‘The Magnitsky Files’ to be screened at the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly in Monaco marking its European Premiere

July 4, 2012

“The Mag­nit­sky Files,” an 18-minute doc­u­men­tary show­cas­ing the links between the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment and organ­ised crime, will be pre­miered at the OSCE Par­lia­men­tary Assem­bly in Mona­co on Thurs­day, 5 June 2012 at 12:30 pm. 

The event enti­tled “Rule of Law and the Sergei Mag­nit­sky Case” has been orga­nized by mem­bers of nation­al par­lia­ments from a num­ber of OSCE coun­tries includ­ing: Joao Soares (Por­tu­gal), Wal­bur­ga Hab­s­burg-Dou­glas (Swe­den), Mat­teo Mecac­ci (Italy), Tony Lloyd (UK), Hedy Fry (Cana­da), Doris Bar­nett (Ger­many) and Oleh Bilorus (Ukraine).

The screen­ing will be tak­ing place at the OSCE Par­lia­men­tary assembly’s annu­al meet­ing in which 320 mem­bers of par­lia­ment from 56 OSCE coun­tries will be gath­er­ing to dis­cuss human rights, con­flict pre­ven­tion and pro­mo­tion of democ­ra­cy through­out OSCE countries.

After the screen­ing of “The Mag­nit­sky Files”, William Brow­der, who is run­ning a glob­al cam­paign for jus­tice for his late lawyer, will be lead­ing a dis­cus­sion about the Mag­nit­sky case and what it means for the rule of law in Rus­sia. He will also be work­ing with mem­bers of dif­fer­ent nation­al par­lia­ments around the world to pro­mote visa sanc­tions and asset freezes of Russ­ian offi­cials impli­cat­ed in Magnitsky’s persecution.

“The Mag­nit­sky Files” show how Russ­ian offi­cials who have approved mas­sive fraud­u­lent tax refunds have close links and trav­elled on numer­ous occa­sions joint­ly with crim­i­nals who per­pe­trat­ed the thefts.

“It was the expo­sure of these crimes and illic­it con­nec­tions that cost Mr Mag­nit­sky his life,” said U.S. Sen­a­tor John McCain (http://www.scribd.com/doc/98337177/Untitled).

Sub­se­quent inves­ti­ga­tions by inde­pen­dent Russ­ian news­pa­per Novaya Gaze­ta showed that ser­i­al thefts from the Trea­sury con­tin­ued after Sergei Magnitsky’s death, and that over $800 mil­lion was stolen between 2006 and 2010. Offi­cials impli­cat­ed in the thefts and their fam­i­lies have been shown to have enriched them­selves with $47 mil­lion in prop­er­ty and assets held both in Rus­sia and abroad.

“The Mag­nit­sky Files” is ded­i­cat­ed to late Sergei Mag­nit­sky, a lawyer for the Her­mitage Fund, who uncov­ered and tes­ti­fied about the role of gov­ern­ment offi­cials in the ser­i­al thefts from the trea­sury, who then was arrest­ed by the same offi­cials he had tes­ti­fied against, and tor­tured to death in custody.
Over 250,000 Rus­sians have already watched “Mag­nit­sky Files” on Youtube since its release last Thurs­day (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaQP8IAITmk&feature=channel&list=UL). It has become one of the most fre­quent posts on Twit­ter, live Inter­net blogs and oth­er social media. Russ­ian state TV chan­nels, how­ev­er, have refused to show it or refer to it in any of their programming.

The U.S. pre­mier of the “Mag­nit­sky Files: Orga­nized Crime Inside the Russ­ian Gov­ern­ment” doc­u­men­tary took place in Wash­ing­ton, D.C. last week with U.S. Sen­a­tor John McCain and Free­dom House’ David Kramer. 

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