Russian Interior Ministry Threatens Magnitsky Family Lawyer

January 17, 2012

17 January 2012 – Today, Natalya Magnitskaya, the mother of anti-corruption lawyer Sergei Magnitsky received her fifth summons from the Interior Ministry to appear as a witness in the criminal case opened up against her dead son. The summons is part of the ongoing pressure against the Magnitsky family to cease their calls for justice and prosecutions of Russian officials involved in Sergei Magnitsky’s torture and murder.

“I refuse to participate in the illegal investigative actions in a criminal case under which my son was repressed using the fabricated evidence,” said Sergei Magnitsky’s mother in a statement sent yesterday to the Russian General Prosecutor Yuri Chaika.

Nikolai Gorokhov, the lawyer for the family, has appealed to the Russian President’s Human Rights Council for protection from this Interior Ministry persecution. The President’s Human Rights Council concluded last July that the case against Magnitsky had been fabricated and his arrest was in breach of the European Human Rights Convention.

The decision by the Interior Ministry to resume the criminal case against Sergei Magnitsky was made after his death in late July last year, shortly after the President’s Human Rights Council published its findings of gross breaches of Magnitsky’s human rights. The decision to open the posthumous case was sanctioned by Deputy General Prosecutor Grin and Deputy Chief of the Interior Ministry’s Investigative Department Borodulin. Since then, the Russian Interior Ministry has claimed that it found no wrong-doing in actions of its investigators in spite of the detailed findings by the Human Rights Council of clear criminal actions by a number of Interior Ministry investigators. Since then, the Interior Ministry has been pressuring Magnitsky’s relatives to give up their right for his rehabilitation.

In a recent development, the Russian Interior Ministry announced that it has assigned Sergei Magnitsky’s mother the status of “representative of a deceased defendant,” despite the fact that this status does not exist under Russian law.

“I do not think it is possible for me to participate in the investigation of this case under the status that is not stipulated by the law and assigned to me against my will,” said Mrs Magnitskaya in a formal complaint.

However, complaints filed by the relatives have been rejected by the Chief of Interior Ministry’s Investigative Department for the Central Federal District Mr Solovyov on December 22, 2011.

The latest Interior Ministry summons received by Mrs Magnitskaya and other relatives is signed by Investigator Boris Kibis, who is the same investigator who rejected the conclusions of the Russian Human Rights Council on the illegality of Magnitsky’s arrest and prosecution as irrelevant.

In this latest summons, the Russian Interior Ministry threatens Natalya Magnitskaya’s lawyer that if he continues to resist the Interior Ministry’s actions on behalf of the family, the Interior Ministry will appoint their own lawyers to “represent” the family.

“If the intention of state investigators is to assign state lawyers to “represent” Magnitsky family against the family’s will is implemented, it would represent a gross violation of the family’s constitutional right to seek qualified legal assistance,” said Magnitsky family lawyer Nikolai Gorokhov. His complaint on behalf of the Magnitsky family was filed yesterday with Mr Chaika, Russian General Prosecutor, and Mr Solovyov, Chief of the Interior Ministry’s Department for the Central Federal District.

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