Five Days Before his Death, Sergey Magnitskiy Filed Legal Documents Indicating Evidence in His Case Was Falsified

November 23, 2009

PRESS RELEASE
For Imme­di­ate Release

SERGEY MAGNITSKIY

Five Days Before his Death, Sergey Mag­nit­skiy Filed Legal Doc­u­ments Indi­cat­ing Evi­dence in His Case Was Falsified 

23 Novem­ber 2009 – The last peti­tion filed by Sergey Mag­nit­skiy, a Russ­ian lawyer who died in pre-tri­al deten­tion, described the mali­cious tam­per­ing by police inves­ti­ga­tors of mate­ri­als in his case file and the fal­si­fi­ca­tion of evi­dence. He intend­ed to take crim­i­nal action against those respon­si­ble for fab­ri­cat­ing evi­dence in his case. Sergey Mag­nit­skiy filed his peti­tion on 11 Novem­ber 2009, five days before his death, with Inves­ti­ga­tor Oleg Silchenko of the Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Ministry’s Inves­tiga­tive Committee.

Sergey Mag­nit­skiy stat­ed that the evi­dence in his case file was fal­si­fied: “It is now clear to me that orig­i­nals of cer­tain doc­u­ments in the mate­ri­als of the crim­i­nal case shown to me as copies can­not be at the dis­pos­al of the inves­ti­ga­tion, there­fore the cer­ti­fied copies of these doc­u­ments, in my opin­ion, could be treat­ed as fal­si­fied evi­dence, because they have been cer­ti­fied with­out com­par­ing the copies admit­ted into the crim­i­nal case with the orig­i­nal of the cor­re­spond­ing doc­u­ment or oth­er prop­er­ly ver­i­fied copy of the doc­u­ment, and I intend to insist on bring­ing to jus­tice the per­sons who cer­ti­fied these copies or placed them in the case materials.”

In his 11 Novem­ber peti­tion, Sergey Mag­nit­skiy also said that doc­u­ments in his case file had been unlaw­ful­ly altered: “Mate­ri­als of [the] crim­i­nal case which are now being shown for me to review, are not the same mate­ri­als that were pro­duced to me on 20 Octo­ber 2009 because they notice­ably dif­fer in the man­ner of cer­ti­fy­ing the authen­tic­i­ty of includ­ed copies and in the man­ner of bind­ing, and because in both cas­es mate­ri­als were col­lat­ed in a man­ner that did not exclude the pos­si­bil­i­ty to undo the bind­ing, and add, delete or replace doc­u­ments, and I do not exclude the pos­si­bil­i­ty that these mate­ri­als are also dif­fer­ent in their contents.”

Sergey Mag­nit­skiy detailed the vis­i­ble tam­per­ing with the case file: “The col­lat­ed fold­er shown to me on 20 Octo­ber 2009 could not have been col­lat­ed into the present binder with­out first undo­ing it. The Fold­er No. 2 shown to me on 9 Novem­ber 2009 was not col­lat­ed with string [as it was ear­li­er], but with a thread instead. The last page with state­ments signed by you [Inves­ti­ga­tor Silchenko] about the authen­tic­i­ty of copies and the num­ber of pages was absent. Every page of Fold­er No. 2 shown to me on 9 Novem­ber 2009 con­tained items that had been absent in same Fold­er No. 2 shown to me [on 20 Octo­ber 2009], includ­ing: a) seal No. 7 of the Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee of the Inte­ri­or Min­istry; b) a stamp of the Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Ministry’s Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee say­ing “the copy is true”; c) someone’s name, vis­i­bly not your sig­na­ture and no indi­ca­tion of the full name and title of the per­son who signed it.”

On 16 Octo­ber 2009, Sergey Mag­nit­skiy was informed by Inves­ti­ga­tor Silchenko that pre-tri­al inves­tiga­tive actions into his case were com­plet­ed and that he could begin review­ing all case mate­ri­als. Sergey began review­ing the crim­i­nal case mate­ri­als on 20 Octo­ber 2009, and three weeks lat­er filed the peti­tion, which turned out to be his last. Lawyers for Sergey Mag­nit­skiy filed a sim­i­lar com­plaint about tam­per­ing with his case file, in con­tra­ven­tion to Arti­cles 45 and 46 of the Russ­ian Con­sti­tu­tion, on 13 Novem­ber 2009 with the Tver­skoi dis­trict court of Moscow.

Sergey Mag­nit­skiy, a 37-year lawyer and father of two chil­dren, died on 16 Novem­ber 2009 in a Moscow prison where he was kept with­out tri­al for a year.

Full text of Last Mag­nit­sky’s Peti­tion and Last Lawyer’s Com­pli­ant are avail­able in the attache­ments to this mes­sage and on the WEB: http://www.scribd.com/doc/22967000 and http://www.scribd.com/doc/22967043.

Leave con­do­lences at:
http://lawandorderinrussia.org/2009/condolence-book-to-honor-the-life-of-sergey-magnitskiy/

For fur­ther information:
Her­mitage Capital
+44 207 4401777
info@hermitagefund.com

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