Sergei Magnitsky’s Replies to the Russian Interior Ministry’s Press Conference: “My persecution has been ordered as retribution.”

November 26, 2009

Sergei Magnitsky’s Replies to the Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Ministry’s Press Con­fer­ence: “My per­se­cu­tion has been ordered as retribution.”

26 Novem­ber 2009 – Yes­ter­day, the Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Ministry’s Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee assert­ed at a press con­fer­ence in Moscow that Sergei Mag­nit­sky was not sub­ject­ed to any pres­sure dur­ing his 12-month deten­tion await­ing charges, that all of the nec­es­sary evi­dence for the case had been gath­ered and that the inves­ti­ga­tions into his case had been completed.

Two months before his death, Sergei Mag­nit­sky wrote a peti­tion to Inves­ti­ga­tor Oleg Silchenko of the Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Ministry’s Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee. Mag­nit­sky stat­ed that inves­ti­ga­tors had orga­nized his unlaw­ful per­se­cu­tion despite know­ing his inno­cence, and they had sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly fal­si­fied evi­dence in his case file and in the file used to obtain court approval for his arrest and con­tin­ued deten­tion. Mag­nit­sky stated,

“Inves­ti­ga­tors have per­se­cut­ed me for my refusal to tes­ti­fy false­ly against myself and oth­ers under Case 153123. … The admin­is­tra­tion at deten­tion cen­ters has coop­er­at­ed with the inves­ti­ga­tors to cre­ate unbear­able con­di­tions for me in their facilities.”

On 11 Sep­tem­ber 2009, lawyers act­ing for Sergei Mag­nit­sky also filed a com­plaint with Russ­ian Gen­er­al Pros­e­cu­tor Yuri Chaika.

Magnitsky’s peti­tion to the Inte­ri­or Min­istry read:

“The crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion against me bears all of the signs of being done pur­suant to an exec­u­tive order, and it is sav­age in char­ac­ter. The inves­ti­ga­tion is being con­duct­ed in gross vio­la­tion of exist­ing law. On many occa­sions I have dis­cov­ered the inves­ti­ga­tors brazen­ly fab­ri­cat­ing and invent­ing false evi­dence against me. As a result, my advo­cates and I have repeat­ed­ly sought to replace these inves­ti­ga­tors. All of the actions of Inte­ri­or Min­istry offi­cials whom we dis­cov­ered vio­lat­ing Russ­ian law were chal­lenged, and we report­ed them to their supe­ri­ors and to the court.”

Sergei Mag­nit­sky stat­ed that the inves­ti­ga­tors will nev­er be able to prove their alle­ga­tions in a fair and open trial:

“My posi­tion is obvi­ous­ly irri­tat­ing for the inves­ti­ga­tors. It is impos­si­ble to jus­ti­fy the charges brought against me, and I assert again that I did not com­mit any offens­es, and the doc­u­ments col­lect­ed by the inves­ti­ga­tors prove my inno­cence. The so-called “expert” opin­ions and reports were made by con­sul­tants to the Inte­ri­or Min­istry who have obvi­ous con­flicts of inter­est. These reports con­tain false state­ments and reach far-fetched con­clu­sions invent­ed to please the inves­ti­ga­tors. If this case is ever heard in court, these experts will sim­ply be unable to jus­ti­fy their con­clu­sions dur­ing cross-exam­i­na­tion by the defense.”

Sergei Mag­nit­sky stat­ed that on many occa­sions he was pres­sured to give false state­ments against William Brow­der, CEO of Her­mitage Cap­i­tal, and each time he refused, the pres­sure on him increased:

“Real­iz­ing the inva­lid­i­ty of their claims, the inves­ti­ga­tors arranged for phys­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal pres­sure to be exert­ed upon me in order to sup­press my will and to force me to make accu­sa­tions against myself and oth­er per­sons. In par­tic­u­lar, the inves­ti­ga­tors repeat­ed­ly pro­posed that I tes­ti­fy against William Brow­der in exchange for “a sus­pend­ed sen­tence dur­ing the tri­al” and free­dom. Every time, when I repeat­ed­ly reject­ed these propo­si­tions by the inves­ti­ga­tors push­ing me to be dis­hon­est, the con­di­tions of my deten­tion become worse and worse.”

Sergei Mag­nit­sky stat­ed that the pres­sure exert­ed upon him became extreme:

“For the peri­od of my deten­tion in cus­tody from 24 Novem­ber 2008, I com­mu­ni­cat­ed with many pris­on­ers and staff at the deten­tion cen­ters, and I have become ful­ly aware of the typ­i­cal oper­at­ing pro­ce­dures in these cen­ters. I have nev­er seen any exam­ple such as mine, when a pris­on­er dur­ing nine months of his deten­tion in cus­tody was moved between three inves­ti­ga­to­ry deten­tion cen­ters and was trans­ferred between an incal­cu­la­ble quan­ti­ty of cells.”

One month before his death, on 13 Octo­ber 2009, Mag­nit­sky stat­ed in front of an inves­ti­ga­tor and his defense coun­sel that Inves­ti­ga­tor Silchenko, Lieu­tenant Colonel Kuznetsov and his sub­or­di­nates had orches­trat­ed an ille­gal pro­ceed­ing against him on false grounds, in direct retal­i­a­tion for his tes­ti­mo­ny detail­ing the involve­ment of Inte­ri­or Min­istry offi­cials in the theft of state funds.

“The crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ing against me is in con­tra­ven­tion of Arti­cle 6 of the Russ­ian Crim­i­nal Pro­ce­dur­al Code and is an act of repres­sion. Its aim is to pun­ish me for the help I pro­vid­ed to my client in rela­tion to the inves­ti­ga­tion into the theft of Rilend, Mahaon and Par­fe­nion – the Russ­ian com­pa­nies owned by my client. When I was pro­vid­ing assis­tance to my client, it became known to me that Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Min­istry offi­cials may be com­plic­it in the theft of the com­pa­nies and that the stolen com­pa­nies were used by the per­pe­tra­tors to steal 5.4 bil­lion rou­bles from the state bud­get – the amount of tax­es my client had paid at the time when they had con­trol over these companies.”

Five days before his death, on 11 Novem­ber 2009, Sergei Mag­nit­sky filed anoth­er peti­tion stat­ing that the evi­dence in his case file was fal­si­fied and that the case mate­ri­als were ille­gal­ly altered after the inves­ti­ga­tion had been for­mal­ly con­clud­ed on 20 Octo­ber 2009, in breach of Russ­ian legal procedure.

On 18 Novem­ber 2009, two days after Sergei Magnitsky’s death, the Moscow Tver­skoi dis­trict court was to hear two com­plaints about seri­ous breach­es of crim­i­nal pro­ce­dure by the Inte­ri­or Min­istry. If this com­plaint had been accept­ed by the court, the inves­ti­ga­tion of Sergei Magnitsky’s case would have to be resumed and Mag­nit­sky would have been released on 24 Novem­ber 2009 (the one-year anniver­sary of his deten­tion, the max­i­mum pos­si­ble peri­od of deten­tion with­out tri­al under Russ­ian law).

Yes­ter­day, lawyers of Sergei Mag­nit­sky sent an appli­ca­tion to the Russ­ian Pres­i­dent and the Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee of the Prosecutor’s Office request­ing an inves­ti­ga­tion into the actions of Inte­ri­or Min­istry offi­cials in rela­tion to the ille­gal per­se­cu­tion of Mag­nit­sky and the fal­si­fi­ca­tion of evi­dence in his case.

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