Russian Interior Ministry Refuses to Stop the Posthumous Prosecution of Magnitsky and Intimidation of his Family

October 27, 2011

Today doc­u­ments from Moscow city court revealed that the Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Min­istry have for­mal­ly denied peti­tions from rel­a­tives of Sergei Mag­nit­sky, to stop his pros­e­cu­tion on fab­ri­cat­ed tax eva­sion charges two years after he died. The Inte­ri­or Min­istry also refused to remove the inves­ti­ga­tors from the posthu­mous case against him who had been named by the President’s Human Rights Coun­cil as hav­ing been respon­si­ble for Magnitsky’s false arrest and tor­ture in police cus­tody in 2009. 

The Inte­ri­or Min­istry fur­ther denied the peti­tion from Magnitsky’s rel­a­tives to cease the intim­i­da­tion of his sur­viv­ing fam­i­ly by means of sum­mons­es for ques­tion­ing as wit­ness­es in the posthu­mous case against him. The Inte­ri­or Min­istry declared that it found no legal vio­la­tions in the activ­i­ties of the inves­tiga­tive team on the Mag­nit­sky case. 

These lat­est devel­op­ments came to light in the sub­mis­sions made on Mon­day in the Moscow City Court, which denied the law­suit from Magnitsky’s rel­a­tives against senior Moscow judge for fail­ure to afford them pro­tec­tion of the courts.

The evi­dence pre­sent­ed in court by Niko­lai Gorokhov, the Mag­nit­sky fam­i­ly lawyer includ­ed a let­ter dat­ed Octo­ber 7, 2011 from the Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Min­istry to Magnitsky’s fam­i­ly, signed by P.V. Lap­shov, chief of unit with­in the Inte­ri­or Ministry’s Inves­tiga­tive Depart­ment, which said:

“The study of the crim­i­nal case found no vio­la­tion of crim­i­nal procedure.”

“The reopen­ing of the inves­ti­ga­tion against Mag­nit­sky after his death is essen­tial­ly aimed at…ascertaining all charges against Mag­nit­sky,” said Inte­ri­or Min­istry offi­cial Lapshov.

To jus­ti­fy the refusal to remove inves­ti­ga­tors who had pros­e­cut­ed Mag­nit­sky from the case for their con­flict of inter­est, Mr Lap­shov said:

“The inves­ti­ga­tors appoint­ed to pros­e­cute Mag­nit­sky [after his death] have pre­vi­ous­ly con­duct­ed a pre­lim­i­nary inves­ti­ga­tion in the crim­i­nal case against him [dur­ing his life]. In accor­dance with Part 2 of Arti­cle 67 of the Crim­i­nal Pro­ce­dur­al Code [which pre­scribes recusal of inves­ti­ga­tors with con­flict of inter­est], the pre­vi­ous par­tic­i­pa­tion in a crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ing does not con­sti­tute a ground for their removal.”

The Inte­ri­or Ministry’s state­ment con­tra­dicts the July 5, 2011 find­ings of the Russ­ian President’s Human Rights Coun­cil, which con­clud­ed that Mag­nit­sky had been arrest­ed and detained in breach of the Euro­pean Human Rights con­ven­tion and pros­e­cut­ed by the Inte­ri­or Min­istry offi­cials with a con­flict of inter­est in breach of the Russ­ian law. The offi­cers who arrest­ed Sergei Mag­nit­sky were the same offi­cers whom he tes­ti­fied against one month before his arrest about their involve­ment in the theft of Her­mitage Fund com­pa­nies and $230 mil­lion from the Russ­ian budget.

Instead of pros­e­cut­ing the offi­cials named by the Human Rights Coun­cil report for the false arrest of Mr. Mag­nit­sky on fab­ri­cat­ed charges, the Russ­ian author­i­ties are now pros­e­cut­ing Mr. Mag­nit­sky him­self two years after he died in cus­tody from their tor­ture. As part of this case, in August and Sep­tem­ber 2011, Mr. Magnitsky’s moth­er and wid­ow were sum­moned for ques­tion­ing as wit­ness­es by the same Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Min­istry offi­cials who per­se­cut­ed Mr. Magnitsky. 

“We are deal­ing with medieval meth­ods by crim­i­nals hid­ing behind the sov­er­eign­ty of the Russ­ian state to get away with mur­der. We will do every­thing pos­si­ble to make sure that they face real jus­tice in the West,” said a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of Her­mitage Capital.

Reply to Natalia Mag­nit­skaya from Lapshov

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