Moscow Court Allows Posthumous Prosecution of a Dead Lawyer to Go Ahead

April 3, 2012

Today, judge Yulia Bobro­va of Ostank­in­sky Dis­trict Court of Moscow, reject­ed a law­suit from the moth­er of the late Sergei Mag­nit­sky seek­ing to rec­og­nize as unlaw­ful the deci­sion to pros­e­cute her son posthu­mous­ly after he was killed in police cus­tody two years ago. 

“Today’s Moscow court deci­sion opens a new chap­ter in the Russ­ian legal his­to­ry. The Moscow court for­mal­ly allowed the pros­e­cu­tion of a dead man. This is a clear-cut breach of the Euro­pean Human Rights Con­ven­tion and Russia’s own Con­sti­tu­tion,” said a Her­mitage Cap­i­tal representative. 

Judge Bobro­va did not find any vio­la­tion in the deci­sions of pros­e­cu­tors to open a case after the person’s death in spite of the fact that he can’t defend him­self. Judge Bobro­va also sided with pros­e­cu­tors allow­ing them to con­tin­ue to treat Magnitsky’s moth­er and wid­ow as defen­dants in this case.

Niko­lai Gorokhov, lawyer for Magnitsky’s moth­er, stressed that the deci­sion by Deputy Gen­er­al Pros­e­cu­tor, Vik­tor Grin, to pros­e­cute Mag­nit­sky posthu­mous­ly was dri­ven by his clear con­flict of inter­est and was in retal­i­a­tion to the US State Depart­ment black­list­ing Russ­ian offi­cials in the Mag­nit­sky case. Vik­tor Grin was named as num­ber 33 on the US Helsin­ki Com­mis­sion list of Russ­ian offi­cials involved in the tor­ture and mur­der of Sergei Mag­nit­sky and the cor­rup­tion he had uncov­ered. The US State Depart­ment pub­licly announced their deci­sion to black­list Russ­ian offi­cials on 27 July 2011. Three days lat­er, on 30 July 2011, Vik­tor Grin gave an order to open a posthu­mous pros­e­cu­tion of Sergei Magnitsky.

Inte­ri­or Min­istry inves­ti­ga­tor Kibis, who is in charge of the case, stat­ed to the court that he found no grounds to reha­bil­i­tate Mag­nit­sky and found no wrong-doing in the actions of law enforce­ment offi­cials who arrest­ed and tor­tured him to death.

Magnitsky’s fam­i­ly is plan­ning to appeal today’s court deci­sion. Today’s deci­sion fol­lows a trail of sim­i­lar deci­sions deny­ing Mag­nit­sky and his fam­i­ly jus­tice in all cir­cum­stances. Last year, 14 Russ­ian judges refused all peti­tions from the Mag­nit­sky fam­i­ly seek­ing access to his case file and to tis­sues sam­ples for an inde­pen­dent med­ical exam­i­na­tion. While Mag­nit­sky was alive, 11 Russ­ian judges reject­ed 40 peti­tions he filed about his unlaw­ful arrest and repres­sion by the offi­cers he had accused of $230 mil­lion corruption.

In pur­su­ing the posthu­mous case against Sergei Mag­nit­sky, Russ­ian author­i­ties have explic­it­ly reject­ed the find­ings from the Russ­ian President’s Human Rights Council. 

“It is clear that no jus­tice is pos­si­ble and no inves­ti­ga­tion can be impar­tial as long as the inves­ti­ga­tion is con­trolled by the same offi­cials and bod­ies who com­mit­ted the crimes against him. To recog­nise Magnitsky’s inno­cence means that the law enforce­ment bod­ies have to rec­og­nize their own guilt. That seems very unlike­ly in Russia’s cur­rent envi­ron­ment,” said a Her­mitage Cap­i­tal representative.

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