Magnitsky’s Mother Challenges Russian Senators Over Posthumous Defamation of Her Son in DC, Russian Senator Leading Delegation to DC is Linked To Organized Crime

July 16, 2012

Today, Natalia Mag­nit­skaya, moth­er of the late Sergei Mag­nit­sky, wrote an open let­ter to Valenti­na Matvienko, head of the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion Coun­cil (the upper cham­ber of the Russ­ian Par­lia­ment), demand­ing answers over the defam­a­to­ry remarks made posthu­mous­ly against her dead son in Wash­ing­ton DC last week by Russ­ian mul­ti-mil­lion­naire sen­a­tor Vitaly Malkin, who was pre­vi­ous­ly named as “a mem­ber of a group engag­ing in orga­nized or transna­tion­al crime” by the Cana­di­an gov­ern­ment in court proceedings. 

“I believe that an attempt to slan­der the good name of my son posthu­mous­ly looks shame­ful and not deserv­ing of the hon­or­able title of peo­ple’s rep­re­sen­ta­tive,” said Natalia Mag­nit­skaya in her open let­ter to the leader of the Rus­si­a’s Fed­er­a­tion Coun­cil (http://russian-untouchables.com/rus/docs/D524.pdf).

On the trip, Mr Malkin and three oth­er Russ­ian sen­a­tors met with U.S. con­gress­men to lob­by against the pass­ing of the Mag­nit­sky Act, a piece of leg­is­la­tion which would impose U.S. visa bans and asset freezes on cor­rupt offi­cials and human rights abusers. In their meet­ings, Vitaly Malkin and his Fed­er­a­tion Coun­cil col­leagues cir­cu­lat­ed a report defam­ing Sergei Mag­nit­sky, which they claimed was the result of an offi­cial “par­lia­men­tary inves­ti­ga­tion”. The man­date of the Malk­in’s report was imme­di­ate­ly put into ques­tion by Mikhail Margelov, head of the Fed­er­a­tion Coun­cil’s For­eign Rela­tions Com­mit­tee, who stat­ed that it was not “a par­lia­men­tary inves­ti­ga­tion in the accept­ed mean­ing of the word” (see fur­ther Inter­fax news agency http://russian-untouchables.com/eng/2012/07/senator-denies-russian-report-on-magnitskiy-case-based-on-official-inquiry/).

It has now tran­spired that Mr Malkin, who led the Russ­ian del­e­ga­tion to DC and lob­bied against visa sanc­tions, had a con­flict of inter­est due to his visa appli­ca­tions being repeat­ed­ly reject­ed by the Cana­di­an gov­ern­ment on the grounds of his report­ed links to “orga­nized or transna­tion­al crime”, and “asso­ci­a­tion with indi­vid­u­als involved in mon­ey laun­der­ing, arms trade and trade in Angolan “con­flict dia­monds,” accord­ing to court doc­u­ments revealed by Cana­di­an Nation­al Post and The Moscow Times (http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/billionaire-senator-cant-get-canadian-visa/378307.html).

Accord­ing to the Moscow Times, between 1994 and 2009, Mr. Malkin applied for a per­ma­nent res­i­dence per­mit in Cana­da and sub­se­quent­ly for a tourist visa to Cana­da. Both appli­ca­tions were reject­ed because of his report­ed links to indi­vid­u­als involved in orga­nized or transna­tion­al crime. 

“A visa offi­cer told the Cana­di­an court that Malkin was a share­hold­er in a com­pa­ny thought to have received mon­ey divert­ed from a debt-reduc­tion deal with Ango­la. “Mr. Malkine is report­ed to have per­son­al­ly received some $48 mil­lion in the trans­ac­tion,” a pas­sage pub­lished by the court in May reads,” report­ed Moscow Times in 2009.

“The visa offi­cer also not­ed Malk­in’s asso­ci­a­tion with indi­vid­u­als involved in mon­ey laun­der­ing, arms trade and trade in Angolan “con­flict dia­monds, the doc­u­ment say,” accord­ing to the Moscow Times.

Mr Malkin filed a law­suit in Cana­da over his entry being denied, the out­come of the pro­ceed­ing is not known.

“It’s remark­able that a Russ­ian offi­cial, who has been linked to orga­nized crime and arms trad­ing by a major West­ern gov­ern­ment, would be sent by the Russ­ian par­lia­ment to lob­by against US leg­is­la­tion to ban sim­i­lar types of Rus­sians com­ing to the Unit­ed States. It is even more remark­able that such a com­pro­mised char­ac­ter would have the nerve to slan­der Sergei Mag­nit­sky on US soil. Mr Malkin should go back home and pub­licly apol­o­gize to the Mag­nit­sky fam­i­ly for the dis­grace­ful way he insult­ed Sergei Mag­nit­sky’s mem­o­ry,” said a Her­mitage Cap­i­tal representative. 

Dur­ing the trip to Wash­ing­ton Mr Malkin made a num­ber of pub­lic and defam­a­to­ry state­ments about Sergei Mag­nit­sky claim­ing Mag­nit­sky was a “drunk”, “out of shape” and that he did­n’t die from his injuries after a severe beat­ing. Mr Malk­in’s report has been con­demned by Sergei Mag­nit­sky’s moth­er as echo­ing the same false accu­sa­tions made by the Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Min­istry offi­cials who had tor­tured and killed her son in custody.

In her open let­ter, Ms Mag­nit­skaya said:
“The state­ments by Russ­ian sen­a­tors are iden­ti­cal to the mis­lead­ing ver­sion of events con­coct­ed by the inves­ti­ga­tors and pros­e­cu­tors who are respon­si­ble for my son’s death. They com­plete­ly ignore the con­clu­sions of the Moscow Pub­lic Over­sight Com­mit­tee and the Pres­i­den­t’s Human Rights Council.” 

The Russ­ian Pres­i­den­t’s Human Rights Coun­cil con­clud­ed that Mag­nit­sky had been arrest­ed ille­gal­ly, using a fal­si­fied report from the FSB (the Russ­ian secret police), that Mag­nit­sky was denied jus­tice and was per­se­cut­ed by the same inves­ti­ga­tors he had accused of a cor­rupt scheme to steal $230 mil­lion of bud­get funds, and that all attempts to inves­ti­gate the role of offi­cials in the thefts have been blocked by the Russ­ian government.
Ms Mag­nit­skaya stressed that the report released by the Fed­er­a­tion Coun­cil mem­bers in Wash­ing­ton was pre­pared secret­ly and that the author­i­ty of the Russ­ian offi­cials who pre­sent­ed it has not been dis­closed to the pub­lic. She asked Valenti­na Matvienko, head of the Russ­ian sen­ate, to address three points:
1) Dis­close which sen­a­tors in the Fed­er­a­tion Coun­cil made the deci­sion to car­ry out the secret inves­ti­ga­tion into the Mag­nit­sky case and under what author­i­ty the sen­a­tors car­ried it out;
2) Pro­vide Mag­nit­sky’s fam­i­ly lawyer all doc­u­ments that the sen­a­tors claimed to have received from gov­ern­ment bod­ies and the notes they drafted;
3) Dis­close the bud­get and sources of financ­ing of the sen­a­tors’ trip to Washington.
On the trip, Mr Malkin was accom­pa­nied by three oth­er Russ­ian sen­a­tors: Valery Shnyakin, Alexan­der Savenkov, and Aslam­bek Aslakhanov. 

“Abus­ing their sta­tus, these peo­ple allowed them­selves to posthu­mous­ly defame the mem­o­ry of my son. They used the fact that my son can no longer defend him­self. I ask of you as the leader of the upper cham­ber of the Russ­ian par­lia­ment to give an objec­tive assess­ment of the actions of these indi­vid­u­als,” said Ms Mag­nit­skaya in her let­ter to the leader of the Fed­er­a­tion Council.

Mr Malkin, head of the Fed­er­a­tion Coun­cil’s del­e­ga­tion to DC, has rep­re­sent­ed the east Siber­ian repub­lic of Bury­a­tia in the Fed­er­a­tion Coun­cil, Rus­si­a’s sen­ate, since 2004. He is a mul­ti-mil­lion­aire cur­rent­ly ranked 7^th on the Forbes’ list of Rus­si­a’s rich­est offi­cials, and is the 163^th rich­est busi­ness­man in Rus­sia, with a net worth esti­mat­ed at US$ 600 mil­lion (2012) (http://www.forbes.ru/profile/vitalii-malkin).

Comments

• Link