Amnesty International Demands the Russian Government Halt the Unprecedented Posthumous Prosecution of Sergei Magnitsky Which Starts Today

January 28, 2013

The forth­com­ing tri­al of dead whis­tle-blow­ing Russ­ian lawyer is a “trav­es­ty” and a “sin­is­ter” attempt to deflect atten­tion from those who com­mit­ted the crimes he exposed, said Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al, ahead of the posthu­mous tri­al which begins in Moscow today.

John Dal­huisen, Direc­tor of Europe and Cen­tral Asia for Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al, said:

“This posthu­mous pros­e­cu­tion is far­ci­cal, but unfor­tu­nate­ly also deeply sinister.”

“The Russ­ian author­i­ties’ inten­tion to pro­ceed with the crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion of Sergei Mag­nit­sky vio­lates his fun­da­men­tal rights even in death, in par­tic­u­lar the right to defend him­self in person.”

“The tri­al of a deceased per­son and the forcible involve­ment of his rel­a­tives is a dan­ger­ous prece­dent that would open a whole new chap­ter in Russia’s wors­en­ing human rights record.”

“The author­i­ties must halt this trav­es­ty,” said John Dalhuisen.

The tri­al will be tak­ing place at 11am, Jan­u­ary 28, 2012 at the Tver­skoi Court in Moscow (25a Tsvet­noi boule­vard). The pre­sid­ing judge is Judge Alisov. This is the same judge who presided over a spe­cial pro­ceed­ing in March 2011 in which Vyach­eslav Khleb­nikov, an unem­ployed ex-con­vict was assigned a sig­nif­i­cant part of the blame for the com­plex $230 mil­lion tax rebate fraud uncov­ered by Sergei Mag­nit­sky. In that same rul­ing by Judge Alisov, Russ­ian state employ­ees were exon­er­at­ed in that fraud.

Amnesty inter­na­tion­al
http://www.amnesty.org.uk/news_details.asp?NewsID=20594

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