Lawyer Blasts Obstruction of Justice in the Trial of Russian Prison Doctor and Names Putin in Magnitsky Death Trial

December 24, 2012

In the final hear­ing of the Mag­nit­sky death tri­al of Dmit­ry Kra­tov, for­mer head of Butyr­ka Prison in charge of Magnitsky’s med­ical care, the lawyer for Magnitsky’s moth­er, Niko­lai Gorokhov, made dra­mat­ic clos­ing remarks nam­ing Pres­i­dent Putin’s role in obstruct­ing jus­tice for Sergei Magnitsky. 

“On 20 Decem­ber 2012, a polit­i­cal direc­tion was announced for the answer to the ques­tion about the caus­es of death of Mag­nit­sky. Pres­i­dent of the coun­try Putin said at the open press con­fer­ence broad­cast on all state TV chan­nels that Mag­nit­sky died, but not from tor­ture, that nobody tor­tured him, and he had died from heart fail­ure,” said lawyer Gorokhov.

The hear­ing in Moscow was the last hear­ing into the role that was played by Dmit­ry Kra­tov in refus­ing Mag­nit­sky med­ical care which led to Magnitsky’s death. In a sur­prise devel­op­ment, which fol­lowed from Pres­i­dent Putin’s state­ment that Mag­nit­sky died of nat­ur­al caus­es, the Russ­ian Pros­e­cu­tor, Bokov, who brought the case against Mr. Kra­tov, com­plete­ly changed his posi­tion and asked for Kra­tov to be acquit­ted stat­ing that there was no evi­dence link­ing Kratov’s actions to Magnitsky’s death.

Lawyer Gorokhov point­ed out in the tri­al that Kra­tov per­son­al­ly signed the prison records refus­ing Magnitsky’s com­plaints about the denial of med­ical care stat­ing that Mag­nit­sky was fit to be kept in cus­tody in light of his med­ical con­di­tion. The records showed that Kra­tov was aware of the diag­no­sis of acute pan­cre­ati­tis and gall­stones five days before Magnitsky’s death. Gorokhov also point­ed out that Magnitsky’s moth­er asked Kra­tov for med­ical help for her son two months before his death. Mag­nit­sky him­self request­ed med­ical atten­tion in writ­ing to Kra­tov on many occa­sions as was evi­denced by his com­plaints and wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny from his cellmate. 

“The request from the pros­e­cu­tor office to acquit Dmit­ry Kra­tov is of no sur­prise giv­en a state­ment from Pres­i­dent Putin four days ago that Mag­nit­sky died from nat­ur­al caus­es and was not tor­tured in prison,” said a Her­mitage Cap­i­tal representative.

Mr. Gorokhov went on to point out that the entire tri­al was under polit­i­cal direc­tion and the out­come had been pre-deter­mined by the Russ­ian authorities. 

“The open­ing of the crim­i­nal case only in rela­tion to Butyr­ka med­ical offi­cials has exclud­ed the pos­si­bil­i­ty to con­duct an objec­tive exam­i­na­tion of the crime against Mr Mag­nit­sky and pros­e­cu­tion of all per­sons com­plic­it in his mur­der,” said lawyer Gorokhov.

Mr. Gorokhov drew atten­tion to the tes­ti­mo­ny from for­mer Moscow prison offi­cial Olga Grig­orie­va, who stat­ed that that the tri­al was pre-ordered, the out­come was decid­ed in advance, and that unknown per­sons have appeared to be direct­ly con­trol­ling the trial.

In his clos­ing remarks, Gorokhov list­ed a num­ber of spe­cif­ic fail­ures by the court to even main­tain the appear­ance of a fair tri­al. He point­ed out that the court refused to iden­ti­fy and ques­tion the fol­low­ing wit­ness­es in spite of repeat­ed requests to do so:

1) Eye­wit­ness­es to the use of rub­ber batons and hand­cuffs on Mag­nit­sky in the last hour of his life, and of prison offi­cials who for­mal­ly sanc­tioned their use,
2) The expert who signed the autop­sy reports which showed gaps and irreg­u­lar­i­ties, and was car­ried out in con­tra­ven­tion to estab­lished standards,
3) The inves­ti­ga­tors who failed to obtain CCTV footage from prison where Mag­nit­sky died,
4) The Inte­ri­or Min­istry offi­cers who pro­vid­ed fal­si­fied reports used to arrest Mr Mag­nit­sky and pro­long his detention,
5) The Inte­ri­or Min­istry gen­er­als and prison sys­tem offi­cers who sanc­tioned his numer­ous trans­fers between deten­tion centers,
6) The offi­cials from the Russ­ian Gen­er­al Pros­e­cu­tors’ Office and prison offi­cials who refused Magnitsky’s com­plaints about med­ical assistance.

Mr. Gorokhov also point­ed out a num­ber of spe­cif­ic and damn­ing fail­ures in the tri­al against Kra­tov, including:
1) The refusal to call Magnitsky’s cell­mate, Mr Podolin, who pro­vid­ed writ­ten tes­ti­mo­ny to Magnitsky’s fam­i­ly that he had wit­nessed how Mag­nit­sky had com­plained direct­ly to Mr. Kra­tov about the denial of med­ical care. Mr. Podolin also was ready to state in court that when he gave this tes­ti­mo­ny to pros­e­cu­tors after Magnitsky’s death, they told him this part of his tes­ti­mo­ny was unnec­es­sary for them.
2) The refusal to iden­ti­fy and ques­tion the med­ical per­son­nel who report­ed to Kra­tov and were respon­si­ble for the med­ical care of Mag­nit­sky, includ­ing to ques­tion the para­medic who pur­port­ed­ly exam­ined Mag­nit­sky three days before his death.
3) The refusal to con­duct DNA test­ing and to deter­mine the blood type of organs used as part of the offi­cial med­ical exam­i­na­tion giv­en the strong sus­pi­cion that Magnitsky’s real organs had been switched to con­ceal the cause of death.
4) The refusal to exam­ine for authen­tic­i­ty the offi­cial med­ical records in spite of doubts in their authen­tic­i­ty and the evi­dence of fal­si­fi­ca­tion of Magnitsky’s signature.

The court ver­dict in the Kra­tov tri­al will be announced on 28 Decem­ber 2012.

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