OSCE Special Rapporteur Calls for Prosecutions in Magnitsky Case, William Browder Urges Sanctions in all OSCE Countries

February 27, 2012

Fol­low­ing the annu­al meet­ing of the OSCE Par­lia­men­tary Assem­bly in Vien­na last week, Coskun Coruz, the OSCE Human Rights Rap­por­teur and MP from the Nether­lands called for the pros­e­cu­tion of Russ­ian offi­cials in Mag­nit­sky case, the ter­mi­na­tion of his posthu­mous tri­al and the end of intim­i­da­tion of his fam­i­ly by the Russ­ian authorities. 

Coskun Coruz, OSCE Par­lia­men­tary Assem­bly Rap­por­teur of the Com­mit­tee on Democ­ra­cy, Human Rights and Human­i­tar­i­an Ques­tions, said:

“As a mem­ber of the OSCE, Rus­sia should ful­fill its human rights oblig­a­tions and adhere to the norms and val­ues of the OSCE. In the har­row­ing death of lawyer Sergei Mag­nit­sky, Rus­si­a’s law­less­ness is absolute­ly not fit­ting into OSCE ‘s val­ues. What is par­tic­u­lar­ly shock­ing is the unprece­dent­ed pros­e­cu­tion of a dead man. As a lawyer and politi­cian, I will do every­thing in my pow­er and the pow­er of the OSCE to call on Rus­sia to pros­e­cute Mag­nit­sky’s killers, to cease the posthu­mous pros­e­cu­tion against him and to pro­tect his family.”

Mr Coruz was respond­ing to an appeal from Lud­mi­la Alex­ee­va, chair of the Moscow Helsin­ki Group, Russia’s lead­ing human rights NGO. Ms Alex­ee­va called upon OSCE’s lead­er­ship and par­lia­men­tar­i­ans to inter­vene in the case of Sergei Mag­nit­sky. In a strong­ly-word­ed let­ter sent on the eve of the OSCE win­ter meet­ing in Vien­na, Ms Alex­ee­va urged OSCE mem­bers to do every­thing pos­si­ble to bring to jus­tice those respon­si­ble for Mr Magnitsky’s hor­rif­ic death in Russ­ian police cus­tody. She called for an end to the unprece­dent­ed posthu­mous tri­al of Sergei Mag­nit­sky as well as pres­sure put on his fam­i­ly by the Russ­ian authorities.

“The pros­e­cu­tion of the dead lawyer and the intim­i­da­tion and harass­ment of his fam­i­ly by police is a new low and an alarm­ing symp­tom of the com­plete degra­da­tion of the Russ­ian jus­tice sys­tem and the absent rule of law. Posthu­mous pros­e­cu­tions were not prac­ticed even dur­ing the Stal­in purges,” said Ms Alex­ee­va in her appeal to the OSCE.“They are clear­ly car­ried out …to intim­i­date and silence vic­tims of police abuse and their rel­a­tives and to exon­er­ate police offi­cers impli­cat­ed in seri­ous crimes.”

In addi­tion to Mr Coruz’s call for jus­tice, William Brow­der, CEO of Her­mitage Cap­i­tal, was invit­ed to tes­ti­fy at the OSCE Par­lia­men­tary Assem­bly in Vien­na last week. In his tes­ti­mo­ny, Mr Brow­der described in detail the tor­ture and mur­der of Mr Mag­nit­sky in cus­tody and the pres­sure on his sur­viv­ing fam­i­ly. He called on all par­lia­ments in OSCE coun­tries to pass visa sanc­tions and asset freezes on the Russ­ian offi­cials in the Mag­nit­sky case.

“Selec­tive­ly can­celling visas and freez­ing assets may not be real jus­tice in a case like this, but if we are suc­cess­ful in cre­at­ing some real and painful con­se­quences in a sit­u­a­tion where, until now, these peo­ple have enjoyed absolute impuni­ty, per­haps the next time a Russ­ian inves­ti­ga­tor is asked by his boss to tor­ture a false con­fes­sion out of an inno­cent pris­on­er, he may think twice… This is a new weapon in the fight against human rights abus­es,” said Mr Browder.
In her appeal to OSCE, Ms Alex­ee­va reit­er­at­ed Russia’s inter­na­tion­al oblig­a­tions as a mem­ber of the OSCE to ensure that law enforce­ment offi­cers pur­sue “legit­i­mate aims” and “are sub­ject to judi­cial con­trol and are held account­able” as per para­graph 21 of the Doc­u­ment of the Moscow Meet­ing of the Con­fer­ence on the Human Dimension.
“In no way such actions [posthu­mous tri­al of Mr Mag­nit­sky and pres­sure on his fam­i­ly by the Russ­ian author­i­ties] can be viewed as an inter­nal affair of Rus­sia as they run con­trary to Rus­si­a’s inter­na­tion­al oblig­a­tions. The duty of the OSCE is to safe­guard uni­ver­sal­ly rec­og­nized human rights and free­doms and the rule of law in the ter­ri­to­ry of the par­tic­i­pat­ing coun­tries,” said Ms Alexeeva.
“I ask you to adopt a spe­cial Res­o­lu­tion of the OSCE Par­lia­men­tary Assem­bly and under­take all oth­er pos­si­ble efforts to pro­tect the fam­i­ly of Sergei Mag­nit­sky from the police tyran­ny and to urge the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment with­out any fur­ther delay to bring to account law enforce­ment offi­cers impli­cat­ed in mas­sive cor­rup­tion, false arrest and tor­ture of Mag­nit­sky, and to put an end to the intim­i­da­tion of his fam­i­ly,” said Ms Alex­ee­va in her let­ter addressed to Pet­ros Efthymiou, OSCE Par­lia­men­tary Assem­bly Pres­i­dent, Eamon Gilmore, OSCE Chair­per­son-in-Office and Irish Deputy Prime Min­is­ter, Coskun Coruz, Rap­por­teur of the OSCE Par­lia­men­tary Assembly’s Com­mit­tee on Human Rights, and OSCE Vice Presidents.
Last week, a Moscow court reject­ed two law­suits from the Mag­nit­sky fam­i­ly against the Russ­ian Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee for its fail­ure to inves­ti­gate and bring high-rank­ing Russ­ian police offi­cers to tri­al for the false arrest, tor­ture and mur­der of the 37-year old whis­tle-blow­ing lawyer. Russ­ian courts also reject­ed Mag­nit­sky mother’s requests for access to her son’s tis­sue sam­ples and their inde­pen­dent med­ical exam­i­na­tion. The Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee in charge of Magnitsky’s death inves­ti­ga­tion is the same body that con­cealed Mr Magnitsky’s tes­ti­monies about the $230 mil­lion cor­rup­tion of Inte­ri­or Min­istry and tax offi­cials. The Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee also refused to inves­ti­gate the illic­it mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar wealth of the fam­i­lies of those officials.

See the let­ter by Ms Alex­ee­va, chair of the Moscow Helsin­ki Group, to OSCE on the Sergei Mag­nit­sky Case, 24 Feb­ru­ary 2012:
http://www.mhg.ru/news/122F610B
Read tes­ti­mo­ny by William Brow­der at the OSCE Par­lia­men­tary Assembly:
http://www.oscepa.org/publications/all-documents/cat_view/97-all-documents/151-winter-meetings/152‑2012-vienna/155-speeches?orderby=dmdatecounter&ascdesc=DESC

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