Kremlin Opens New Posthumous Case Against Magnitsky Holding him Responsible for Russian Default in 1998

February 1, 2013

Today it was report­ed by RIA-Novosti Russ­ian news ser­vice that Russ­ian law enforce­ment agen­cies have begun inves­ti­gat­ing Sergei Mag­nit­sky for alleged­ly being respon­si­ble for the Russ­ian default dur­ing the 1998 finan­cial cri­sis. This is the fourth posthu­mous accu­sa­tion put for­ward by Russ­ian author­i­ties, who refuse to inves­ti­gate offi­cials respon­si­ble for the thefts uncov­ered by Mr Mag­nit­sky, his arrest, ill-treat­ment and death in cus­tody. Mr Mag­nit­sky died more than three years ago, on 16 Novem­ber 2009 when he was found dead on the cell floor after the use of rub­ber batons and handcuffs.

“The Russ­ian author­i­ties look like they have gone com­plete­ly mad,” said a Her­mitage Cap­i­tal rep­re­sen­ta­tive. “In their attempt to escape from US and EU visa and finan­cial sanc­tions for the death of Mr Mag­nit­sky, they are com­ing up with cra­zier and cra­zier attacks against Mag­nit­sky in the hope of cloud­ing the debate about who killed him and why.”

RIA Novosti report­ed that a source in the Russ­ian law enforce­ment agen­cies said “We can talk about fraud­u­lent schemes before the default in Rus­sia in 1998, when the Fed­er­al Reserve Bank of New York wired $4.8 bil­lion intend­ed for the sta­bi­liza­tion of oper­a­tions of the Cen­tral Bank of Rus­sia to the account of Repub­lic Nation­al Bank of a Browder’s com­pan­ion Edmond Safra. Sub­se­quent­ly, it was not pos­si­ble to trace the mon­ey, Safra died in the fire in Mona­co in 1999,” (http://russian.rt.com/Russia/3721/)

The same source told RIA Novosti that the Russ­ian law enforce­ment agen­cies are ini­ti­at­ing a fur­ther posthu­mous case against Mag­nit­sky for “ille­gal pur­chas­ing of Gazprom shares”. The trad­ing of Gazprom shares by local­ly-held branch­es of for­eign firms was reviewed at the time by the Russ­ian Fed­er­al Secu­ri­ties Com­mis­sion, who found that those pur­chas­es were in com­pli­ance with Russ­ian law. The pur­chase of Gazprom local shares by for­eign­ers was orga­nized by Gazprom’s own bank as well as dozens of mar­ket participants.

“Fol­low­ing the ban on adopt­ing orphan’s, the expul­sion of USAID, the ter­mi­na­tion of coop­er­a­tion in drug traf­fick­ing, the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment is now issu­ing mul­ti­ple posthu­mous accu­sa­tions against Sergei Mag­nit­sky, one more out­ra­geous than the next, and clear­ly fol­low­ing a polit­i­cal order from the very top,” said a Her­mitage Cap­i­tal representative.

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