United Nations Launches Investigation into Extrajudicial Killing and Torture of Russian Anti Corruption Lawyer Sergei Magnitsky

January 20, 2011

The Unit­ed Nations has launched a broad based inves­ti­ga­tion into the death in cus­tody of Russ­ian anti-cor­rup­tion lawyer, Sergei Mag­nit­sky. Through the Unit­ed Nations Spe­cial Rap­por­teurs on Extra­ju­di­cial Exe­cu­tions, Tor­ture and the Inde­pen­dence of Lawyers and Judges, the Unit­ed Nations has launched an unprece­dent­ed inves­ti­ga­tion into the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the false arrest, denial of med­ical care, tor­ture in police cus­tody and death of 37-year old lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.

The UN inves­ti­ga­tion was trig­gered by the appli­ca­tion from REDRESS, a pow­er­ful UK-based advo­ca­cy orga­ni­za­tion ded­i­cat­ed to assist­ing tor­ture vic­tims and mak­ing tor­tur­ers account­able around the world.

“More than one year after Magnitsky’s death, Russ­ian author­i­ties failed to car­ry out a full, effec­tive and impar­tial inves­ti­ga­tion into the alle­ga­tions capa­ble of lead­ing to the truth of what occurred and as appro­pri­ate, the pros­e­cu­tion of those respon­si­ble,” said REDRESS in their appli­ca­tion to the UN Spe­cial Rapporteurs.

REDRESS has request­ed that UN Spe­cial Rap­por­teurs launch their own inves­ti­ga­tion into the Sergei Mag­nit­sky case giv­en the fail­ure of the Russ­ian author­i­ties to bring to tri­al those respon­si­ble for Mr. Magnitsky’s tor­ture and mur­der and in light of the pro­mo­tions and rewards to com­plic­it offi­cials issued by the Russ­ian author­i­ties last year.

The UN Spe­cial Rap­por­teur on Tor­ture Dr Mendez has acknowl­edged the begin­ning of a for­mal inves­ti­ga­tion into Mag­nit­sky case. Three UN Spe­cial Rap­por­teurs – Dr Juan Mendez, UN Rap­por­teur on Tor­ture and Oth­er Cru­el, Inhu­man or Degrad­ing Treat­ment or Pun­ish­ment; Prof Alston, UN Rap­por­teur on Extra­ju­di­cial, Sum­ma­ry or Arbi­trary Exe­cu­tions, and Ms Knaul, Rap­por­teur on the Inde­pen­dence of Lawyers and Judges — have tak­en up the investigation.

To assist with their inves­ti­ga­tion, REDRESS pro­vid­ed the UN Spe­cial Rap­por­teurs with sub­stan­tial doc­u­men­tary evi­dence of tor­ture and extra­ju­di­cial exe­cu­tion avail­able in this case. In their 100-page appli­ca­tion to the UN, REDRESS has iden­ti­fied the spe­cif­ic Russ­ian state bod­ies respon­si­ble for order­ing and car­ry­ing out Magnitsky’s tor­ture in police cus­tody and deny­ing him any legal rem­e­dy dur­ing 358 days in deten­tion. REDRESS pro­vides spe­cif­ic evi­dence of the com­plic­i­ty of the Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Min­istry, the Russ­ian Fed­er­al Secu­ri­ty Ser­vice (a suc­ces­sor organ­i­sa­tion to KGB), Gen­er­al Pros­e­cu­tor Office, State Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee, deten­tion cen­tre offi­cials and Moscow city and dis­trict judges in Mr. Magnitsky’s death.

REDRESS said in its application:

“The meth­ods used against Mag­nit­sky, singly and in com­bi­na­tion- the inhu­man deten­tion con­di­tions, the iso­la­tion from his fam­i­ly, the lack of reg­u­lar access to his lawyers and the inten­tion­al refusal to pro­vide ade­quate med­ical assis­tance result­ed in the delib­er­ate inflic­tion of severe pain and suf­fer­ing, and ulti­mate­ly his death. These mea­sures were designed to increase his dis­com­fort and to put fur­ther pres­sure on him to con­fess and tes­ti­fy against oth­ers. The meth­ods were also used to force Mag­nit­sky to retract his tes­ti­monies against Russ­ian offi­cials. The acts were com­mit­ted by offi­cials as set out above. For these rea­sons, the acts were of such a sever­i­ty and car­ried the req­ui­site pur­pose to have amount­ed to tor­ture in vio­la­tion of Arti­cle 2 (1) and Arti­cle 1 of the UN Con­ven­tion against Tor­ture.”

REDRESS also high­light­ed in their appli­ca­tion par­tic­u­lar seri­ous vio­la­tions by the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion of a num­ber of UN con­ven­tions that amount­ed to torture.

“Magnitsky’s treat­ment in Butyr­ka deten­tion cen­tre… was con­trary to the UN Stan­dard Min­i­mum Rules for Treat­ment of Pris­on­ers which pro­vide that “sick pris­on­ers who require spe­cial­ist treat­ment shall be trans­ferred to spe­cial­ized insti­tu­tions or to civ­il hos­pi­tals. Where hos­pi­tal facil­i­ties are pro­vid­ed in an insti­tu­tion, their equip­ment, fur­nish­ings and phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal sup­plies shall be prop­er for the med­ical care and treat­ment of sick pris­on­ers, and there shall be a staff of suit­able trained offi­cers.”

“The con­tin­ued rejec­tion of his requests to see his wife, chil­dren and moth­er was con­trary to the UN Stan­dard Min­i­mum Rules for the Treat­ment of Prisoners.”

“The deten­tion of Mag­nit­sky in these cells vio­lat­ed recog­nised min­i­mum stan­dards of the con­di­tions of deten­tion, such as the UN Body of Prin­ci­ples for the Pro­tec­tion of All Per­sons under Any Form of Deten­tion or Impris­on­ment … and the UN Stan­dard Min­i­mum Rules for the Treat­ment of Pris­on­ers, which apply in Rus­sia by virtue of the Euro­pean Con­ven­tion on Human Rights.”

“The lack of ade­quate treat­ment exposed him to acute pain and suf­fer­ing over almost four months and appears to have ulti­mate­ly caused his death in deten­tion. The denial of nec­es­sary med­ical treat­ment to Mag­nit­sky, despite repeat­ed requests, there­fore vio­lat­ed his right to life. It also exposed him to a lev­el of dis­tress and hard­ship of an inten­si­ty that went beyond the unavoid­able lev­el of suf­fer­ing inher­ent in deten­tion and was in clear vio­la­tion of inter­na­tion­al stan­dards pro­hibit­ing tor­ture and cru­el, inhu­man or degrad­ing treat­ment.”

REDRESS has stressed that the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment is under clear oblig­a­tion to launch an imme­di­ate inves­ti­ga­tion into Magnitsky’s tor­ture and that such inves­ti­ga­tion must be trans­par­ent and void of any par­tic­i­pa­tion from the senior state offi­cials involved in Magnitsky’s per­se­cu­tion and the $230 mil­lion cor­rup­tion he exposed.

“To com­ply with its oblig­a­tions, it is incum­bent on the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment to order a prompt, inde­pen­dent and thor­ough inves­ti­ga­tion that is sub­ject to pub­lic scruti­ny. Accord­ing­ly, the inves­ti­ga­tion must be ful­ly inde­pen­dent of the insti­tu­tions and per­sons accused by Mag­nit­sky to be involved in the tax fraud and alleged­ly involved in his tor­ture. The inde­pen­dent nature of the inves­ti­ga­tion is par­tic­u­lar­ly impor­tant as the indi­vid­u­als alleged to be involved in this case include high rank­ing gov­ern­ment offi­cials, whose inves­ti­ga­tion requires polit­i­cal con­sent. The inves­ti­ga­tion must be able to pro­nounce on the respon­si­bil­i­ty of the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment if proved to have known and be involved in Magnitsky’s tor­ture and even­tu­al death and iden­ti­fy any indi­vid­u­als respon­si­ble, irre­spec­tive of their rank and posi­tion,” said REDRESS.

Sergei Mag­nit­sky (8 April 1972 – 16 Novem­ber 2009), an out­side lawyer for the Her­mitage Fund, dis­cov­ered that Russ­ian police were involved in mis­ap­pro­pri­at­ing his client’s invest­ment com­pa­nies and embez­zling $230 mil­lion of pub­lic funds through the largest tax refund fraud in Russ­ian his­to­ry. Mag­nit­sky tes­ti­fied against the state offi­cials involved, and in ret­ri­bu­tion they arrest­ed him, detained him for 12 months with­out tri­al and tor­tured him to with­draw his tes­ti­mo­ny. Despite the sys­tem­at­ic phys­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal tor­ture, Mag­nit­sky refused to change his tes­ti­mo­ny. He died on 16 Novem­ber 2009 at the age of 37 leav­ing a moth­er, wife and two chil­dren. Sergei Mag­nit­sky was posthu­mous­ly award­ed 2010 Integri­ty Award by Trans­paren­cy Inter­na­tion­al, a lead­ing inter­na­tion­al civ­il soci­ety organ­i­sa­tion fight­ing corruption.

More infor­ma­tion:

The UN Spe­cial Rap­por­teur on Tor­ture Dr Juan Mendez was tor­tured him­self dur­ing the for­mer Argen­tinean dic­ta­tor­ship. As a result of his involve­ment in rep­re­sent­ing polit­i­cal pris­on­ers, the Argen­tinean mil­i­tary dic­ta­tor­ship arrest­ed him and sub­ject­ed him to tor­ture and admin­is­tra­tive deten­tion for more than a year. Dur­ing this time, Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al recog­nised him as a “Pris­on­er of Con­science.” Dr Mendez holds exten­sive back­ground and human rights awards in the field of human rights and tran­si­tion­al justice.

The UN Spe­cial Rap­por­teur on Extra­ju­di­cial, Sum­ma­ry or Arbi­trary Exe­cu­tions Prof. Philip Alston is an inter­na­tion­al law schol­ar and human rights prac­ti­tion­er. He was appoint­ed by the Unit­ed Nations Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al in 1988 to sug­gest reforms to make the Unit­ed Nations human rights treaty mon­i­tor­ing sys­tem more effec­tive. His major reports in 1989, 1993, and 1997 pro­vid­ed the impe­tus for con­tin­u­ing efforts by the UN Office of the High Com­mis­sion­er for Human Rights and the UN Human Rights Coun­cil to stream­line and improve the rather unwieldy mon­i­tor­ing system.

UN Spe­cial Rap­por­teur on the inde­pen­dence of judges and lawyers Ms. Gabriela Knaul has a long-stand­ing expe­ri­ence as a judge in Brazil and is an expert in crim­i­nal jus­tice and the admin­is­tra­tion of judi­cial systems.

REDRESS is a human rights organ­i­sa­tion that helps tor­ture sur­vivors obtain jus­tice and repa­ra­tion. REDRESS works with sur­vivors to help restore their dig­ni­ty and to make tor­tur­ers accountable.

REDRESS

Juer­gen Schurr, Legal Advisor

+44 20 7793 1777

juergen@redress.org

http://www.redress.org/smartweb/home/home

Full text of the REDRESS appli­ca­tion to the Unit­ed Nations about the fail­ure of the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion to inves­ti­gate the tor­ture in cus­tody of anti-cor­rup­tion lawyer Sergei Magnitsky:

http://www.redress.org/smartweb/case-docket/allegation-letter-to-un-special-rapporteurs-on-torture-and-on-the-independence-of-the-judiciary-and-

Unit­ed Nations Human Rights Coun­cil home­page and infor­ma­tion on the UN Spe­cial Rapporteurs:

http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/

Comments

• Link