Council of Europe’s Committee Will Debate How to Punish Sergei Magnitsky’s Killers

September 2, 2013

This Wednes­day, 4 Sep­tem­ber 2013, between 9 am and 1 pm, the Com­mit­tee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Par­lia­men­tary Assem­bly of the Coun­cil of Europe (PACE), will con­sid­er a draft res­o­lu­tion enti­tled “Refus­ing Impuni­ty for the Killers of Sergei Mag­nit­sky” (http://www.assembly.coe.int/Communication/ajdoc24_2013.pdf).

Since the report’s pub­li­ca­tion ear­li­er in June, Russ­ian offi­cials have been strug­gling to find ways of dilut­ing the con­clu­sions of the report.
Rus­sia is one of the 47 mem­ber states of the Coun­cil of Europe. The draft res­o­lu­tion and the report on the impuni­ty of Russ­ian offi­cials in the Mag­nit­sky case have been pre­pared by Swiss MP, Rap­por­teur Andreas Gross under his Coun­cil of Europe man­date from Novem­ber 2012 to car­ry out an inde­pen­dent review of Mag­nit­sky’s death in Russ­ian custody. 

On 25 June 2013, Mr Gross pre­sent­ed his find­ings to the Legal Affairs and Human Rights Com­mit­tee of the Coun­cil of Europe. Even before the report was released, the Russ­ian del­e­ga­tion expressed its dis­sat­is­fac­tion and pledged to “influ­ence” the con­tent of the report before the 4 Sep­tem­ber 2013 vote.
Alex­ei Pushkov, MP from the Pro-Putin Unit­ed Rus­sia and head of the Russ­ian del­e­ga­tion to the Coun­cil of Europe, (http://assembly.coe.int/ASP/AssemblyList/AL_MemberDetails.asp?MemberID=6889), said pri­or to the 25 June 2013 meet­ing on the draft Mag­nit­sky resolution:
“We will try to influ­ence its con­tent. The first page of the res­o­lu­tion announces Mag­nit­sky as a fight­er with cor­rup­tion which he nev­er was, because he was a finan­sist, spe­cial­ist in cre­at­ing schemes to avoid tax­es” (http://www.er-duma.ru/news/59702).

Pushkov also said that the draft report pre­sent­ed to the Coun­cil of Europe’s Com­mit­tee by Mr Gross “repeat­ed the polit­i­cal imprints which have been accept­ed by the West­ern approach to the ‘Mag­nit­sky case.” 

Pushkov denied that Mag­nit­sky died from beat­ing, say­ing: “I repeat. This has not been determined.” 

After these remarks were made, Mr Magnitsky’s moth­er pub­licly con­front­ed Mr Pushkov with a state­ment that she and oth­er rel­a­tives were eye­wit­ness­es to the injuries her son had suf­fered before his death. 

“The state­ments you have made have offend­ed the feel­ings of Sergei Magnitsky’s rel­a­tives, who had the mis­for­tune to wit­ness first hand the injuries on his body point­ing towards a vio­lent death,” said Mrs Mag­nit­skaya in a let­ter addressed to Mr Pushkov.
Mr Magnitsky’s moth­er demand­ed a pub­lic apol­o­gy from Mr Pushkov over his remarks: “You have made state­ments over a long peri­od of time about a deceased per­son, which are imper­mis­si­ble both from the point of view of the moral­i­ty and law. In spite of this, you have nev­er asked for the clar­i­fi­ca­tion of the posi­tion from the fam­i­ly of Sergei Mag­nit­sky,” said Mrs Magnitskaya.

Natalia Magnitskaya’s let­ter was pub­lished by Novaya Gaze­ta (http://www.novayagazeta.ru/news/66840.html). No response from Mr Pushkov was forth­com­ing so far.

Anoth­er Russ­ian del­e­gate to the Coun­cil of Europe, Alexan­der Sidyakin (http://assembly.coe.int/ASP/AssemblyList/AL_MemberDetails.asp?MemberID=6899) said the report by Rap­por­teur Gross was “not account­ing for the posi­tion of the offi­cial struc­tures of Rus­sia” and implied that the death of Mr Mag­nit­sky was sim­i­lar to the death of the for­mer Ser­bian Pres­i­dent Mr Milošević.

“Our objec­tion is that the report is biased. We pro­posed to them [PACE Com­mit­tee] to exam­ine the death of the par­tic­u­lar per­son in deten­tion, but this is a banal top­ic. Miloše­vić also died in deten­tion, because help was not pro­vid­ed to him,” said Mr Sidyakin in com­ments pub­lished by gazeta.ru on 26 June 2013 ( http://www.gazeta.ru/politics/2013/06/26_a_5394273.shtml).

Notably, when Andreas Gross MP was first appoint­ed as Rap­por­teur on the Mag­n­tisky case, the Russ­ian offi­cials wel­comed his can­di­da­cy. Accord­ing to com­ments made in Novem­ber 2012 by the Russ­ian del­e­gate to the Coun­cil of Europe, Leonid Slut­sky MP (http://assembly.coe.int/ASP/AssemblyList/AL_MemberDetails.asp?MemberID=4380), “Gross was one of the co-rap­por­teurs on the mon­i­tor­ing file on the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion and had shown him­self as a con­struc­tive part­ner” and his appoint­ment would help avoid an “open­ly biased approach” (http://www.rbc.ru/rbcfreenews/20121112184851.shtml).

The motion “Refus­ing Impuni­ty for the Killers of Sergei Mag­nit­sky” call­ing for an inde­pen­dent review of the Mag­nit­sky case by the Coun­cil of Europe was tasked to the Com­mit­tee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights in Octo­ber 2012 fol­low­ing a rec­om­men­da­tion of the Coun­cil of Europe’s Bureau. At the meet­ing on 12 Novem­ber 2012, the Legal Affairs and Human Rights Com­mit­tee des­ig­nat­ed Mr Gross to pre­pare a report on the Mag­nit­sky case.

The draft res­o­lu­tion before the Committee’s vote on 4 Sep­tem­ber 2013 pre­pared by Rap­por­teur Gross on the impuni­ty of offi­cials in the Mag­nit­sky case calls for the Coun­cil of Europe mem­ber states to hold to account all those who share respon­si­bil­i­ty in Mr Magnitsky’s death, ensure that his posthu­mous pros­e­cu­tion and the per­se­cu­tion of oth­er lawyers who rep­re­sent­ed Her­mitage in Rus­sia is end­ed, and urges Russ­ian author­i­ties to coop­er­ate with crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tions launched by Euro­pean coun­tries into the $230 mil­lion funds stolen by the group of Russ­ian offi­cials and crim­i­nals exposed by Sergei Magnitsky.

The draft res­o­lu­tion sum­maris­es the details of the cor­rupt crim­i­nal con­spir­a­cy exposed by Mr Mag­nit­sky (see, for instance, Mr Magnitsky’s tes­ti­monies from 5 June 2008 and 7 Octo­ber 2008 giv­en before his arrest, his tes­ti­monies from deten­tion from 14 Octo­ber 2009 and 12 Novem­ber 2009 at http://russian-untouchables.com/eng/testimonies/). In spite of the evi­dence, the Russ­ian author­i­ties attempt to argue that Mr Mag­nit­sky did not dis­cov­er their cor­rup­tion, and instead posthu­mous­ly blamed Mr Mag­nit­sky him­self for the $230 mil­lion theft he had exposed.

The draft res­o­lu­tion before the Coun­cil of Europe’s Com­mit­tee describes Mr Magnitsky’s beat­ing before his death (see the prison records evi­denc­ing the use of hand-cuffs and rub­ber batons, the signs of vio­lence on Magnitsky’s body dis­cov­ered at the funer­al, the act of death refer­ring to his sus­pect­ed head injury, and the find­ings by the Russ­ian President’s Human Rights Coun­cil in: http://russian-untouchables.com/eng/cover-up-presentation/).
Even the offi­cial Russ­ian med­ical experts referred to rub­ber batons as a like­ly cause of injuries on Magnitsky’s body, yet the offi­cial posi­tion of the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment remains that of denial that beat­ings took place. In March 2013, the Russ­ian Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee for­mal­ly closed the inves­ti­ga­tion into the death of Sergei Mag­nit­sky find­ing that “no event of crime” had occurred. In April 2013, Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmit­ry Peskov stat­ed that the Krem­lin had “no rea­son to doubt the com­pe­ten­cy of those who con­duct­ed the inves­ti­ga­tion” (http://www.interfax.ru/russia/news.asp?id=301437). Mr Peskov insist­ed that the Mag­nit­sky case must not be dis­cussed out­side of Rus­sia, call­ing such dis­cus­sions “imper­mis­si­ble” (http://www.bbc.co.uk/russian/russia/2013/04/130415_peskov_interview.shtml).

The offi­cial agen­da of the 4 Sep­tem­ber 2013 meet­ing of the Com­mit­tee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights which will take place in Paris, France, includes the con­sid­er­a­tion of the draft report on the impuni­ty in the Mag­nit­sky case, the adden­dum and the draft res­o­lu­tion (http://assembly.coe.int/Committee/Agenda/20130904JUR3932_E.PDF).

Draft res­o­lu­tion and report “Refus­ing Impuni­ty for the Killers of Sergei Magnitsky”:
http://www.assembly.coe.int/Communication/ajdoc24_2013.pdf

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