New Information Emerges on Russian General Shelepanov Who US Senators Requested to Ban From Entering the US Last Week For His Role in the Magnitsky Case
November 21, 2011
New information has emerged from the Sergei Magnitsky criminal case file showing that General Nikolai Shelepanov of the Russian Interior Ministry was personally responsible for the denial of family visits to Sergei Magnitsky in custody. Earlier this month, US Senators Cardin and Wicker questioned General Shelepanov’s eligibility to enter the United States over his role in the Magnitsky case.
Vedomosti, the Russian newspaper, published previously unknown requests written by Sergei Magnitsky seeking permission for family visits and the official response signed by General Shelepanov denying Magnitsky’s request
(http://www.vedomosti.ru/politics/news/1424555/zamnachalniku_sd_mvd_stavyat_v_vinu_otkaz_v_svidaniyah).
General Shelepanov was due to attend meetings in Washington last week on the invitation from the US Department of Justice, but stated he was abandoning his plans amid the scandal over his US visa due to his “work load.”
The new evidence shows that General Shelepanov in his capacity as the Deputy Chief of the Interior Ministry’s Investigative Department personally refused Sergei Magnitsky’s petitions for family visits. General Shelepanov also sanctioned refusals for family visits issued by his subordinate, Interior Ministry Investigator Oleg Silchenko.
General Nikolai Shelepanov stated in an official response signed on 10 July 2009:
“Hereby I order to deny the complaint by S.L. Magnitsky requesting… to issue a written consent for a visit with his mother, N.N. Magnitskaya”
(http://russian-untouchables.com/rus/docs/D347.pdf).
This response was written in the eighth month of Sergei Magnitsky’s detention. Up until that point, the investigators had denied Sergei Magnitsky all contact with his family.
In an interview with the Voice of America on 10 November 2011, General Shelepanov tried to downplay his role in the Magnitsky’s torture, saying:
“This is a normal criminal case that is being investigated here, in Russia.”
In Magnitsky’s complaint filed to the Deputy Interior Minister Alexei Anichin, he said that investigators arbitrarily denied his right for family visits:
“Since November 2008 I have been kept in custody…During all this time I have not been allowed a single visit with any of my relatives. …As a sole reason to deny me family visits, it has been put to me that “the investigators deem it inexpedient”,” wrote Sergei Magnitsy in his complaint on 24 June 2009 (http://russian-untouchables.com/rus/docs/D346.pdf).
Magnitsky’s requests for visits with his wife, mother, and children were denied by Investigator in charge of his detention, Major Oleg Silchenko during a year in pre-trial detention. The new evidence from the Magnitsky case file now makes it clear that these refusals were sanctioned by General Nikolai Shelepanov.
In his 10 July 2009 Decree, General Shelepanov wrote to Sergei Magnitsky:
“On 15 June 2009, a petition was received in the Interior Ministry’s Investigative Department from defendant S.L. Magnitsky that was dated 3 June 2009 requesting a permission for a visit with his mother… The decree to fully deny this petition issued by senior investigator of especially important cases O.F. Silchenko is lawful and justified because it meets the requirements of the law set out for its form and contents.”
The actions of Silchenko, Anichin and Shelapanov formally contradict the Russian Law on Detention, which sets out rights for family visits. According to the law, each detainee is entitled to two family visits per month, each lasting up to three hours. According to Article 18 of the Law on Detention, an investigator must issue a consent to each visit.
In his complaint of the arbitrary deprivation of family visits by the Interior Ministry, Sergei Magnitsky said:
“The law does not allow to refuse family visits on arbitrary and unreasoned grounds… The failure by the investigator to specify the ground for these refusals…shows that the investigator thinks that he is entitled to act arbitrarily and in abuse of authority when deciding whether to permit me a family visit or not. Such an abusive restriction of my constitutional right is unacceptable in a law-based state …and is a form of treatment degrading my human dignity, because it causes moral pains to me and my family, pains that are not justified by the goals set out by the Constitution (p.3 Article 55 of the Russian Constitution).”
General Shelepanov’s name and his role in the Magnitsky case first became known last week following a request by U.S. Senators Wicker and Cardin to the U.S. Secretary of State to check his eligibility to enter the US
(http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203537304577028320517166292.html?KEYWORDS=magnitsky).
General Shelepanov was not previously listed on the US Helsinki Commission’s list of 60 Russian officials to be banned entry into the United States.
Sergei Magnitsky was kept in custody by the same Russian Interior Ministry officers he had testified against for their role in the theft of his client’s companies and $230 million from the Russian treasury, the largest single embezzlement of public funds in Russian history. Sergei Magnitsky was murdered in Russian government custody on 16 November 2009.
A formal petition by Sergei Magnitsky’s mother to open a torture and murder investigation against high-ranking Russian officials and 11 judges filed in September with the Russian Investigative Committee has been denied.
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