The Russian Government Congratulates Officials Responsible for Sergei Magnitsky’s False Arrest, Detention and Death in Custody

April 28, 2013

Yes­ter­day, Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin and top offi­cials from the Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Min­istry, Jus­tice Min­istry and the Moscow Court pub­licly con­doned the acts of the offi­cials who were named by the U.S. Gov­ern­ment for their role in the Mag­nit­sky affair. 

Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Min­is­ter Vladimir Kolokolt­sev offi­cial­ly greet­ed six of the sanc­tioned Inte­ri­or Min­istry offi­cers in a tele­vised meet­ing at the Inte­ri­or Min­istry head­quar­ters where he promised them impuni­ty and pro­mo­tion prospects. The offi­cers present were Colonel Vino­grado­va, Lt Colonel Silchenko and Lt Colonel Kar­pov, and three more sanc­tioned offi­cers who were pre­sum­ably Lt Colonel Kuznetsov, and his two for­mer sub­or­di­nates, oper­a­tives Droganov and Tolchin­sky. Accord­ing to Russ­ian press reports, the Inte­ri­or Min­is­ter said to the offi­cials at the meeting:
“Deci­sions by for­eign states con­cern­ing our cit­i­zens should not and will not have any legal con­se­quence;” “I con­firm again: regard­ing our offi­cial posi­tion, let those type of deci­sions not give you any worry.”

“For active employees…for career pro­mo­tion or oth­er restric­tions due to the announce­ment of the so called acts, there will be no prac­ti­cal prospect…Those employ­ees who deserve recog­ni­tion due to their pro­fes­sion­al skills, will be promoted.”
Simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, Russ­ian Jus­tice Min­is­ter Alexan­der Kono­val­ov met with Ivan Prokopenko and Dmit­ry Kom­nov, the two heads of deten­tion cen­ters where Sergei Mag­nit­sky was held and tortured.

“Your appear­ance in the sanc­tions list which was pub­lished by a for­eign state, for you and us is a legal­ly indif­fer­ent fact. There are no issues cur­rent­ly about your work. Con­tin­ue to work calm­ly;… you do big, com­plex, and thank­less jobs, I will repeat you must per­form it with nec­es­sary effect… Nobody is going to take any mea­sures or rep­ri­mands towards you because of accu­sa­tions against you by a for­eign state,” Jus­tice Min­is­ter Kono­val­ov said in a tele­vised meeting.

Along­side the Sat­ur­day gath­er­ings at the Inte­ri­or Min­istry and the Jus­tice Min­istry, Gali­na Aga­fono­va, Chair of the Coun­cil of Moscow Judges and Deputy Chair of the Moscow City Court, pledged sup­port for the four Russ­ian judges on the US sanc­tions list who approved the arrest and deten­tion of Sergei Mag­nit­sky and refused his appli­ca­tions for med­ical care in custody.
“The entire com­mu­ni­ty of judges sup­ports its col­leagues and believes that they are absolute­ly right, and that we are right. And we believe that there are no grounds to con­tin­ue to wor­ry,” said Chair Agafano­va in a tele­vised inter­view announc­ing the results of the review con­duct­ed by the Coun­cil of Moscow Judges.

“We gath­ered the pre­sid­i­um of the Coun­cil of Moscow city judges, reviewed all cir­cum­stances of this debate, copies of mate­ri­als of the crim­i­nal case and con­demned this so called Mag­nit­sky list, because it unde­serv­ing­ly cast a shad­ow on the author­i­ty of the judi­cial pow­er and specif­i­cal­ly on each of judges who made deci­sions in the case,” said Chair Agafonova.

Ms Aga­fono­va did not men­tion if the Coun­cil of Moscow Judges reviewed the con­clu­sions by experts of the President’s Human Rights Coun­cil and of the Moscow Pub­lic Over­sight Com­mis­sion who both con­clud­ed that the deci­sions of the judges were in direct vio­la­tion of domes­tic and inter­na­tion­al laws and the Moscow city courts failed to give prop­er eval­u­a­tion to those decisions.
Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Putin cul­mi­nat­ed the day by pub­licly deny­ing that Mr Mag­nit­sky was ever tor­tured in cus­tody or that any Russ­ian offi­cial should be held crim­i­nal­ly respon­si­ble for his death. He stat­ed that the inves­ti­ga­tion has been brought to “an end.”
“And it [the inves­ti­ga­tion in Mag­nit­sky case] has been brought to an end. And the inves­tiga­tive bod­ies have come to the con­clu­sion that there was no bad intent, there was no crim­i­nal neg­li­gence. But the tragedy occurred. And what, nobody dies in Amer­i­can pris­ons, or what? There was no tor­ture, as they said, there was noth­ing else that required crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion of offi­cials,” said Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin in a tele­vised interview. 

“The Krem­lin and all offi­cial bod­ies of the Russ­ian state have now for­mal­ly become col­lab­o­ra­tors in the cov­er up of the unlaw­ful killing of Sergei Mag­nit­sky in Russ­ian state cus­tody and the $230 mil­lion theft he had uncov­ered,” said a Her­mitage Cap­i­tal representative.

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