Sergei Magnitsky’s Mother Condemns Actions of Russian Interior Ministry

February 10, 2012

Yes­ter­day, the moth­er of Sergei Mag­nit­sky con­demned the Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Min­istry for the pres­sure they have been apply­ing to her fam­i­ly. Instead of pros­e­cut­ing the offi­cials who were respon­si­ble for the death of Sergei Mag­nit­sky in police cus­tody, inves­ti­ga­tors from the Inte­ri­or Min­istry have opened a crim­i­nal case against Sergei Mag­nit­sky two years after he died and have sum­moned Mrs. Mag­nit­skaya more than 10 times for ques­tion­ing in an attempt to force her to sign doc­u­ments giv­ing up her rights for jus­tice for her son. 

“It’s like slow motion tor­ture, in which the exe­cu­tion­er does not kill you at once, but makes you suf­fer, mak­ing you shud­der from every phone call and every let­ter that arrives. It reminds me of the agony expe­ri­enced by my son,” said Mrs Mag­nit­skaya in a com­plaint filed on Feb­ru­ary 9^th, 2012 with Sergei Solovy­ov, Chief of the Inves­ti­ga­tion of the Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Min­istry in the Cen­tral Fed­er­al District.

“I con­sid­er the Inte­ri­or Ministry’s actions as repres­sion and per­se­cu­tion, which has already result­ed in the hor­rif­ic death of my son, and now con­tin­ues in the per­se­cu­tion of peo­ple close to him who refuse to sign an ille­gal dec­la­ra­tion renounc­ing their right to seek jus­tice,” said Natalia Magnitskaya.

In August 2011, the Russ­ian author­i­ties launched an unprece­dent­ed posthu­mous crim­i­nal case against the dead lawyer. The posthu­mous case was opened on orders from Russia’s Deputy Gen­er­al Pros­e­cu­tor Vik­tor Grin. The Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Min­istry has defined Mag­nit­sky fam­i­ly mem­bers as “defen­dants” in this case and have been attempt­ing to coerce them to give up their right to seek jus­tice or see Sergei Mag­nit­sky be pros­e­cut­ed in the first ever posthu­mous tri­al in Russ­ian history.

“Inte­ri­or Min­istry inves­ti­ga­tors are con­tin­u­ous­ly sum­mon­ing me and my son’s wid­ow to take part in the ille­git­i­mate inves­ti­ga­tion against my son. Inte­ri­or Min­istry Inves­ti­ga­tors Silchenko and Kibis have assigned us the sta­tus of ‘defen­dants’ in this case,” said Natalia Mag­nit­skaya. “My rel­a­tives and I are sub­ject­ed to psy­cho­log­i­cal tor­ture by the relent­less ille­gal actions of the inves­ti­ga­tors,” she continued.

The reac­tion from the Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Min­istry is not yet known.

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