officials involved in corruption and the death of Magnitsky
May 6, 2010
U.S. Congressional Human Rights Commission Is Called to Support Visa Sanctions and Asset Seizures against the Corrupt Russian Officials Involved in the Killing of Anti-Corruption Lawyer
6 May 2010 – Today the U.S. Congressional Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission has been urged to support U.S. visa sanctions and assets seizures targeting Russian officials involved in corruption and the persecution of a 37 year-old anti-corruption lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.
The Commission, which held a hearing on the state of judicial and law enforcement systems in Russia, heard testimony from Mr. William Browder, CEO of Hermitage Capital Management. He spoke about how Sergei Magnitsky, who represented the Hermitage Fund, testified about the involvement of Russian Interior Ministry officers in the theft of $230 million from the Russian state. Browder described how immediately thereafter, Magnitsky was arrested on false charges by the Russian Interior Ministry officers he had implicated, kept hostage for 12 months and tortured to death. Despite the cruel and inhuman treatment he endured – described as “modern-day Gulag” – and the “legal cynicism” of Russian judges and investigators in his case who ignored or dismissed his 450 complaints, Sergei Magnitsky believed to the last day in the possibility of justice in Russia. Mr. Browder testified:
“[Sergei Magnitsky] was killed for having the courage to testify against corrupt police and government officials who had stolen $230 million from the Russian government. Despite enduring agonizing pain in the final four months of his life as his keepers tortured him and deliberately withheld life-saving medical care, Sergei refused to withdraw his testimony and compromise his integrity. Whenever challenged, he would repeat to his captors his firm determination to bring them to justice in an open trial. He paid the ultimate price for his beliefs.”
In his testimony, Mr. Browder relied on notes, some of them released for the first time, which were hand written by Sergei Magnitsky in pre-trial detention. These notes, Mr. Browder said, “read like a modern-day Gulag Archipelago.”
Mr. Browder quoted a chilling passage from a letter written by Sergei Magnitsky on 8 August 2009, three months prior to his death, describing his experience of “going through a meat grinder”:
“Justice, under such conditions [deprivation of sleep, food, and drink over a long period of time] turns into the process of grinding human meat for prisons and camps. A process, against which a man is not able to defend himself effectively. A process through which a man loses awareness of what is happening to him and can only think of when this all will be finished and when he can escape the physical and emotional torture and make it to the labor camp.” [Excerpt from Sergei Magnitsky’s letter, 8 August 2009]
In a hand-written note prepared for a 12 November 2009 court hearing which prolonged his detention without trial, Sergei Magnitsky called himself a “hostage” of those who stole $230 million from the Russian budget and who covered up that crime:
“I have been detained in prison for a year as a hostage in the interests of the persons, whose intention it is to ensure that the criminals actually guilty in the theft of 5.4 billion rubles from the state budget will never be found. The same Investigator Silchenko and his subordinates [chief investigator in the criminal case against Sergei Magnitsky] investigated the case of the money stolen from the budget. A man who signed the forged documents [to steal the money] was convicted for 5 years in prison. That same man, a sawmill worker, was convicted, while the other perpetrators have not been identified by the investigators. Investigator Silchenko does not want to identify the other persons, who made this fraud possible. He instead wants the lawyers of the Hermitage Fund, who pursued and continue to pursue attempts for this case to be investigated, be forced to emigrate from their country in which criminal cases were filed against them, or like me be detained in prison. My imprisonment has nothing in common with the legal purposes of criminal proceedings.., but this is a punishment for my merely defending the interests of my client, and finally the interests of the State.” [Excerpt from Sergei Magnitsky’s notes to court, 12 November 2009]
Mr. Browder described how Interior Ministry officials exerted physical and psychological pressure on Sergei Magnitsky in order to force him to withdraw his testimonies regarding abuse of office by officials, and how Magnitsky stoically refused to surrender:
“As a lawyer and someone who believed in justice, there was no way he would be pressured into making false statements about himself or his client. Instead, he wrote new complaints in which he described the pressure he was subjected to and how police officers knowing his innocence were producing false evidence. He explained how the tax charges against him were fabricated to cover up police involvement in the largest known fraud against the Russian budget.”
On 13 October 2009, one month before his death, Sergei repeated his testimony about the role of his persecutors in crimes against the Russian state and the theft of $230 million from the Russian people. The last complaint Sergei was able to file with the Russian courts was made on 11 November 2009 – five days before his death. It described the egregious tampering by Interior Ministry officials of the materials in his case file and the falsification of evidence against him by Investigator Oleg Silchenko.
Mr. Browder gave a detailed account of the torment of Sergei Magnitsky at the hands of the Interior Ministry officers and how due to his courage after 11 months in detention without trial he had become “an inconvenient hostage”:
“The corrupt officers tried to break him, but they found him stronger than they could have ever imagined… Ultimately, he [Sergei Magnitsky] reached the one-year deadline for pre-trial detention under Russian law, and the investigators had to put him on trial or release him. They were planning a big show trial for him where they were hoping for his false confessions to be the primary evidence of the trial. Instead they had no evidence of his wrongdoing, and more worrying for them, he was continuing to make very specific, public and incriminating statements about police involvement in the theft of $230 million from the Russian government. He had become a very inconvenient hostage.”
Mr. Browder highlighted the mockery of justice Sergei Magnitsky encountered while in detention, “the absolute lack of any legal remedy against the Interior Ministry officers persecuting him,” a system he called “legal cynicism”:
“What happened to Sergei reflects the prevailing attitude among judges and law enforcement officers in Russia today, which can best be described as “legal cynicism.” Investigators and prosecutors act in a legal vacuum subject to no judicial checks. The judges create an appearance of impartial oversight and mediation but in fact exercise no restraint on the power of the Interior Ministry… An innocent person falsely accused by corrupt police officials is allowed to file complaints only to have them rejected. All petitions from the police are accepted however ludicrous or unsubstantiated they are. The presumption of innocence, a central tenet of judicial systems everywhere, is discarded from the outset.”
Mr. Browder said in conclusion:
“Sergei’s story is one of extraordinary bravery and heroism that should be an example to us all. He died still believing, despite the cruel experience of the last year of his young life, that the rule of law could exist in modern Russia. Russia needs more, not fewer, patriots like him.”
Mr. Browder called upon Russia and the U.S. to uphold the ideals of Sergei Magnitsky and to provide meaningful protection to lawyers in Russia:
“Honest lawyers in Russia stand in the way of corrupt judges and police and are routine targets for harassment and worse. Sergei is not the only lawyer working for Hermitage who has suffered at the hands of the Russian Interior Ministry… President Medvedev, a lawyer himself, should understand the crucial role lawyers play in building a sustainable rule of law.”
Mr. Browder pointed out that six months since the young lawyer’s death in custody, no official has been charged for their role in the persecution, torture and death of Sergei Magnitsky. The Russian officials and criminals who together stole $230 million from the Russian state still walk free today, and in some cases, have even been promoted within their respective government ministries.
Mr. Browder called upon Congress and the State Department to support the initiative by Senator Cardin, Chairman of the U.S. Helsinki Commission, to ban the issuance of U.S. visas to corrupt Russian officials involved in the $230 million fraud and the death of Magnitsky. He also urged the U.S. Treasury Department to freeze the U.S. bank accounts of corrupt Russian officials and to work closely with the relevant foreign governments to freeze these accounts overseas.
On 26 April 2010, the Chairman of the U.S. Helsinki Commission, Senator Benjamin Cardin called upon the U.S. State Department to immediately cancel and permanently withdraw the U.S. visas of over 60 Russian officials and others involved in the $230 million corruption exposed by Sergei Magnitsky, his arrest on trumped-up charges and death in custody. (See link to the Helsinki Commission’s website: http://csce.gov/). The officials implicated in corruption and the death of Sergei Magnitsky and who appear on Senator Cardin’s visa blacklist include Russian Deputy Interior Minister Alexei Anichin, Deputy General Prosecutor Victor Grin, and judges who sanctioned the arrest and detention without trial of Sergei Magnitsky and the repressive criminal proceedings against other Hermitage Fund lawyers in Russia.
For further information:
Hermitage Capital
+44 207 440 1777
http://twitter.com/KatieFisherTwit
Link to the Tom Lantos Commission official website:
Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission was established by a Resolution of the U.S. House of Representatives in 2008 which institutionalised the largest bipartisan congressional human rights working group, which was founded by the late Congressman Tom Lantos. The mission of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission is to promote, defend and advocate internationally recognized human rights norms in a nonpartisan manner, both within and outside of Congress, as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other relevant human rights instruments.
The Commission is named in honor of the life and legacy of the late Congressman Lantos who was the only Holocaust survivor to serve in the U.S. Congress (1980 – 2008). As a teenager, he was sent to forced labor camps and endured many instances of torture and abuse. During his time at the U.S. Congress, he led an enormous effort to raise awareness about the need for the respect for human rights around the world.
Link to the Helsinki Commission page:
“Cardin Urges Visa Ban for Russian Officials Connected to Anti-Corruption Lawyer’s Death”:
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