Sergei Magnitsky’s Widow Appeals to The Conscience of All Those Participating in the Trial Against Her Dead Husband to Cease Their Actions

March 11, 2013

The widow of Sergei Magntisky has appealed to the conscience of all those participating in the trial against her dead husband, to cease their actions and end this unprecedented spectacle.
“Because of the posthumous trial against my dead husband, Sergei Magnitsky, by the Tverskoi Court in Moscow, I state that I view this process as defiling his memory,” said Natalia Zharikova in today’s statement to court.
“I believe that this proceeding is unlawful and contrary to any universally recognized legal norms and morals,” said Natalia Zharikova.
“I think that if any of its participants have a conscience – and this is key not only in human morality, but also in the Russian criminal law – they have a duty to refuse to participate in this blasphemy,” said the widow of Sergei Magnitsky.
Russian authorities have put Sergei Magnitsky on trial more than three years after his death and also have posthumously accused Mr Magnitsky of perpetrating the $230 million theft that he had uncovered and exposed. Last December, the Russian court also acquitted the only official brought to trial for the denial of medical care to him in custody concluding that the official acted in full accordance with his duties.

In custody, Mr Magnitsky wrote dozens of complaints about his mistreatment. He stated that the case against him was in retribution for his role in helping his client, the Hermitage Fund, to defend itself from the criminal conspiracy which stole three of the Hermitage’s Russian companies and $230 million in taxes they had paid in taxes to the Russian government. In his last complaint to the court filed three days before his death, on 13 November 2009, Sergei Magnitsky stated his determination to bring to justice those responsible for the falsification of the criminal case against him.

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