Magnitky’s Mother Will Boycott Court Hearing of Verdict on Prison Doctor Kratov

December 28, 2012

The moth­er of Sergei Mag­nit­sky said she would boy­cott today’s hear­ing where a Moscow court is sched­uled to announce the ver­dict in the case of Dmit­ry Kra­tov, for­mer deputy head of Butyr­ka, the only offi­cial charged in con­nec­tion with the death of her son. 

In the pre­vi­ous court hear­ing on Kra­tov’s crim­i­nal case, the Russ­ian pros­e­cu­tor made the sur­pris­ing and high­ly unusu­al deci­sion to ask the court to exon­er­ate Kra­tov. It is nor­mal­ly the job of the defence attor­ney to ask for exon­er­a­tion, and not the pros­e­cu­tor. The pros­e­cu­tor sud­den­ly changed direc­tion after Pres­i­dent Putin pub­licly stat­ed on 20 Decem­ber 2012 that Mag­nit­sky “was not tor­tured” and “died of heart failure.” 

In the pros­e­cu­tor’s sur­prise legal u‑turn, he stat­ed that Kra­tov act­ed in accor­dance with his duties, and that he was not aware of and could not have been aware of any requests from Sergei Mag­nit­sky for med­ical help. 

«Par­tic­i­pa­tion in this court hear­ing would have been humil­i­at­ing for me. I under­stand that every­thing has been decid­ed in advance and every­thing has been pre-deter­mined,» said Natalia Magnitskaya.

The pros­e­cu­tor’s exon­er­a­tion is being done in spite of wide rang­ing evi­dence pre­sent­ed at the tri­al of writ­ten requests for med­ical atten­tion addressed to Kra­tov from Sergei Mag­nit­sky him­self, his moth­er, and his col­leagues, as well as a tes­ti­mo­ny from a cell­mate of Mag­nit­sky con­firm­ing the exis­tence of such requests hav­ing been made by Mag­nit­sky to Kratov.

Dmit­ry Kra­tov signed the prison med­ical record on 7 Octo­ber 2009, one month before Mag­nit­sky’s death, where the diag­no­sis of pan­cre­ati­tis and gall­stones, and pre­scribed surgery and oth­er med­ical treat­ment were clear­ly present. On the same date, 7 Octo­ber 2009, Kra­tov refused a request for med­ical atten­tion from Mag­nit­sky’s lawyer stat­ing that Mag­nit­sky could still be held in cus­tody giv­en his «med­ical indi­ca­tions». On 11 Novem­ber 2009, five days before Sergei Mag­nit­sky’s death, Kra­tov signed anoth­er med­ical cer­tifi­cate stat­ing that Mag­nit­sky had acute pan­cre­ati­tis and gall­stones and still could have been held in cus­tody, which was used to pro­long the peri­od of his detention.

«The con­clu­sion that Kra­tov was unaware of com­plaints and requests for med­ical help is incred­i­ble giv­en that he signed med­ical records, refus­ing requests and stat­ing Mag­nit­sky can be held in cus­tody instead of being released to get med­ical atten­tion. Not only he was aware of Mag­nit­sky’s diag­noses, he per­son­al­ly con­firmed them, denied all requests for med­ical help and issued deci­sions that Mag­nit­sky could be held in cus­tody. The fact that the state is call­ing for his exon­er­a­tion shows clear­ly that this case is being direct­ed from the high­est polit­i­cal lev­els in Rus­sia», said a Her­mitage Cap­i­tal representative.

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