Major Human Rights Group Accuses Russian Interior Ministry Officials in Torture and Crimes Against Humanity in the Death of Lawyer Sergei Magnitsky

April 22, 2010

Major Human Rights Group Accus­es Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Min­istry Offi­cials in Tor­ture and Oth­er Crimes Against Human­i­ty in the Death of Anti-Cor­rup­tion Lawyer Sergei Magnitsky

April 22, 2010 – Lud­mi­la Alek­seye­va, Chair­woman of the Moscow Helsin­ki Group, Russia’s old­est inde­pen­dent human rights organ­i­sa­tion, has filed a for­mal crim­i­nal com­plaint with Alexan­der Bas­trykin, Head of the Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee of the Russ­ian Gen­er­al Prosecutor’s Office, stat­ing that at least five Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Min­istry offi­cers gross­ly abused their office, and tor­tured and mur­dered Sergei Mag­nit­sky in order to con­ceal their role in crimes pre­vi­ous­ly exposed by Mag­nit­sky. Ms Alek­seye­va, a dis­tin­guished Russ­ian human rights cam­paign­er, is draw­ing on Russ­ian and inter­na­tion­al anti-tor­ture laws to obtain jus­tice for the late 37-year old anti-cor­rup­tion lawyer who died in a Moscow pre-tri­al deten­tion cen­tre on Novem­ber 16, 2009.

The Moscow Helsin­ki Group Com­plaint says:

“This death [of Sergei Mag­nit­sky], how­ev­er, did not occur acci­den­tal­ly. It did not occur mere­ly through the over­sight or neg­li­gence of some par­tic­u­lar deten­tion cen­ter offi­cials. Mr Sergei Mag­nit­sky died from tor­ture that was delib­er­ate­ly inflict­ed upon him by offi­cers of the Inte­ri­or Min­istry (Silchenko O.F. and Kuznetsov A.K.), and also by sub­or­di­nates of Kuznetsov A.K (Krechetov, Tolchin­sky, Droganov and oth­er ‘uniden­ti­fied persons’).” 

The com­plaint calls for the imme­di­ate open­ing of an inves­ti­ga­tion into the Inte­ri­or Min­istry offi­cers – Silchenko, Kuznetsov, Krechetov, Droganov, Tolchin­sky – for their role in the tor­ture and mur­der of Sergei Magnitsky.

“Tak­ing into con­sid­er­a­tion all the facts, this serves as the basis for a case against the offi­cers of the Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee of the Min­istry of Inter­nal Affairs of the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion – Major Silchenko O.F. (the head of the inves­ti­ga­tion team) and the offi­cers: Kuznetsov А.К., Droganov, Tolchin­sky and Krechetov (the mem­bers of the inves­ti­ga­tion team) – who inves­ti­gat­ed the crim­i­nal case against Mr Mag­nit­sky S.L. and used tor­ture against him. Specif­i­cal­ly, on their instruc­tion and with their direct knowl­edge, intol­er­a­ble con­di­tions were cre­at­ed inten­tion­al­ly for Mr Mag­nit­sky in the pre-tri­al deten­tion cen­tres to cause him phys­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal suf­fer­ing by way of con­tin­u­al­ly wors­en­ing his deten­tion con­di­tions, exert­ing pres­sure on him and deny­ing him nec­es­sary med­ical assis­tance. This was done in ret­ri­bu­tion for his tes­ti­monies giv­en against offi­cers Lt Colonel Kuznetsov A.K. and Major Kar­pov P.A. and to make him give false tes­ti­monies against him­self and his client. I request that you, in accor­dance with arti­cles 140 – 141 of the Crim­i­nal Pro­ce­dur­al Code of the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion, con­sid­er ini­ti­at­ing crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings against the inves­ti­ga­tor of the Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee of the Min­istry of Inter­nal Affairs of the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion Major Silchenko O.F., offi­cers Lt Colonel Kuznetsov A.K., Lt Colonel Droganov, Cap­i­tan Tolchin­sky and Cap­i­tan Krechetov based on their use of tor­ture result­ing in the death of Mr Sergei Mag­nit­sky,” says the Com­plaint from the Moscow Helsin­ki Group.

The Moscow Helsin­ki Group Com­plaint specif­i­cal­ly bases its demand for an inves­ti­ga­tion on sev­en arti­cles of the Russ­ian Crim­i­nal Code:

- Arti­cle 299 “Ille­gal per­se­cu­tion of a know­ing­ly inno­cent person”;
 —  Arti­cle 301 “Ille­gal arrest, deten­tion and persecution”;
 —  Arti­cle 117 “Tor­ture”;
 —  Arti­cle 302 “Pres­sure to testify”;
 —  Arti­cle 285 “Abuse of office”;
 —  Arti­cle 105, sub-sec­tion “k” “Mur­der com­mit­ted to con­ceal anoth­er crime”; and
 —  Arti­cle 105, sub-sec­tion “d” “Mur­der com­mit­ted with extreme violence”.

The Moscow Helsin­ki Group Com­plaint calls upon Bas­trykin to abide by Russia’s oblig­a­tions set out under Arti­cle 12 of the UN Con­ven­tion Against Tor­ture, which requires mem­ber states to con­duct a swift and impar­tial inves­ti­ga­tion of any report­ed case of torture.

Fur­ther­more, Ms Alekseyeva’s com­plaint draws upon evi­dence gath­ered by the Moscow Prison Over­sight Com­mis­sion, an inde­pen­dent watch­dog, along with doc­u­ments includ­ed in the 450 com­plaints writ­ten by Sergei Mag­nit­sky while in deten­tion describ­ing the involve­ment of Inte­ri­or Min­istry offi­cers in the theft of $230 mil­lion from the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment. He also exposed their involve­ment in his tor­ture and the retal­ia­to­ry per­se­cu­tion against him.

Four months after Magnitsky’s death, the only on-going inves­ti­ga­tion by the Russ­ian author­i­ties into the death con­cerns sole­ly the “med­ical neglect” and “depri­va­tion of care” by the deten­tion cen­tre offi­cers and med­ical per­son­nel of the cen­tres where Mag­nit­sky was held. No offi­cer has been charged under this inves­ti­ga­tion. The Moscow Helsin­ki Group Com­plaint goes on to crit­i­cise the lack of any action tak­en against the Inte­ri­or Min­istry offi­cers respon­si­ble for Magnitsky’s tor­ture and death:

“None of these actions of delib­er­ate tor­ture by the state offi­cers against Mr Sergei Mag­nit­sky… have become a sub­ject for inves­ti­ga­tion by the com­pe­tent law enforce­ment author­i­ties. They are mere­ly con­tent to admit neg­li­gence on the part of some par­tic­u­lar offi­cers from the admin­is­tra­tion of the deten­tion centers… 

After pub­lic atten­tion was drawn to this mat­ter, a crim­i­nal case (No. 366795) was opened by a local dis­trict…. of the Moscow Pros­e­cu­tor Office to inves­ti­gate the lack of med­ical care and neg­li­gence by offi­cers of the pre-tri­al deten­tion cen­tre in which Sergei Mag­nit­sky was detained… but focus­ing only on the imme­di­ate caus­es of death. This inves­ti­ga­tion does not review any oth­er mat­ters relat­ing to the more seri­ous crime com­mit­ted by the offi­cers of the Inte­ri­or Min­istry, includ­ing offi­cers from the Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee of the Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Min­istry and the Moscow Branch of the Inte­ri­or Ministry.” 

“These law enforce­ment offi­cials should not think they can sweep this under the car­pet or hide behind bureau­crat­ic cor­rup­tion. The death of Sergei Mag­nit­sky has touched many peo­ple all over the world, and the howl of out­rage will not sub­side until the offi­cials respon­si­ble for his tor­ture and death are brought to jus­tice,” said a Her­mitage Cap­i­tal spokesman.

The Moscow Helsin­ki Group is an inde­pen­dent human rights orga­ni­za­tion estab­lished in 1976 to assist in human rights obser­va­tion and democ­ra­cy devel­op­ment in Rus­sia in accor­dance with the Human Rights oblig­a­tions under the Final Act of the Con­fer­ence on Secu­ri­ty and Coop­er­a­tion in Europe (Helsin­ki Accords). To achieve its goals, the Moscow Helsin­ki Group, since its incep­tion, has dealt with expos­ing human rights vio­la­tions and pres­sur­ing the author­i­ties to ful­fil their inter­na­tion­al oblig­a­tions in the human rights sphere. Lud­mi­la Alek­seye­va returned to Rus­sia 1993 after pre­vi­ous­ly emi­grat­ing, and has head­ed the Moscow Helsin­ki Group since 1996.

For more infor­ma­tion, please contact:

Phone: +44 207 440 1777

E‑mail:
info@lawandorderinrussia.org
info@hermitagefund.com

mhg-main@online.ptt.ru
http://www.mhg.ru/english

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