Repressive Criminal Case Against Sergei Magnitsky Opened After His Death in Russia Without His Family’s Consent, Investigators Cleared of Any Wrong-Doing

August 2, 2011

Today a crim­i­nal case was posthu­mous­ly opened against the anti-cor­rup­tion lawyer Sergei Mag­nit­sky by the Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Min­istry, local media reported. 

The crim­i­nal case has been opened on orders from the Russ­ian Gen­er­al Pros­e­cu­tor Office cit­ing a recent rul­ing of the Russ­ian Con­sti­tu­tion­al Court which pro­hib­it­ed clos­ing cas­es with­out rel­a­tives’ consent.

How­ev­er, the re-open­ing of the case against Sergei Mag­nit­sky, 20 months after his death, has been car­ried out with­out fam­i­ly’s con­sent by the Inte­ri­or Min­istry, in vio­la­tion of the prin­ci­ple set out by the Con­sti­tu­tion­al Court rul­ing. “This rep­re­sents a clear abuse of the law and due process”, said a Her­mitage Cap­i­tal representative.

“If this were a legit­i­mate action, the author­i­ties would have sought a fam­i­ly con­sent as required under the Con­sti­tu­tion”, said a Her­mitage Cap­i­tal representative.

The case against the lawyer has been sent by the Russ­ian Gen­er­al Pros­e­cu­tor’s Office for inves­ti­ga­tion to the Cen­tral Fed­er­al Dis­trict of the Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Min­sit­ry. This is the same depart­ment which has just reject­ed the find­ing of the Pres­i­den­t’s Human Rights Coun­cil that Sergei Mag­nit­sky was false­ly arrest­ed and killed in cus­tody. This depart­ment has also cleared all Inte­ri­or Min­istry offi­cers on the Mag­nit­sky case (includ­ing Lt-Col Silchenko, Lt-Col Kuznetsov and oth­ers) of any wrong­do­ing in con­tra­dic­tion to the Coun­cil’s findings. 

“It is hard­ly like­ly that the Inte­ri­or Min­istry offi­cials who dis­missed the inde­pen­dent find­ings of the Pres­i­den­t’s Human Rights Coun­cil, can be trust­ed to car­ry out an impar­tial probe now,” said a Her­mitage Cap­i­tal representatve.

“Were this act to be done in good faith, instead of reviv­ing a case against Sergei Mag­nit­sky when he is dead, the Russ­ian author­i­ties would have opened a crim­i­nal case against the Inte­ri­or Min­istry offi­cers who false­ly arrest­ed him and were involved in the theft of $230 mil­lion he had exposed based on the over­whelm­ing evi­dence,” fur­ther said a Her­mitage Cap­i­tal representative.

One month before his death, on 13 Octo­ber 2009, Sergei Mag­nit­sky described the motives for his per­se­cu­tion by the Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Ministry:

“My per­se­cu­tion is being car­ried out in breach of Arti­cle 6 of the Russ­ian Crim­i­nal Pro­ce­dur­al Code. It is a repres­sive mea­sure aimed to pun­ish me for the assis­tance I pro­vid­ed to my client regard­ing the inves­ti­ga­tion of the cir­cum­stances of the theft of clien­t’s com­pa­nies Rilend, Mahaon and Par­fe­nion who lat­er were used by the per­pe­tra­tors to steal from the trea­sure 5.4 bil­lion rou­bles [$230 mil­lion] that had been ear­li­er paid by clien­t’s com­pa­nies to the budget…which served as a ground for my ille­gal crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion con­duct­ed by inves­ti­ga­tor Silchenko.”

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