Russian Interior Ministry Tries to Impose Gagging Order on Magnitsky’s Brother-In-Law Before Interrogation

March 1, 2013

The Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Min­istry has placed a gag­ging order on Andrei Zharikov, Sergei Mag­nit­sky’s broth­er-in-law who was sum­moned for intero­ga­tion at the Inte­ri­or Min­istry this week. Inte­ri­or Min­istry Inves­ti­ga­tor Rasul Salakhbekov threat­ened Mag­nit­sky’s borther-in-law with crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion if he dis­closed the mat­ters of the inter­ro­ga­tion. Dur­ing the pre­lim­i­nary ques­tion­ing, the Inte­ri­or Min­istry refused to even divulge which crim­i­nal case Mag­nit­sky’s broth­er-in-law was being asked to address, but still insist­ed on a gag­ging order. After the inter­ro­ga­tion, Zharikov’s lawyer filed a com­plaint with the Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Min­istry chal­leng­ing the gag­ging order. Specif­i­cal­ly, the com­plaint said:

“Giv­en that nei­ther the lawyer, nor the wit­ness have been made aware of any pre­lim­i­nary inves­ti­ga­tion infor­ma­tion [under an unknown crim­i­nal case], there are no rea­son­able grounds to demand an under­tak­ing from them not to dis­close what they do not know, and this action is clear­ly a fur­ther attempt by inves­ti­ga­tors to exert psy­cho­log­i­cal pres­sure on peo­ple close to Sergei Mag­nit­sky, and to use the pow­ers of pub­lic office for the unlaw­ful obstruc­tion of the con­sti­tu­tion­al right for free­dom of speech and free­dom of expression.” 

Ear­li­er the Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Min­istry tried to obtain sim­i­lar under­tak­ings not to dis­close “inves­tiga­tive data” from oth­er rel­a­tives of Sergei Mag­nit­sky and their lawyers under the same threat of crim­i­nal prosecution. 

“The Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Min­istry seems to be regress­ing back to Stal­in’s times with show tri­als, attacks on rel­a­tives and gag­ging orders to ter­rorise and silence their oppo­nents,” said a Her­mitage Cap­i­tal representative.

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