Sergei Magnitsky’s Widow Appeals to The Conscience of All Those Participating in the Trial Against Her Dead Husband to Cease Their Actions

March 11, 2013

The wid­ow of Sergei Mag­n­tisky has appealed to the con­science of all those par­tic­i­pat­ing in the tri­al against her dead hus­band, to cease their actions and end this unprece­dent­ed spectacle.
“Because of the posthu­mous tri­al against my dead hus­band, Sergei Mag­nit­sky, by the Tver­skoi Court in Moscow, I state that I view this process as defil­ing his mem­o­ry,” said Natalia Zhariko­va in today’s state­ment to court.
“I believe that this pro­ceed­ing is unlaw­ful and con­trary to any uni­ver­sal­ly rec­og­nized legal norms and morals,” said Natalia Zharikova.
“I think that if any of its par­tic­i­pants have a con­science — and this is key not only in human moral­i­ty, but also in the Russ­ian crim­i­nal law – they have a duty to refuse to par­tic­i­pate in this blas­phe­my,” said the wid­ow of Sergei Magnitsky.
Russ­ian author­i­ties have put Sergei Mag­nit­sky on tri­al more than three years after his death and also have posthu­mous­ly accused Mr Mag­nit­sky of per­pe­trat­ing the $230 mil­lion theft that he had uncov­ered and exposed. Last Decem­ber, the Russ­ian court also acquit­ted the only offi­cial brought to tri­al for the denial of med­ical care to him in cus­tody con­clud­ing that the offi­cial act­ed in full accor­dance with his duties. 

In cus­tody, Mr Mag­nit­sky wrote dozens of com­plaints about his mis­treat­ment. He stat­ed that the case against him was in ret­ri­bu­tion for his role in help­ing his client, the Her­mitage Fund, to defend itself from the crim­i­nal con­spir­a­cy which stole three of the Hermitage’s Russ­ian com­pa­nies and $230 mil­lion in tax­es they had paid in tax­es to the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment. In his last com­plaint to the court filed three days before his death, on 13 Novem­ber 2009, Sergei Mag­nit­sky stat­ed his deter­mi­na­tion to bring to jus­tice those respon­si­ble for the fal­si­fi­ca­tion of the crim­i­nal case against him. 

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