Chair of Moscow City Court Attempts Cover Up of Role of Judges in Murder of Sergei Magnitsky

September 15, 2010

Amid calls to enact visa sanc­tions against Russ­ian offi­cials impli­cat­ed in the unlaw­ful arrest, tor­ture and mur­der in cus­tody of 37-year old, anti-cor­rup­tion lawyer Sergei Mag­nit­sky, the Chair of the Moscow City Court Olga Egoro­va, attempt­ed to cov­er up the fact that judges were ful­ly aware of his tor­tur­ous con­di­tions, the ill­ness­es he devel­oped as a result and the sys­tem­at­ic denial of med­ical care he was delib­er­ate­ly sub­ject­ed to in detention.

Speak­ing on the Russ­ian radio sta­tion ‘Echo of Moscow’ on Mon­day night, Judge Egoro­va said that Sergei Mag­nit­sky alleged­ly nev­er asked to be released because of his health prob­lems. She also said that she felt “sor­ry” for his rel­a­tives (see in Russ­ian here: http://echo.msk.ru/programs/court/709698-echo/).

A Her­mitage Cap­i­tal rep­re­sen­ta­tive said: “State­ments by Judge Egoro­va are bla­tant lies. Sergei Mag­nit­sky appealed to the courts on many occa­sions to release him from unlaw­ful deten­tion as well as rais­ing the ill­ness­es he was devel­op­ing in prison and request­ing med­ical atten­tion on over 20 occasions.”

“Express­ing sor­row for Sergei’s rel­a­tives is a sick joke. It is abhor­rent that a senior Russ­ian judge, ten months after Magnitsky’s death, will still not admit the truth – that with the full knowl­edge and con­sent from a group of Moscow judges, the life of a 37-year old lawyer, was delib­er­ate­ly end­ed by the cor­rupt Russ­ian police he exposed in the US$230 mil­lion tax fraud.”

Sergei Mag­nit­sky and his lawyers repeat­ed­ly request­ed Moscow courts to release him from deten­tion, cit­ing the unlaw­ful and repres­sive nature of his pros­e­cu­tion by offi­cers with clear con­flicts of inter­est, fal­si­fi­ca­tion of his case file, the con­di­tions he was sub­ject­ed to in cus­tody, and the seri­ous dis­eases he devel­oped as a result of his deten­tion as well as the denial of med­ical treatment. 

On 14 Sep­tem­ber 2009, two months before he died, Sergei Mag­nit­sky per­son­al­ly appealed to Moscow court Judge Krivoruchko in the Tver­skoi dis­trict court of Moscow to release him due to tor­tur­ous con­di­tions and denial of med­ical care (quotes from the offi­cial court hear­ing transcript):

“The inves­ti­ga­tion has no evi­dence of my con­nec­tion to an offence, they are incrim­i­nat­ing me with. …I believe that anoth­er milder mea­sure of restraint can be applied in my case, for exam­ple home arrest… because …I am suf­fer­ing from a num­ber of dis­eases …The treat­ment of my dis­eases is not pos­si­ble in cus­tody. Based on the above I ask you not to approve the peti­tion from inves­ti­ga­tor [to pro­long detention].» 

«I request to review a series of com­plaints about the intol­er­a­ble con­di­tions I am kept in, in par­tic­u­lar: facts about how I was deprived of food, and of the oppor­tu­ni­ty to use a toilet;…facts about how the med­ical care is denied to me.”

Judge Krivoruchko nev­er­the­less denied Magnitsky’s appeals to release him and even pro­longed his deten­tion for two fur­ther months stretch­ing his sen­tence to 11 months.

Pri­or to that event, Mag­nit­sky and his lawyers also con­tact­ed high­er court judges in Moscow to can­cel his arrest. The evi­dence can be seen here with the offi­cial tran­scripts of the hear­ing of their appeals at the Moscow City Court: 

«In the opin­ion of lawyers, the court did not con­sid­er the pos­si­bil­i­ty to apply to him [Mag­nit­sky] a dif­fer­ent mea­sure of restraint …Keep­ing Mag­nit­sky in deten­tion vio­lates arti­cle 3 of the Human Rights Con­ven­tion due to his present con­di­tions in deten­tion. In the opin­ion of lawyers, these con­di­tions have lead to the dete­ri­o­ra­tion of phys­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal state of Magnitsky…Also, no evi­dence has been pre­sent­ed to the court to jus­ti­fy a sus­pi­cion or an accu­sa­tion against Mag­nit­sky. This vio­lates the accept­ed norms of inter­na­tion­al law and inter­na­tion­al treaties.» (from the 18 May 2009 tran­script of the Moscow City Court collegium).

The Moscow City Court Col­legium refused all the appeals from Mag­nit­sky and his lawyers.

On 12 Novem­ber 2009, four days pri­or to Magnitsky’s death, Judge Stashina of Tver­skoi dis­trict court in Moscow, again denied Magnitsky’s requests to con­sid­er the med­ical cer­tifi­cates about his ill­ness­es diag­nosed in deten­tion and the mul­ti­ple denials of any med­ical treat­ment to him despite his extreme pain and suf­fer­ing. Judge Stashina pro­longed Magnitsky’s deten­tion for two more weeks to the max­i­mum pos­si­ble of one year. Four days lat­er Mag­nit­sky was found dead on the cell floor.

Judges of the Moscow courts who sanc­tioned Magnitsky’s arrest and pro­longed his deten­tion on false charges have been includ­ed in the US visa ban list by Sen­a­tor Ben­jamin Cardin, Chair­man of the US Helsin­ki Com­mis­sion, empow­ered to mon­i­tor adher­ence to human rights in the OSCE mem­ber coun­tries. Rus­sia is a mem­ber of the OSCE.

Ear­li­er this week, a num­ber of promi­nent Russ­ian intel­lec­tu­als and civ­il rights activists have signed a pub­lic appeal to the US gov­ern­ment and to the EU lead­er­ship request­ing to issue per­ma­nent visa bans against all 60 Russ­ian offi­cials on the Cardin list. Among those who signed and sup­port the appeal are Lud­mi­la Alex­ee­va, Chair of the Moscow Helsin­ki Group; Sergei Kovalev, Chair of Memo­r­i­al human rights group; Lev Pono­marev, Direc­tor of For Human Rights group; Alex­ei Simonov, Pres­i­dent of Glas­nost foun­da­tion; Mari­et­ta Chu­dako­va, pro­fes­sor of lit­er­a­ture; Yuri Ryzhov, of the Russ­ian Acad­e­my of Sci­ences, and Kir­ill Kabanov, head of the Nation­al Anti-cor­rup­tion Committee.

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