European Parliament Calls for Accountability of Russian Judges and Investigators Involved in the Torture of Anti-Corruption Lawyer Sergei Magnitsky

May 12, 2010

The Euro­pean Parliament’s Human Rights Sub­com­mit­tee Calls for Account­abil­i­ty of Russ­ian Judges and Inves­ti­ga­tors Involved in the Unlaw­ful Arrest and Tor­ture of Anti-Cor­rup­tion Lawyer

12 May 2010 – At the Euro­pean Parliament’s Sub­com­mit­tee on Human Rights seri­ous con­cerns have been raised over the per­se­cu­tion of Russ­ian anti-cor­rup­tion lawyer Sergei Mag­nit­sky and the absence of any inves­ti­ga­tion into the Russ­ian judges and Inte­ri­or Min­istry offi­cials involved in his unlaw­ful arrest, tor­ture and death in pre-tri­al deten­tion last year.

Hei­di Hau­ta­la, mem­ber of the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment and Chair­woman of the Euro­pean Parliament’s Sub­com­mit­tee on Human Rights, raised the case of Magnitsky’s per­se­cu­tion at the Sub­com­mit­tee ses­sion that took place this Mon­day, 10 May 2010. She said: “The unlaw­ful arrest and tor­ture in deten­tion of Sergei Mag­nit­sky, car­ried out by offi­cers he had impli­cat­ed in the abuse of office and cor­rup­tion rep­re­sents one of the most impor­tant human rights cas­es. State offi­cials and judges respon­si­ble for his unlaw­ful arrest, tor­ture and death in cus­tody must be held account­able accord­ing to Russ­ian and inter­na­tion­al norms.”

Dur­ing the Human Rights Sub­com­mit­tee ses­sion, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Coun­cil of the Euro­pean Union indi­cat­ed that the case of Sergei Magnitsky’s unlaw­ful arrest by Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Min­istry offi­cers, and his tor­ture in pre-tri­al deten­tion, had been raised dur­ing the EU-Rus­sia con­sul­ta­tions on human rights held on 28 April 2010 in Brus­sels. Dur­ing this 11^th round of EU-Rus­sia human rights con­sul­ta­tions, EU rep­re­sen­ta­tives posed five spe­cif­ic ques­tions to the Russ­ian del­e­ga­tion con­cern­ing the per­se­cu­tion of Sergei Mag­nit­sky, a 37 year old lawyer and father of two.

In par­tic­u­lar, Russ­ian offi­cials were asked to explain why the inves­ti­ga­tors, Inte­ri­or Min­istry offi­cials and judges, who were respon­si­ble for order­ing Magnitsky’s arrest, caus­ing his ever-dete­ri­o­rat­ing deten­tion con­di­tions and deny­ing him med­ical care – all of which led to his death – have not been pros­e­cut­ed and brought to jus­tice. Coun­cil of the EU rep­re­sen­ta­tives asked why Lt. Col. Artem Kuznetsov, one of the Inte­ri­or Min­istry offi­cers against whom Mag­nit­sky had tes­ti­fied for his involve­ment in cor­rup­tion, togeth­er with his sub­or­di­nates were allowed to join the inves­tiga­tive team on Magnitsky’s case and take part in his arrest, when this rep­re­sents a clear con­flict of inter­est. Coun­cil of the EU rep­re­sen­ta­tives also asked the Russ­ian del­e­ga­tion why fol­low­ing Magnitsky’s death, his fam­i­ly was denied a request for an inde­pen­dent autopsy.

The Euro­pean Parliament’s Human Rights Sub­com­mit­tee and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Coun­cil of the EU called into ques­tion the fact that spe­cif­ic Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Min­istry offi­cials respon­si­ble for the unlaw­ful impris­on­ment, tor­ture and death of Sergei Mag­nit­sky con­tin­ue to face no pros­e­cu­tion in Rus­sia for their actions.

This fol­lows sev­er­al reports and com­plaints filed ear­li­er by Russ­ian activists and human rights groups. In Decem­ber 2009, the Moscow Pub­lic Over­sight Com­mis­sion, a prison watch­dog empow­ered by law to mon­i­tor human rights in deten­tion cen­tres, stat­ed in their offi­cial report that Sergei Mag­nit­sky was “sub­ject­ed to phys­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal pres­sure” and kept in “tor­tur­ous con­di­tions,” with the state breach­ing its duty to safe­guard his life. In April 2010, the Moscow Helsin­ki Group, an inde­pen­dent Russ­ian human rights organ­i­sa­tion, called for the open­ing of a mur­der inves­ti­ga­tion against five offi­cers of the Inte­ri­or Min­istry (Kuznetsov, Silchenko, Droganov, Krechetov and Tolchin­sky) for the mur­der of Sergei Mag­nit­sky per­pe­trat­ed in order to cov­er up their involve­ment in the theft of bud­get funds that Mag­nit­sky had exposed and tes­ti­fied about.

Sergei Mag­nit­sky open­ly called him­self a “hostage” of those who stole $230 mil­lion from the Russ­ian bud­get and who cov­ered up that crime:

“I have been detained in prison for a year as a hostage in the inter­ests of the per­sons, whose inten­tion it is to ensure that the crim­i­nals actu­al­ly guilty in the theft of 5.4 bil­lion rubles[$230 mil­lion] from the state bud­get will nev­er be found… Inves­ti­ga­tor Silchenko does not want to iden­ti­fy the oth­er [oth­er than a con­vict­ed sawmill employ­ee] per­sons, who made this fraud pos­si­ble. He instead wants the lawyers of the Her­mitage Fund, who pur­sued and con­tin­ue to pur­sue attempts for this case to be inves­ti­gat­ed, be forced to emi­grate from their coun­try in which crim­i­nal cas­es were filed against them, or like me be detained in prison. My impris­on­ment has noth­ing in com­mon with the legal pur­pos­es of crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings.., but this is a pun­ish­ment for my mere­ly defend­ing the inter­ests of my client, and final­ly the inter­ests of the State.” [Excerpt from Sergei Magnitsky’s notes to court, 12 Novem­ber 2009].

The dis­cus­sion held at the EU Human Rights Sub­com­mit­tee is part of an ongo­ing effort by EU par­lia­men­tar­i­ans to encour­age a full inves­ti­ga­tion into Magnitsky’s per­se­cu­tion which was car­ried out last year by Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Min­istry offi­cers Mag­nit­sky had ear­li­er impli­cat­ed in embez­zling $230 mil­lion of state bud­get funds.

In 2008, Sergei Mag­nit­sky, a lawyer for the Her­mitage Fund, uncov­ered the theft of $230 mil­lion from the Russ­ian state by Russ­ian gov­ern­ment offi­cials and organ­ised crim­i­nals. Mag­nit­sky tes­ti­fied against a num­ber of gov­ern­ment offi­cials, includ­ing Inte­ri­or Min­istry Lt. Col. Artem Kuznetsov and Major Pavel Kar­pov. In retal­i­a­tion, those same offi­cials arrest­ed, impris­oned and tor­tured Mag­nit­sky, in an attempt to force him to with­draw his tes­ti­mo­ny. He refused. Over the course of his deten­tion, Mag­nit­sky was con­tin­u­al­ly trans­ferred from cell to cell, with his con­di­tions becom­ing worse and worse each time. At the same time, he devel­oped seri­ous pan­cre­ati­tis and gall­stones, but Inte­ri­or Min­istry and prison offi­cials denied him any med­ical treat­ment. After near­ly 12 months in pre-tri­al deten­tion, Mag­nit­sky died on the evening of 16 Novem­ber 2009 in an iso­la­tion cell. In his final hours, Mag­nit­sky stat­ed that peo­ple were try­ing to mur­der him. After his death in pre-tri­al deten­tion, Magnitsky’s fam­i­ly was denied their request for an inde­pen­dent autop­sy and they were giv­en Magnitsky’s body on the strict con­di­tion that it only be used for an imme­di­ate funeral.

Imme­di­ate­ly after Sergei Magnitsky’s death, the Chair of the Russ­ian non-gov­ern­men­tal Coun­cil for Civ­il Soci­ety Ella Pam­filo­va called upon Pres­i­dent Medvedev to con­duct a full inves­ti­ga­tion. How­ev­er, the Russ­ian Pros­e­cu­tor Office’s inves­tiga­tive com­mit­tee opened a crim­i­nal case sole­ly on the grounds of the “neg­li­gence” of prison offi­cials. Six months lat­er, no one has been charged.

The Euro­pean Parliament’s Sub­com­mit­tee on Human Rights deals with issues con­cern­ing human rights, the pro­tec­tion of minori­ties and the pro­mo­tion of demo­c­ra­t­ic val­ues in third coun­tries. Since 2009, the Sub­com­mit­tee has been chaired by mem­ber of the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment, Hei­di Hautala.

See the web­site of the Euro­pean Parliament’s Sub­com­mit­tee on Human Rights:
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/activities/committees/homeCom.do?language=EN&body=DROI

Hei­di Hau­ta­la, chair of the Euro­pean Parliament’s Human Rights Sub­com­mit­tee, is an expe­ri­enced Green politi­cian and a mem­ber of the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment. She believes in fur­ther­ing human rights, trans­paren­cy, envi­ron­men­tal respon­si­bil­i­ty and glob­al jus­tice. Hei­di Hau­ta­la is known as a ver­sa­tile, active and fear­less politi­cian both inter­na­tion­al­ly and in Fin­land, where she has been a house­hold name for two decades.

See the web­site of Hei­di Hau­ta­la: http://www.heidihautala.fi/front-page/?lang=en

For fur­ther information:
+ 44 20 7440 1777
info@lawandorderinrussia.org
info@hermitagefund.com
http://twitter.com/KatieFisherTwit

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