Magnitsky’s Mother Goes to the Russian Supreme Court to Overturn the Second Posthumous Case Against Her Murdered Son

November 21, 2014

Sergei Magnitsky’s moth­er has filed a com­plaint with the judi­cial col­legium of the Supreme Court of Rus­sia in rela­tion to the sec­ond posthu­mous pro­ceed­ing orga­nized against her son by the Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Ministry.

Under this sec­ond posthu­mous case, Sergei Mag­nit­sky has been named after his death as a “co-con­spir­a­tor” in the $230 mil­lion tax refund fraud that he had in fact uncov­ered and exposed.

“…Inves­ti­ga­tor Urzhumt­sev in vio­la­tion of the prin­ci­ple of pre­sump­tion of inno­cence, in vio­la­tion of the con­sti­tu­tion­al right for defence, in the absence of a court order, in the absence of pre­lim­i­nary inves­ti­ga­tion, had stat­ed in his decree [from Decem­ber 2010] that Sergei Mag­nit­sky who died a year before [in Novem­ber 2009] in Matrosskaya Tishi­na deten­tion cen­ter, com­mit­ted a seri­ous crime… the theft of 5.4 bil­lion rubles [$230 mil­lion]…The con­clu­sion itself must be qual­i­fied as slan­der in rela­tion to know­ing­ly inno­cent per­son,” says the complaint.

 “He [Inves­ti­ga­tor Urzhumt­sev] knew very well, that Mag­nit­sky not only was not com­plic­it in the theft of 5.4 bil­lion rubles, but that Mag­nit­sky was the first per­son who had uncov­ered the crime com­mit­ted against the three com­pa­nies of his client, and who had exposed the crim­i­nal activ­i­ty of per­haps one of the largest crim­i­nal groups which spe­cial­izes in unlaw­ful tax refunds,” says the complaint.

Inte­ri­or Min­istry Inves­ti­ga­tor Oleg Urzhumt­sev was includ­ed on both the inves­tiga­tive team on the case against Sergei Mag­nit­sky under which Mag­nit­sky was arrest­ed and ill-treat­ed in cus­tody; and on the case to inves­ti­gate the $230 mil­lion theft that Mag­nit­sky had uncov­ered. The sec­ond inves­ti­ga­tion led by Inves­ti­ga­tor Urzhumt­sev fin­ished by exon­er­at­ing all Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Min­istry and tax offi­cials from lia­bil­i­ty for the $230 mil­lion theft, and nam­ing Sergei Mag­nit­sky as co-con­spir­a­tor posthu­mous­ly and in secret from his rel­a­tives. Urzhumt­sev also was respon­si­ble for assign­ing the blame for the crime to a “job­less” per­son named Vyach­eslav Khleb­nikov in a fast-track pro­ceed­ing which end­ed with a lenient sen­tence of five years for the $230 mil­lion theft. As part of that pro­ceed­ing con­duct­ed after Magnitsky’s death, Khleb­nikov gave a false tes­ti­mo­ny against Mag­nit­sky from detention.

“As mem­ber of the inves­tiga­tive group [on the case Sergei Mag­nit­sky was detained], Urzhumt­sev knew that Mag­nit­sky was arrest­ed soon after his tes­ti­mo­ny impli­cat­ing offi­cials in the theft of 5.4 bil­lion rubles, and that some of those offi­cials were includ­ed on the same inves­tiga­tive team,-  points out the com­plaint. — Mag­nit­sky stat­ed that his crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion was a mea­sure of repres­sion aimed to pun­ish him for the assis­tance he pro­vid­ed to his client dur­ing the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of cir­cum­stances of the theft of his client’s com­pa­nies — Rilend, Makhaon, and Par­fe­nion.”

The com­plaint says that Inves­ti­ga­tor Urzhumt­sev has con­cealed the real per­pe­tra­tors by blam­ing the $230 mil­lion theft on Sergei Mag­nit­sky, and two oth­er deceased indi­vid­u­als (Mr Gasanov and Mr Korobeinikov), nei­ther of whom were alive and could be ques­tioned at the time of the investigation.

“The evi­dence in the case file objec­tive­ly demon­strates that Inves­ti­ga­tor Urzhumt­sev act­ed in the inter­ests of per­sons who per­pe­trat­ed the theft of 5.4 bil­lion rubles [$230 mil­lion], and who using his own ter­mi­nol­o­gy, “found” two deceased indi­vid­u­als in order to put on them the lia­bil­i­ty for the theft of bud­get funds, and in order to pro­vide the ser­vice of con­ceal­ment for the real per­pe­tra­tors of the crime,” says the complaint.

It was since uncov­ered that Mr Gasanov died on 1 Octo­ber 2007, two months before the $230 mil­lion was com­mit­ted. Mr Korobeinikov died in Sep­tem­ber 2008, “falling of a bal­cony” of a build­ing under con­struc­tion, accord­ing to the Russ­ian investigation.

Ms Mag­nit­skaya asks the Russ­ian Supreme Court to exam­ine the law­ful­ness of inves­ti­ga­tor Urzhumtsev’s actions and annul pre­vi­ous deci­sions by low­er-lev­el Russ­ian courts who reject­ed her complaints.

“The court must check the law­ful­ness and the jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for the Investigator’s decree… The pre­vi­ous rejec­tion vio­lates the con­sti­tu­tion­al prin­ci­ple of the pre­sump­tion of inno­cence because deceased Mag­nit­sky was named by Inves­ti­ga­tor Urzhumt­sev as a co-con­spir­a­tor in a crime,” says the complaint.

“The court had an oppor­tu­ni­ty to check the argu­ments using the crim­i­nal case files, and by invit­ing inves­ti­ga­tor Urzhumt­sev to give tes­ti­mo­ny, but it failed to do so…As a result, the con­clu­sion of the court [of low­er instance] is not sup­port­ed by the fac­tu­al cir­cum­stances, which is … the ground to can­cel the court deci­sion,” says the com­plaint in conclusion.

Pre­vi­ous com­plaints from Ms Mag­nit­skaya addressed to low­er instance courts have been reject­ed by Moscow dis­trict judge Tatiana Nevero­va, and Moscow city court judges Andrei Titov and Lyubov Ishmuratova.

In the Unit­ed States, 26 Russ­ian offi­cials and pri­vate indi­vid­u­als involved in Sergei Magnitsky’s deten­tion and ill-treat­ment in cus­tody and in the crim­i­nal con­spir­a­cy Mag­nit­sy had uncov­ered have been sanc­tioned under the US Mag­nit­sky Act. The list includes sev­er­al col­leagues of Inves­ti­ga­tor Urzhumt­sev on the Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Ministry’s inves­tiga­tive team in the Mag­nit­sky case.

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