William Browder, CEO of Hermitage Capital, summoned for questioning in Moscow by Investigator Implicated in Magnitsky Murder

May 12, 2011

Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Min­istry inves­ti­ga­tor Oleg Silchenko, who was respon­si­ble for the false arrest, tor­ture and mur­der in cus­tody of Her­mitage Fund’s lawyer Sergei Mag­nit­sky, has issued a sum­mons to ques­tion the CEO of Her­mitage Cap­i­tal Man­age­ment, William Brow­der, in Moscow.

The sum­mons came by fax from Silchenko just two days before the date of the intend­ed ques­tion­ing. Silchenko’s notice was print­ed on Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Min­istry let­ter­head and was faxed to Hermitage’s Lon­don office on 10 May, invit­ing William Brow­der to appear in Moscow two days lat­er on May 12, at 11 am at the Min­istry of Inte­ri­or Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee: Office 71, ¹⁰⁄₂ B Nikit­skaya, Moscow, Russ­ian Federation.

“The notice from Silchenko is absurd. Silchenko is well aware that William Brow­der was banned from enter­ing the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion on “nation­al secu­ri­ty” grounds. Silchenko is clear­ly retal­i­at­ing against Mr Browder’s glob­al cam­paign to get jus­tice for Sergei Mag­nit­sky and efforts to intro­duce sanc­tions against Silchenko and oth­er Russ­ian offi­cials who played a role in Sergei’s, tor­ture and death,” said a Her­mitage Cap­i­tal representative.

Silchenko faxed three copies of the same sum­mons, one after the oth­er, at the same time, chang­ing the date on each fax head­er, to make it appear that they were sent at dif­fer­ent dates and times. How­ev­er, the receipt details from the fax­es all show that they were sent on the same day and with­in min­utes of each other.

The notice states Silchenko’s inten­tion to give to Mr Brow­der the text of an “accu­sa­tion” and to ques­tion Mr Brow­der. How­ev­er, none of Mr Browder’s Russ­ian lawyers have been noti­fied of this action in breach of Russ­ian law, which requires the inves­ti­ga­tor to advise lawyers of any such sum­mons. In his sum­mons, Silchenko has also ignored the Russ­ian legal norms stip­u­lat­ed for ques­tion­ing UK nation­als through the Russ­ian / UK mutu­al legal assis­tance treaties.

“The fact that the sum­mons from Moscow to Lon­don was sent by fax and with only two days notice, is sim­ply laugh­able. Silchenko keeps demon­strat­ing his incom­pe­tence and inabil­i­ty to work with­in the law. If  Silchenko has any legal ques­tions, we would be delight­ed to see him in Lon­don where we have some legal ques­tions of our own for him,” said a Her­mitage Cap­i­tal representative.

Last week, Silchenko also issued an arrest war­rant for anoth­er Her­mitage Cap­i­tal exec­u­tive, Ivan Cherkasov. It is being appealed by Mr Cherkasov’s lawyers as polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed, retal­ia­to­ry and illegitimate.

Silchenko has become famous across Rus­sia and the world for his role in the tor­ture of Mr Mag­nit­sky which includ­ed: fal­si­fy­ing evi­dence, deny­ing him med­ical care, with­hold­ing food and clean water and for­bid­ding him access to his fam­i­ly. These actions were tak­en in an attempt to force Mr. Mag­nit­sky to retract his tes­ti­monies against cor­rupt Russ­ian offi­cials who he had accused of mis­ap­pro­pri­at­ing three Her­mitage Fund com­pa­nies, and embez­zling $230 mil­lion of pub­lic tax­es. Based on com­plaints filed by Mr Mag­nit­sky, Silchenko also tried to pres­sure Mr. Mag­nit­sky to sign a false con­fes­sion to impli­cate him­self as well as his client, Mr Brow­der. Three days before his death, Mr. Mag­nit­sky filed a com­plaint with the courts stat­ing his deter­mi­na­tion to bring Silchenko, and oth­er offi­cials who fal­si­fied his case, to trial.

Since Sergei Magnitsky’s death in cus­tody a year and a half ago, the Moscow Helsin­ki Group, an inde­pen­dent Russ­ian human rights organ­i­sa­tion, has filed crim­i­nal com­plaints against Silchenko for his role in the false arrest, tor­ture and mur­der of Mr Mag­nit­sky and the cov­er up of gov­ern­ment offi­cials exposed by Mag­nit­sky in corruption.

Last year, Silchenko also fal­si­fied evi­dence against anoth­er of Hermitage’s Russ­ian lawyers, Alexan­der Antipov, in an attempt to arrest him and have him dis­barred. These actions were pub­licly con­demned by the Moscow Bar Association.

Last month, mem­bers of the Russ­ian president’s Human Rights Coun­cil released part of their find­ings on the Mag­nit­sky case which stat­ed that Mr. Mag­nit­sky was impris­oned by Silchenko on false grounds and that the Inte­ri­or Min­istry and the Russ­ian Fed­er­al Secu­ri­ty Ser­vice (FSB), had fab­ri­cat­ed the case against him. This is the same case for which Mr Brow­der is being sought for ques­tion­ing today.

In spite of Oleg Silchenko’s pub­lic record and involve­ment in the death of Sergei Mag­nit­sky, last year Russ­ian author­i­ties pro­mot­ed Silchenko and gave him top state hon­ours on the one year anniver­sary of Sergei Magnitsky’s death.

In 2009, the Par­lia­men­tary Assem­bly of the Coun­cil of Europe con­clud­ed in their report on ‘Alle­ga­tions of Polit­i­cal­ly-Moti­vat­ed Abus­es of the Crim­i­nal Jus­tice Sys­tem in Coun­cil of Europe Mem­bers States’, that:

“the pro­ceed­ings in the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion against Her­mitage exec­u­tives and lawyers were polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed and as such, any request from Rus­sia for mutu­al legal assis­tance must be reject­ed as being con­trary to the estab­lished legal norms”.

Silchenko’s notice comes weeks after the Swiss Gen­er­al Pros­e­cu­tor opened, on appli­ca­tion from Her­mitage Cap­i­tal, an inves­ti­ga­tion into mon­ey laun­der­ing by Russ­ian gov­ern­ment offi­cials and their fam­i­lies. These offi­cials were impli­cat­ed in the theft of Her­mitage Fund’s invest­ment com­pa­nies and $230 mil­lion stolen from pub­lic funds – crimes uncov­ered by Sergei Mag­nit­sky and which inves­ti­ga­tor Silchenko played a key role in concealing.

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