29% of Russians Know About Sergei Magnitsky

October 5, 2010

A new poll con­duct­ed by an inde­pen­dent Lev­a­da Cen­ter shows that 29% of all Rus­sians have heard of the death in cus­tody Sergei Mag­nit­sky, a 37-year old lawyer for Her­mitage fund tor­tured for his anti-cor­rup­tion tes­ti­mo­ny against police offi­cers. Ten months since his death, no one has been charged for his tor­ture and slow, cru­el mur­der in custody. 

The poll also reveals that the major­i­ty of Rus­sians want an open inves­ti­ga­tion of Russ­ian inte­ri­or min­istry offi­cials impli­cat­ed by Mr Mag­nit­sky in cor­rup­tion and in his retal­ia­to­ry arrest. 

“This poll shows that the state­ments made in the last ten months by the Russ­ian inte­ri­or min­istry and pros­e­cu­tor office try­ing to cov­er up the offi­cials who false­ly arrest­ed, tor­tured and killed Sergei Mag­nit­sky are only believed in their small cir­cles. The poll demon­strates that the evi­dence against them is so damn­ing and over­whelm­ing that no one in Rus­sia or the rest of the world believes a word they are say­ing in their attempts to cov­er up for their col­leagues in the death of Sergei Mag­nit­sky,” said a Her­mitage Cap­i­tal representative. 

Accord­ing to the poll data, 60% of all Rus­sians sup­port an “open and trans­par­ent inves­ti­ga­tion” of the Inte­ri­or Min­istry offi­cers against whom Mag­nit­sky had tes­ti­fied for their involve­ment in embez­zling $230 mil­lion of funds that his client, Her­mitage fund, paid in tax­es to the Russ­ian government. 

The major­i­ty of those who gave a con­crete answer, 79%, believe that the actions by offi­cials to refuse Mr Mag­nit­sky med­ical care in cus­tody dur­ing four months were “delib­er­ate in order to pres­sure him”, and were not “acci­den­tal”.

The poll also showed that few Rus­sians believe that there will be jus­tice for Mag­nit­sky or any con­se­quences for his cor­rupt tor­tur­ers in Rus­sia. Only 13% of respon­dents believe that the offi­cials impli­cat­ed by Mr Mag­nit­sky in the bud­get thefts, and who arrest­ed him and were involved in caus­ing his death in cus­tody, will be crim­i­nal­ly pros­e­cut­ed in Rus­sia. As few as 3% think they will be pub­licly shamed. 17% of respon­dents expect that these offi­cials will be fired. Final­ly, almost one third of Rus­sians, 29%, believe that “noth­ing will hap­pen to them” at all. 

One third, or 33% of Rus­sians, believe that the intro­duc­tion of visa sanc­tions by the US and EU affect­ing the Russ­ian offi­cials impli­cat­ed by Mag­nit­sky in the thefts and his per­se­cu­tion lead­ing to his death, will be “effec­tive” or “very effec­tive”. 26% think it will be some­what effec­tive, and 10% believe it will be “entire­ly inef­fec­tive.” 31% remain undecided. 

The poll was con­duct­ed by a lead­ing inde­pen­dent Russ­ian polling organ­i­sa­tion, Lev­a­da Cen­ter. It was a rep­re­sen­ta­tive poll of 1600 respon­dents aged 18 years and over, stan­dard error of +/- 1.7%. The poll was held on 17 – 21 Sep­tem­ber 2010. 

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