Sergei Magnitsky Is Expected to Be Found Guilty in the First Ever Posthumous Trial in Russian History

July 11, 2013

Today, at the Tver­skoi dis­trict court in Moscow, judge Igor Alisov, is expect­ed to find Sergei Mag­nit­sky guilty of tax eva­sion in the first ever posthu­mous tri­al in Russ­ian his­to­ry. It is also expect­ed that judge Alisov will find William Brow­der guilty of the same crimes in absen­tia. The pro­ceed­ings against Mag­nit­sky and Brow­der have been con­demned around the world as ille­git­i­mate, polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed and incom­pat­i­ble with inter­na­tion­al and Russ­ian law.

“This show tri­al con­firms that Vladimir Putin is ready to sac­ri­fice his inter­na­tion­al cred­i­bil­i­ty to pro­tect cor­rupt offi­cials who mur­dered an inno­cent lawyer and stole $230 mil­lion from the Russ­ian state,” said a Her­mitage Cap­i­tal representative.

The moti­va­tion for the posthu­mous tri­al has been to cov­er-up the com­plic­i­ty of Russ­ian tax offi­cials, police offi­cers and judges in the largest tax theft in the his­to­ry of Russia.
In June 2007, police offi­cers raid­ed the offices of Her­mitage and its law firm and seized cor­po­rate doc­u­ments that were then used by cor­rupt offi­cials and crim­i­nals to steal $230 mil­lion from the Russ­ian state. Her­mitage com­plained to the Russ­ian author­i­ties in Decem­ber 2007 about the involve­ment of Inte­ri­or Min­istry offi­cers in the crime. Two months lat­er, some of the same offi­cers opened a retal­ia­to­ry crim­i­nal case against Mr Brow­der. In June and Octo­ber 2008, Sergei Mag­nit­sky tes­ti­fied to the Russ­ian author­i­ties about the involve­ment of the same Inte­ri­or Min­istry offi­cers in the theft. Short­ly there­after, he was added to the same crim­i­nal case as Brow­der and arrest­ed. In pre-tri­al deten­tion, Sergei Mag­nit­sky was held for 358 days, denied med­ical care, fam­i­ly vis­its, access to clean and hot water, and sleep, in order to force him to retract his tes­ti­mo­ny. He refused and was sub­se­quent­ly beat­en by riot guards with rub­ber batons, until he was found dead on the cell floor on Novem­ber 16^th 2009.

In response to the impuni­ty of all the Russ­ian offi­cials involved in Sergei Mag­nit­sky’s false arrest, tor­ture and death, the US Con­gress passed the the Sergei Mag­nit­sky Rule of Law Account­abil­i­ty Act, which impos­es visa and finan­cial sanc­tions on all the Russ­ian offi­cials involved in the ill-treat­ment and death of Mr Mag­nit­sky and in oth­er gross human rights abus­es in Rus­sia. In July 2012, the OSCE Par­lia­men­tary Assem­bly passed the Mag­nit­sky Res­o­lu­tion call­ing on all OSCE coun­tries to impose sim­i­lar sanc­tions as the US. In June 2013, the Rap­por­teur to the Par­lia­men­tary Assem­bly of the Coun­cil of Europe issued a report on the Mag­nit­sky case in which he found the alle­ga­tions by the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment to be legal­ly and fac­tu­al­ly unfounded.
Specif­i­cal­ly the Rap­por­teur to the Par­lia­men­tary Assem­bly of the Coun­cil of Europe found that:
“The detailed and well-doc­u­ment­ed replies received have gone a long way to con­vince us that Her­mitage did not vio­late the law. This was also con­firmed by an audit car­ried out by the com­pe­tent tax authorities…” 

He went on to say that the case could­n’t be tried because the statute of lim­i­ta­tions had already elapsed:
“Legal pur­suits for any tax under­pay­ments con­cern­ing 2001 would also appear to be time-barred…Consequently, the for­mal indict­ments dat­ed 22 March 2013 and the posthu­mous tri­al against Sergei Mag­nit­sky and the tri­al in absen­tia against Bill Brow­der appear to vio­late Russ­ian law.” 

Lawyers for Mr Brow­der have iden­ti­fied numer­ous vio­la­tions of the law and fal­si­fi­ca­tions in the crim­i­nal case file. After they filed a series of com­plaints against the Russ­ian author­i­ties detail­ing the fal­si­fi­ca­tions, the Russ­ian court denied them any fur­ther access to case files, there­by pre­vent­ing them from ful­fill­ing their pro­fes­sion­al duties. Sub­se­quent­ly state-fund­ed lawyers were appoint­ed for the posthu­mous tri­al to cre­ate an impres­sion of a legal representation. 

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