The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe Takes Steps Towards Launching an International Investigation into the Murder of Sergei Magnitsky

April 25, 2012

Yes­ter­day, at the Spring Ses­sion of the Par­lia­men­tary Assem­bly of the Coun­cil of Europe (PACE) meet­ing in Stras­bourg, 69 mem­bers of Par­lia­ment from 29 coun­tries signed a motion enti­tled: “Refus­ing impuni­ty for the killers of Sergei Mag­nit­sky”. The motion calls for a ‘ded­i­cat­ed report’ to inves­ti­gate the death of Sergei Mag­nit­sky and return the find­ings to the Assem­bly at a lat­er date this year. 

The motion states:

“The con­spir­a­cy lead­ing to Mr Magnitsky’s death was exposed by jour­nal­ists and inves­ti­gat­ed by the Pres­i­den­tial Human Rights Coun­cil and oth­er civ­il soci­ety bod­ies, which con­clud­ed in the sum­mer of 2011 that a num­ber of named offi­cials were indeed appar­ent­ly respon­si­ble for this crime. 

Accord­ing to inves­ti­ga­tors, fol­low­ing the events in ques­tion, the offi­cials con­cerned acquired lux­u­ry prop­er­ties and oth­er assets whose val­ue far exceeds what they could afford on their salaries as pub­lic ser­vants. The com­pe­tent author­i­ties have nev­er­the­less failed to prop­er­ly inves­ti­gate and pros­e­cute those respon­si­ble for Mr Magnitsky’s death. Instead, they have con­tin­ued to accuse Mr Mag­nit­sky, even seek­ing to pros­e­cute him posthumously.”

It fur­ther states:

“For the sake of its own cred­i­bil­i­ty and that of the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion, the Assem­bly should now engage in co-oper­a­tion with Rus­sia, through the prepa­ra­tion of a ded­i­cat­ed report, in order to ful­ly elu­ci­date this land­mark case.” 

The motion was intro­duced by Pieter Omtzigt, a Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment from the Nether­lands and mem­ber of the Euro­pean People’s Par­ty (EPP) at the Par­lia­men­tary Assem­bly of the Coun­cil of Europe. 

Mr Omtzigt said:

“It is a high­ly unusu­al step with­in the Coun­cil of Europe to focus on one case from one coun­try for a report. The high num­ber of sup­port­ers from so many coun­tries with­in the Coun­cil of Europe sug­gests the tru­ly emblem­at­ic nature of the Mag­nit­sky case and the Russ­ian Government’s inad­e­quate response.”

The motion will be con­sid­ered by the PACE Bureau at the Coun­cil of Europe on Fri­day 27 April. The Bureau is made up of the Pres­i­dent of the Assem­bly, 18 Vice –President’s (each from a dif­fer­ent mem­ber state), the Chair of each Polit­i­cal Group and Chairs of each PACE Com­mit­tee. Once the Bureau approve the motion, steps will be tak­en to com­mis­sion a spe­cial report into the Mag­nit­sky case and assign a rap­por­teur to con­duct the inves­ti­ga­tion and write the final report.

Spe­cial reports have pre­vi­ous­ly been con­duct­ed into the Khodokovsky case, CIA extra­or­di­nary ren­di­tion and organ thefts in Kosovo.

The Mag­nit­sky case was pre­vi­ous­ly raised at length in the August 2009 Legal Affairs and Human Rights Com­mit­tee report writ­ten by the for­mer Rap­por­teur Sabine Leutheuss­er-Schnar­ren­berg­er, cur­rent­ly serv­ing as Germany’s Min­is­ter for Jus­tice. This report can be found here: http://russian-untouchables.com/docs/D42.pdf

The full text of the “Refus­ing impuni­ty for the killers of Sergei Mag­nit­sky” motion sub­mit­ted at yesterday’s PACE Spring meet­ing can be found here:
http://assembly.coe.int/ASP/Doc/XrefViewPDF.asp?FileID=18232&Language=EN

Full list of PACE Signatories:

OMTZIGT Pieter, Nether­lands, EPP/CD
ACKETOFT Tina, Swe­den, ALDE
AGRAMUNT Pedro, Spain, EPP/CD
ANDERSON Don­ald, Unit­ed King­dom, SOC
ÁRNASON Mörður, Ice­land, SOC
AXELSSON Lennart, Swe­den, SOC
BACKMAN Þuriður, Ice­land, UEL
BARDINA PAU Josep Anton, Andor­ra, ALDE
BARNETT Doris, Ger­many, SOC
BOROWSKI Marek, Poland, NR
BREMER Tor, Nor­way, SOC
BUGNON André, Switzer­land, ALDE
CEDERBRATT Mikael, Swe­den, EPP/CD
ČIGĀNE Loli­ta, Latvia, EPP/CD
CILEVIČS Boriss, Latvia, SOC
CONNARTY Michael, Unit­ed King­dom, SOC
CORSINI Pao­lo, Italy, SOC
CRAMON-TAUBADEL Vio­la, von, Ger­many, SOC
DEBONO GRECH Joseph, Mal­ta, SOC
FLEGO Gvoz­den Srećko, Croa­t­ia, SOC
FRUNDA Györ­gy, Roma­nia, EPP/CD
GARDETTO Jean-Charles, Mona­co, EPP/CD
GUNNARSSON Jonas, Swe­den, SOC
GUŢU Ana, Repub­lic of Moldo­va, ALDE
HARANGOZÓ Gábor, Hun­gary, SOC
HAUGLI Håkon, Nor­way, SOC
HOLOVATY Ser­hiy, Ukraine, ALDE
JENSEN Michael Aas­trup, Den­mark, ALDE
JOHANSSON Mats, Swe­den, EPP/CD
LĪBIŅA-EGNERE Inese, Latvia, EPP/CD
LOKLINDT Lone, Den­mark, ALDE
LØHDE Sophie, Den­mark, ALDE
LUNDGREN Ker­stin, Swe­den, ALDE
LYDEKA Armi­nas, Lithua­nia, ALDE
MAELEN Dirk, Van der, Bel­gium, SOC
MANZONE-SAQUET Nicole, Mona­co, EPP/CD
MARCENARO Pietro, Italy, SOC
MARIN Chris­tine, France, EPP/CD
MATEU PI Mer­itx­ell, Andor­ra, ALDE
MATUŠIĆ Fra­no, Croa­t­ia, EPP/CD
MAURY PASQUIER Lil­iane, Switzer­land, SOC
MEALE Alan, Unit­ed King­dom, SOC
MONTAG Jerzy, Ger­many, SOC
MOTA AMARAL João Bosco, Por­tu­gal, EPP/CD
NEGELE Geb­hard, Liecht­en­stein, EPP/CD
O’REILLY Joseph, Ire­land, EPP/CD
PAPADIMITRIOU Elsa, Greece, EPP/CD
PELKONEN Jaana, Fin­land, EPP/CD
PFLUG Johannes, Ger­many, SOC
PHELAN John Paul, Ire­land, EPP/CD
POURBAIX-LUNDIN Mari­et­ta, de, Swe­den, EPP/CD
RAČAN Ivan, Croa­t­ia, SOC
REISSMANN Mette, Den­mark, SOC
ROSEIRA Maria de Belém, Por­tu­gal, SOC
RUPPRECHT Mar­lene, Ger­many, SOC
SANNEN Ludo, Bel­gium, SOC
SCHOU Ing­jerd, Nor­way, EPP/CD
SCHUSTER Mari­na, Ger­many, ALDE
SHERIDAN Jim, Unit­ed King­dom, SOC
SVEINSSON Gun­nar Bra­gi, Ice­land, ALDE
TOMLINSON John E., Unit­ed King­dom, SOC
TRETTEBERGSTUEN Anette, Nor­way, SOC
TUIKSOO Ester, Esto­nia, ALDE
VAREIKIS Egidi­jus, Lithua­nia, EPP/CD
VERCAMER Ste­faan, Bel­gium, EPP/CD
VIROLAINEN Anne-Mari, Fin­land, EPP/CD
VUČKOVIĆ Nataša, Ser­bia, SOC
WADEPHUL Johann, Ger­many, EPP/CD
XUCLÀ Jor­di, Spain, ALDE

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