Kratov Acquittal in Magnitsky’s Death Case is a Total Miscarriage of Justice

December 28, 2012

Today Judge Tatiana Nevero­va of Tver­skoi Dis­trict Court of Moscow acquit­ted Dmit­ry Kra­tov, for­mer deputy head of Butyr­ka in charge of med­ical care find­ing no evi­dence of neg­li­gence in his actions lead­ing to the death of Sergei Magnitsky.

Dmit­ry Kra­tov was the only per­son on the list of 60 Offi­cials pub­lished by the U.S. Helsin­ki Com­mis­sion for their role in the Mag­nit­sky case who has been on trial.

«Not a sin­gle offi­cial respon­si­ble for Sergei Mag­nit­sky’s false arrest, tor­ture and death or the crimes he had unovered have been pros­e­cut­ed by the Russ­ian author­i­ties,» said a Her­mitage Cap­i­tal representative.

“There is no doubt that peo­ple respon­si­ble for Magnitsky’s death are being pro­tect­ed by the Pres­i­dent of Rus­sia. Rus­sia nor­mal­ly has a 99% con­vic­tion rate. In this case, there was over­whelm­ing evi­dence of Kratov’s involve­ment and his acquit­tal goes against any log­ic or con­cept of justice.” 

This deci­sion comes sev­en days after Pres­i­dent Putin pub­licly direct­ed his gov­ern­ment to essen­tial­ly exon­er­ate any offi­cial involved by say­ing that “no one tor­tured Mag­nit­sky and he died of heart fail­ure”. Four days lat­er, the pros­e­cu­tor changed the course of the pro­ceed­ing and in an unprece­dent­ed action for a state pros­e­cu­tor, he asked for the acquit­tal in spite of pre­vi­ous­ly pre­sent­ing evi­dence of crim­i­nal con­duct by Kratov.

«Now that Pres­i­dent Putin is per­son­al­ly involved in the obstruc­tion of jus­tice in a major case of extra-judi­cial killing, he will have to face the con­se­quences for his actions,» said a Her­mitage Cap­i­tal representative.

The moth­er of Sergei Mag­nit­sky and her rep­re­sen­ta­tive boy­cotted today’s hearing. 

Comments

• Link