Council of Europe’s Committee Approves Magnitsky Murder Report Despite Fierce Opposition from the Russian Delegation

September 4, 2013

Today, the Legal Affairs and Human Rights Com­mit­tee of the Par­lia­men­tary Assem­bly of the Coun­cil of Europe has approved the report enti­tled “Refus­ing Impuni­ty for the Killers of Sergei Mag­nit­sky” (http://www.assembly.coe.int/Communication/20130904_ImpunityMagnitsky_EN.pdf). The report and a draft Res­o­lu­tion pre­pared by Rap­por­teur Andreas Gross, Swiss MP and mem­ber of the Social­ist Group, were approved by all Com­mit­tee mem­bers, except for 6.

At the pre­vi­ous Com­mit­tee meet­ing on 25 June 2013 when the draft Mag­nit­sky report was first released, the Com­mit­tee agreed to give the Russ­ian del­e­ga­tion more time and post­poned the vote on the report until today’s meet­ing. Rap­por­teur Andreas Gross indi­cat­ed that the infor­ma­tion pro­vid­ed by the Russ­ian offi­cials dur­ing sum­mer only con­firmed his find­ings pre­sent­ed in June 2013 of a “mas­sive cov­er-up” of the crime with­in the Russ­ian government.

“My ini­tial con­clu­sion, name­ly that we are in the pres­ence of a mas­sive cov­er-up […], finds itself fur­ther con­sol­i­dat­ed,” said Rap­por­teur Gross in the adden­dum to the Report dis­cussed by the Com­mit­tee today.

The draft Res­o­lu­tion “Refus­ing Impuni­ty for the Killers of Sergei Mag­nit­sky” is expect­ed to be debat­ed at the ple­nary ses­sion of the Par­lia­men­tary Assem­bly of the Coun­cil of Europe in Jan­u­ary 2014.

The draft Res­o­lu­tion urges, in par­tic­u­lar, to “close the posthu­mous tri­al against Mr Mag­nit­sky and cease putting pres­sure on his moth­er and his wid­ow to par­tic­i­pate in these proceedings.”

The draft Res­o­lu­tion high­lights the fact that in addi­tion to the posthu­mous attack on Mr Mag­nit­sky, oth­er lawyers defend­ing Her­mitage against the same fraud Mag­nit­sky had uncov­ered, remain under attack with crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings, and calls “to cease the per­se­cu­tion of oth­er lawyers act­ing for the true own­ers of the fraud­u­lent­ly rereg­is­tered companies.”

The draft Res­o­lu­tion high­lights how Sergei Mag­nit­sky was beat­en before his death and denied med­ical care, and calls to inves­ti­gate the “pos­si­ble crim­i­nal respon­si­bil­i­ty of all offi­cials” and “hold to account for their acts and omis­sions all those who share in the respon­si­bil­i­ty for Mr Magnitsky’s death, in par­tic­u­lar those who ordered his fre­quent moves between pris­ons and cells, with ever-dete­ri­o­rat­ing con­di­tions of deten­tion, fail­ure to pro­vide nec­es­sary med­ical treat­ment, and, just before his death at Matrosskaya Tishi­na prison, the beat­ings and the man­ner in which Mr Mag­nit­sky was left alone in a cell in appar­ent­ly crit­i­cal con­di­tion.”

Adden­dum to the Report “Refus­ing Impuni­ty for the Killers of Sergei Magnitsky”:

http://www.assembly.coe.int/Communication/20130904_ImpunityMagnitskyAdd_EN.pdf

See a press release by the PACE on the adop­tion of the “Refus­ing Impuni­ty for the Killers of Sergei Mag­nit­sky” report:

http://www.assembly.coe.int/ASP/NewsManager/EMB_NewsManagerView.asp?ID=8995

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