Statement by Bill Browder on 5^th Anniversary of Sergei Magnitsky’s Killing in Russia

November 16, 2014

Dear Friends and supporters,

 Today marks the 5^th anniver­sary of Sergei Mag­nit­sky’s killing in Russ­ian police custody. 

Sergei was my lawyer who was mur­dered because he exposed one of the largest gov­ern­ment cor­rup­tion schemes in Russ­ian his­to­ry. After he tes­ti­fied against the police offi­cers involved, he was arrest­ed by the same offi­cers and was then sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly tor­tured for 358 days. On Novem­ber 16, 2009 he went into crit­i­cal con­di­tion and instead of being treat­ed, he was put in an iso­la­tion cell and beat­en by eight riot guards with rub­ber batons until he was dead at the age of 37.

When I learned of Sergei’s death, it was the worst news I had ever received in my life. It was like a knife going into my heart and I made a vow to myself, his fam­i­ly and his mem­o­ry that I would get jus­tice for him. For five years, I have tried to get that jus­tice, but the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment has used every tool at their dis­pos­al to thwart me. They claimed Sergei was nev­er tor­tured and he died of nat­ur­al caus­es. They claimed that he nev­er uncov­ered or exposed a crime, but was the one guilty of one. And most shock­ing­ly, they exon­er­at­ed every sin­gle Russ­ian state employ­ee involved in spite of a moun­tain of doc­u­men­tary evi­dence to the contrary.

 It became clear to me that there was no pos­si­bil­i­ty of jus­tice inside of Rus­sia so I sought jus­tice out­side of Rus­sia and have advo­cat­ed for sanc­tions against the peo­ple who killed Sergei in many coun­tries in the West. Three years after Sergei’s death, the US gov­ern­ment signed the Sergei Mag­nit­sky Rule of Law Account­abil­i­ty Act impos­ing visa sanc­tions and asset freezes on those involved in Sergei’s death as well as oth­er human rights vio­la­tions. Sim­i­lar sanc­tions are being con­sid­ered by gov­ern­ments in Europe as well.

 Putin and his gov­ern­ment have become infu­ri­at­ed at the glob­al reac­tion to Sergei’s case and have lashed out in all sorts of ways. Short­ly after the Mag­nit­sky Act was passed, Putin banned US adop­tions of dis­abled Russ­ian chil­dren. In 2013, more than three years after Sergei died, they put him on tri­al in the first ever posthu­mous tri­al in the his­to­ry of Rus­sia. They also put me on tri­al in absen­tia as his co-defen­dant and sen­tenced me to nine years.

 When I first start­ed this cam­paign, many peo­ple thought that what hap­pened to Sergei was some kind of anom­aly. They said “this is a sad sto­ry, but prob­a­bly a one-off”, but as time has gone by, more and more cas­es like this have sur­faced and it’s becom­ing obvi­ous to every­one that Rus­sia is a crim­i­nal state tak­ing inno­cent peo­ple hostage and doing hor­rif­ic things to them. The most recent actions in Ukraine make it clear to even the most ardent Russ­ian apol­o­gists that Rus­sia is engag­ing in all sorts of atroc­i­ties and brazen­ly cov­er­ing them up.

What hap­pened to Sergei is now a glob­al sym­bol of every­thing that is wrong with Rus­sia, from the actu­al crime of what they did to Sergei to the high lev­el cov­er-up to the threats against me and oth­ers seek­ing jus­tice. Despite the many hor­rif­ic threats and all the mis­in­for­ma­tion Rus­sia is spew­ing out in this case, I won’t back down in my call for jus­tice for Sergei Mag­nit­sky and nei­ther will those close to him.  We will not stop until the peo­ple who tor­tured and killed Sergei are prop­er­ly brought to justice.

Thank you for your con­tin­ued sup­port on this impor­tant mission.

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