Ambassadors from Council of Europe States Reject Parliamentarians’ Call to Improve Judicial Cooperation in Case Exposed by Murdered Lawyer Sergei Magnitsky

November 12, 2014

Ambas­sadors from Coun­cil of Europe States Reject Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans’ Call to Improve Judi­cial Coop­er­a­tion in Case Exposed by Mur­dered Lawyer Sergei Magnitsky

10 Novem­ber 2014 – For­eign min­istry offi­cials from the Coun­cil of Europe have issued a rejec­tion of demands by par­lia­men­tar­i­ans from 47-mem­ber states to improve inter­na­tion­al judi­cial coop­er­a­tion in the mon­ey laun­der­ing case exposed by mur­dered anti-cor­rup­tion lawyer Sergei Magnitsky. 

Chaired by Mr E. Eyyubov, Deputy For­eign Affairs Min­is­ter of Azer­bai­jan, the Stras­bourg-based ambas­sadors com­pris­ing the Coun­cil of Europe’s Com­mit­tee of Min­is­ters, the inter­na­tion­al organisation’s deci­sion-mak­ing body, refused to pro­pose any con­crete mea­sures that par­lia­men­tar­i­ans have asked for in their Rec­om­men­da­tion enti­tled “Refus­ing Impuni­ty for the Killers of Sergei Mag­nit­sky” which was adopt­ed by over­whelm­ing major­i­ty in Jan­u­ary this year.

The par­lia­men­tar­i­ans of the Coun­cil of Europe’s Par­lia­men­tary Assem­bly asked in their Jan­u­ary 2014 rec­om­men­da­tion the Com­mit­tee of For­eign Affairs Min­is­ters to:
“exam­ine ways and means of improv­ing inter­na­tion­al co-oper­a­tion in inves­ti­gat­ing the “mon­ey trail” of the funds orig­i­nat­ing in the fraud­u­lent tax reim­burse­ments denounced by Mr Mag­nit­sky; and, in par­tic­u­lar, of ensur­ing that the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion ful­ly par­tic­i­pates in these efforts.” (http://assembly.coe.int/nw/xml/XRef/Xref-XML2HTML-EN.asp?fileid=20410&lang=en)

In the response to par­lia­men­tar­i­ans, the Com­mit­tee of Min­is­ters ignored the rec­om­men­da­tions com­plete­ly and changed the sub­ject cit­ing sev­er­al gen­er­al reports on Rus­sia issued by MONEYVAL, a Coun­cil of Europe’s body in the area of anti-mon­ey laun­der­ing. None of the reports exam­ine the $230 mil­lion mon­ey laun­der­ing case exposed by Sergei Mag­nit­sky in any way. 

“Although MONEYVAL does not address indi­vid­ual cas­es, it aims to pro­vide its mem­bers with the capac­i­ty to fight mon­ey-laun­der­ing with­in their bor­ders and to co-oper­ate in order to pre­vent trans­bor­der mon­ey-laun­der­ing. At the inter­na­tion­al lev­el, MONEYVAL works close­ly togeth­er with the Finan­cial Action Task Force on Mon­ey Laun­der­ing (FATF). The Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion is a mem­ber of both these bod­ies,” said the response from the Com­mit­tee of Min­is­ters to par­lia­men­tar­i­ans pub­lished on the offi­cial Coun­cil of Europe web­site (http://assembly.coe.int/nw/xml/XRef/Xref-XML2HTML-en.asp?fileid=21312&lang=en).

The diplo­mat­ic answer to Coun­cil of Europe’s par­lia­men­tar­i­ans from the Com­mit­tee of Min­is­ters adopt­ed at the Committee’s ses­sion on 22 and 24 Octo­ber in Stras­bourg fur­ther said: 

“The Com­mit­tee [of Min­is­ters] reit­er­ates its call for an effec­tive inves­ti­ga­tion and the bring­ing to jus­tice of those responsible.”

Jus­tice for Sergei Mag­nit­sky cam­paign rep­re­sen­ta­tive said: 

“This strange bureau­crat­ic response is defy­ing the efforts of par­lia­men­tar­i­ans from 47 coun­tries in Europe to achieve some mea­sure of jus­tice in the Mag­nit­sky case. It is also an aban­don­ment of Sergei Mag­nit­sky who paid with his life try­ing to stop cor­rupt Russ­ian offi­cials from steal­ing mil­lions from his coun­try. The appoint­ed diplo­mats in Europe should heed the call from the elect­ed par­lia­men­tar­i­ans who have shown the resolve of the peo­ple to see that jus­tice is done.”

The par­lia­men­tar­i­ans’ rec­om­men­da­tion was based on the inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tion into the Mag­nit­sky case con­duct­ed by Coun­cil of Europe’s Rap­por­teur, Swiss MP Andreas Gross, who con­clud­ed that there was a need to improve inter­na­tion­al coop­er­a­tion in this case because of the high-lev­el cov­er up in this case in Russia.

Rap­por­teur Gross stated:
“My ini­tial con­clu­sion, name­ly that we are in the pres­ence of a mas­sive cov­er-up involv­ing senior offi­cials of the com­pe­tent min­istries, the Pros­e­cu­tor General’s Office, the Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee and even cer­tain courts finds itself fur­ther con­sol­i­dat­ed.” (Report “Refus­ing the Impuni­ty for the Killers of Sergei Mag­nit­sky” http://www.assembly.coe.int/nw/xml/XRef/X2H-Xref-ViewPDF.asp?FileID=20084&lang=en).

Rap­por­teur Gross point­ed out that the mon­ey laun­der­ing exposed by Sergei Mag­nit­sky has been traced to a large num­ber of Euro­pean states which neces­si­tat­ed inter­na­tion­al judi­cial coop­er­a­tion in this case:

“The laun­der­ing of the funds that can be traced back to the fraud­u­lent US$230 mil­lion tax refund denounced by Mr Mag­nit­sky has involved a large num­ber of Euro­pean States… Giv­en the com­plex­i­ty of the crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tions required and the obvi­ous need for inter­na­tion­al co-oper­a­tion, the Assem­bly should also seize the Com­mit­tee of Min­is­ters in order to ensure that this impor­tant affair is includ­ed on the agen­da of inter­gov­ern­men­tal co-oper­a­tion.” (Adden­dum to Report “Refus­ing the Impuni­ty for the Killers of Sergei Mag­nit­sky”, http://www.assembly.coe.int/nw/xml/XRef/X2H-Xref-ViewPDF.asp?FileID=20345&lang=en)

Con­clu­sions expressed in the report “Refus­ing Impuni­ty for the Killers of Sergei Mag­nit­sky” pre­pared by Rap­por­teur Gross were adopt­ed by over­whelm­ing major­i­ty this Jan­u­ary by the 47-mem­ber state Par­lia­men­tary Assem­bly of the Coun­cil of Europe (Res­o­lu­tion “Refus­ing the Impuni­ty for the Killers of Sergei Mag­nit­sky” http://assembly.coe.int/nw/xml/XRef/Xref-XML2HTML-en.asp?fileid=20409&lang=en).

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion please contact:

Jus­tice for Sergei Mag­nit­sky campaign
Phone: +44 207 440 1777
Email: info@lawandorderinrussia.org
Web­site: http://lawandorderinrussia.org

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