Parliamentarians from 29 Countries at the Council of Europe Call on Russia to Prosecute Officials Named in the Human Rights Council Report and Cease Intimidation of Magnitsky Family

October 6, 2011

53 rep­re­sen­ta­tives at the Par­lia­men­tary Assem­bly of the Coun­cil of Europe (PACE) from 29 coun­tries have co-signed the “Sergei Mag­nit­sky Case” Dec­la­ra­tion No.49 which urges Rus­sia to imme­di­ate­ly pros­e­cute the killers of Sergei Mag­nit­sky, a 37-year old Russ­ian anti-cor­rup­tion lawyer. In the writ­ten dec­la­ra­tion pub­lished on the PACE web­site, PACE rep­re­sen­ta­tives also call upon the Russ­ian author­i­ties to cease the intim­i­da­tion of Magnitsky’s fam­i­ly and to allow the fam­i­ly to car­ry out an inde­pen­dent med­ical eval­u­a­tion, which Russ­ian inves­ti­ga­tors and courts have so far refused to do.
“We call on Rus­sia to imme­di­ate­ly pros­e­cute the peo­ple named in the Human Rights Coun­cil’s report, cease the intim­i­da­tion of Mag­nit­sky’s fam­i­ly and allow an inde­pen­dent eval­u­a­tion in his case,” PACE deputies say in the Declaration.

The “Sergei Mag­nit­sky Case” Dec­la­ra­tion was ini­ti­at­ed by a Dutch MP, Peter Omtzigt. 

Among the Dec­la­ra­tion co-sig­na­to­ries are emi­nent mem­bers of the PACE, including:
 — Luca Volonte, an Ital­ian MP, chair­man of EPP-CD, the biggest polit­i­cal group in the PACE;
 — Dick Mar­ty, a for­mer Swiss pros­e­cu­tor and chair­man of the PACE Mon­i­tor­ing Committee;
 — Jean-Claude Mignon, a French MP elect­ed as Pres­i­dent of PACE this week, with his term start­ing in January.
The Dec­la­ra­tion was trig­gered by the recent devel­op­ments in Rus­sia regard­ing the Mag­nit­sky case. Not only have the Russ­ian author­i­ties failed to inves­ti­gate the per­pe­tra­tors of the false arrest, tor­ture and death of Sergei Mag­nit­sky, but they have also reject­ed the find­ings of Pres­i­dent Medvedev’s Human Rights Coun­cil and instead for­mal­ly absolved all Inte­ri­or min­istry offi­cials, pros­e­cu­tors and judges from any crim­i­nal liability. 

The Dec­la­ra­tion states:
“In July 2011, the Coun­cil of the Pres­i­dent of the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion for the Pro­mo­tion of Civ­il Soci­ety and Human Rights con­duct­ed an inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tion and found that Sergei Mag­nit­sky had been false­ly arrest­ed and pros­e­cut­ed by offi­cers with a con­flict of inter­est, been beat­en by eight guards with rub­ber batons pri­or to his death, and that state bod­ies failed and resist­ed to inves­ti­gate the cor­rup­tion he had uncov­ered. The Coun­cil named spe­cif­ic per­pe­tra­tors in the Government.”
In the Dec­la­ra­tion, the PACE rep­re­sen­ta­tives con­demn the intim­i­da­tion of the Mag­nit­sky fam­i­ly which began in the last two months, since the pub­li­ca­tion of the Pres­i­den­tial Human Rights Coun­cil report in July 2011, by means of re-open­ing the case against Mag­nit­sky near­ly two years after his death and sum­mons­es for ques­tion­ing issued to his fam­i­ly mem­bers by the same Inte­ri­or Min­istry offi­cers who arrest­ed and per­se­cut­ed Magnitsky.
“The Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Min­istry and the Gen­er­al Prosecutor’s Office have since reject­ed the find­ings of the Human Rights Coun­cil as inad­mis­si­ble, exon­er­at­ed the offi­cers involved, reopened the case against Mr Mag­nit­sky near­ly two years after his death and the same offi­cers who per­se­cut­ed Sergei Mag­nit­sky called his moth­er and his wid­ow for inter­ro­ga­tion,” states the Declaration.
“Sergei Mag­nit­sky was the legal rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Her­mitage Fund in Rus­sia. He dis­cov­ered the largest tax fraud in Russ­ian his­to­ry per­pe­trat­ed by mem­bers of the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment. After tes­ti­fy­ing against them, he was arrest­ed, tor­tured and killed in police cus­tody,” fur­ther notes the Declaration.
Most recent­ly, Magnitsky’s fam­i­ly demand­ed of the Russ­ian Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee to open an inves­ti­ga­tion into Magnitsky’s tor­ture and mur­der in cus­tody and to release pre­vi­ous­ly con­cealed evi­dence of the crimes against him gath­ered by state bod­ies. There has been no reply to this request from the author­i­ties despite the statu­to­ry dead­line for it has elapsed two weeks ago.
Magnitsky’s fam­i­ly also request­ed from the author­i­ties access to his blood and tis­sues archive to car­ry out their inde­pen­dent med­ical eval­u­a­tion. The request was refused by both inves­ti­ga­tors and courts in Rus­sia on the ground that there is no rea­son to doubt the con­clu­sions reached by state experts. PACE deputies who signed the Dec­la­ra­tion are call­ing upon Rus­sia to allow the Mag­nit­sky fam­i­ly to con­duct an inde­pen­dent evaluation.

Speak­ing about the back­ground to the Dec­la­ra­tion, Peter Omtzigt, MP, said:
“PACE Mem­bers were present when Rus­sia was invit­ed this Sep­tem­ber to present its side of the case. Instead of doing so, the Russ­ian MPs walked out and the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment did not send any rep­re­sen­ta­tives. This was a clear sig­nal to a large num­ber of MPs in Europe that this case needs to be resolved and that those respon­si­ble for the death of Mr. Mag­nit­sky must be pros­e­cut­ed, just as the Russ­ian Pres­i­den­tial Coun­cil on Human Rights had stated.”

The “Sergei Mag­nit­sky Case” Dec­la­ra­tion is signed by the PACE rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the Nether­lands, Spain, Ice­land, Swe­den, Latvia, France, Turkey, Mal­ta, Hun­gary, Czech Repub­lic, Den­mark, Mona­co, Nor­way, Ukraine, Esto­nia, Geor­gia, Switzer­land, Por­tu­gal, Arme­nia, Cyprus, Poland, Slo­vak Repub­lic, Alba­nia, Fin­land, Ger­many, Roma­nia, Bul­gar­ia, Lithua­nia, and Italy.
In a sep­a­rate devel­op­ment this week, Dutch law­mak­ers wrote an open let­ter to Dutch For­eign Min­is­ter, Uri Rosen­thal, call­ing on him to impose visa bans on Russ­ian offi­cials in Sergei Mag­nit­sky case and raise this step at the next meet­ing of the Euro­pean Coun­cil. In their let­ter, Dutch law­mak­ers labelled as a “medieval bar­barism”, the after-death pros­e­cu­tion by the Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Min­istry of Sergei Mag­nit­sky, a man who was false­ly arrest­ed and tor­tured to death in police custody.

See the “Sergei Mag­nit­sky Case” Dec­la­ra­tion at:
http://assembly.coe.int/Mainf.asp?link=/Documents/WorkingDocs/Doc11/EDOC12744.htm

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