Magnitsky Family Rejects the Closure of the Death Investigation, Appeals to the European Court of Human Rights

March 19, 2013

The fam­i­ly of Sergei Mag­nit­sky has reject­ed the claims of the Russ­ian inves­tiga­tive author­i­ties that there were no signs of crime in his death in cus­tody at the age of 37.

“This [the deci­sion by Russ­ian author­i­ties to close the case into the death of Sergei Mag­nit­sky] was expect­ed. I don’t believe that it is pos­si­ble to obtain jus­tice in Rus­sia today because there are peo­ple in pow­er inter­est­ed in con­ceal­ing it and some­one is direct­ing this process,” said the moth­er of Sergei Magnitsky.

“They have con­cealed from us the details of the death of my hus­band. How­ev­er, even what is already known shows that his death was no acci­dent,” said Mr Magnitsky’s widow.

“Today’s deci­sion by the Russ­ian inves­tiga­tive author­i­ties is a clear indi­ca­tion that they have decid­ed to ignore the con­clu­sions of two inde­pen­dent domes­tic com­mis­sions on the case. It is a sign of an over­whelm­ing gov­ern­ment cov­er up, and the extent the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment is ready to go to pro­tect those exposed by Mr Mag­nit­sky for com­mit­ting enor­mous crimes against the state,” said Her­mitage Cap­i­tal representative.

There is a wealth of infor­ma­tion that was pre­vi­ous­ly released on Sergei Magnitsky’s tor­ture and death in cus­tody as well as evi­dence of his beat­ing just before he was found dead on the floor of an iso­la­tion cell (http://russian-untouchables.com/rus/docs/P01E.pdf). None of this evi­dence has been prop­er­ly inves­ti­gat­ed, and no offi­cials have been pros­e­cut­ed for the $230 m theft uncov­ered by Mr Mag­nit­sky which led to his arrest after tes­ti­fy­ing against those officials.

In Octo­ber last year, Natalia Mag­nit­skaya, the moth­er of Sergei Mag­nit­sky, filed a claim with the Euro­pean Court of Human Rights. The com­plaint asks the ECHR to pros­e­cute the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion for vio­lat­ing five arti­cles of the Euro­pean Con­ven­tion of Human Rights: Arti­cle 2 (denial of right to life); Arti­cle 3 (tor­ture); Arti­cle 5 (unlaw­ful deten­tion); Arti­cle 10 (retal­i­a­tion against whis­tle-blow­ers); and Arti­cle 13 (fail­ure to pro­vide an effec­tive rem­e­dy) (http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/litigation/magnitsky-v-russia)

The Russ­ian Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee announced today that they have closed the inves­ti­ga­tion of the death of Sergei Mag­n­tit­sky due to “no event of crime” hav­ing been iden­ti­fied (http://www.sledcom.ru/actual/287357/).
“The peo­ple who killed Sergei Mag­nit­sky may be able to avoid jus­tice in Rus­sia but they won’t be able to out­side of Rus­sia,” said a Her­mitage Cap­i­tal spokesperson.

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