The Moscow Times: Activists Say Magnitsky Was Murdered

April 23, 2010

Human rights activists are call­ing on author­i­ties to open a mur­der inquiry into the death of Her­mitage Cap­i­tal lawyer Sergei Mag­nit­sky, who died in pre­tri­al deten­tion in November.

“Mag­nit­sky died of sys­tem­at­ic tor­ture and not of neg­li­gence,” Valery Bor­shchy­ov, of the Moscow Helsin­ki Group, told reporters Thursday.

The 37-year-old lawyer died in a deten­tion cen­ter on Nov. 16 after offi­cials repeat­ed­ly denied him med­ical treat­ment for ill­ness­es that he devel­oped while wait­ing near­ly a year for his polit­i­cal­ly taint­ed tax tri­al to begin.

The Moscow branch of the Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee opened a crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion lat­er that month but only accused uniden­ti­fied offi­cials of neg­li­gence and fail­ure to pro­vide med­ical aid.

In an open let­ter pub­lished on its web site, the Helsin­ki Group asked Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee headAlexan­der Bas­trykin to open a crim­i­nal case.

Bor­shchy­ov said he was still wait­ing for an answer from pros­e­cu­tors after the group sent a report with com­plaints in December.

He argued that Mag­nit­sky died because he refused to make a deal with the inves­ti­ga­tors who put him in prison. “This is a prin­ci­ple in our law enforce­ment sys­tem, that every­one is in cahoots,” he said.

Vet­er­an human rights cam­paign­er Lyud­mi­la Alex­eye­va, the head of the Moscow Helsin­ki Group, said evi­dence sug­gest­ed that the abuse was ini­ti­at­ed by the same Inte­ri­or Min­istry offi­cials whom Mag­nit­sky had accused of embez­zling $230 mil­lion of gov­ern­ment funds.

Mag­nit­sky was being held for alleged­ly orga­niz­ing a tax-eva­sion scheme with William Brow­der, the head of Her­mitage Cap­i­tal, once Russia’s largest for­eign invest­ment fund.

The charges were filed after Brow­der and Mag­nit­sky linked Inte­ri­or Min­istry offi­cials and Major Gen­er­alAna­toly Mikhalkin, head of the Moscow police’s tax crimes depart­ment, to the pur­port­ed theft.

Pres­i­dent Dmit­ry Medvedev in Decem­ber fired Mikhalkin and 20 prison officials.

Alex­eye­va said she would bring up the issue in Medvede­v’s human rights coun­cil, which con­venes on Monday.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/activists-say-magnitsky-was-murdered/404583.html#no

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