Senior Coroner Has Ruled That Hermitage Capital is an ‘Interested Person’ in the Perepilichnyy Inquest in Surrey

August 6, 2015

6 August 2015 — Today, the Senior Coro­ner ruled that Her­mitage Cap­i­tal will be rec­og­nized as an inter­est­ed per­son in the Alexan­der Perepilich­nyy inquest which took place in Sur­rey, Eng­land today. Her­mitage Cap­i­tal made the appli­ca­tion because of spe­cif­ic facts which point­ed to the pos­si­bil­i­ty that Alexan­der Perepilich­nyy was mur­dered in Novem­ber 2012 in Surrey. 

Her­mitage Cap­i­tal was forced to inter­vene in the coro­ners inquest because the Sur­rey police decid­ed that Alexan­der Perepilich­nyy’s death was ‘not sus­pi­cious’ and ‘did not involve third par­ties’. In writ­ten and oral appli­ca­tions sub­mit­ted by Geof­frey Robert­son QC and Hen­ri­et­ta Hill QC, Her­mitage dis­closed how Alexan­der Perepilich­nyy had described fears over being mur­dered by mem­bers of the Russ­ian organ­ised crime con­nect­ed to the Russ­ian government. 

“We can­not allow the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment to get away with mur­der in the UK. We will make sure that all the facts sur­round­ing Alexan­der Perepilich­nyy’s death, includ­ing any sug­ges­tion that it was linked with his inv­ole­ment in expos­ing the Russ­ian organ­ised crime con­nect­ed to the Mag­nit­sky case are elu­ci­dat­ed in full at the inquest,” said William Brow­der, leader of Jus­tice for Sergei Mag­nit­sky Campaign.

In 2010, Alexan­der Perepilich­nyy pro­vid­ed evi­dence to Her­mitage Cap­i­tal which lead to the freez­ing of accounts belong­ing to Vladlen Stepanov, hus­band of a senior Russ­ian tax offi­cial held in Swiss banks. He twice tes­ti­fied to the Swiss pros­e­cu­tors and sub­se­quent­ly received death threats by var­i­ous ele­ments inside the Russ­ian government.

Alexan­der Perepilich­nyy died on 10 Novem­ber 2012 after return­ing from a trip to Paris. The British police closed the case but the French author­i­ties have since opened a full mur­der investigation. 

For more infor­ma­tion, please contact:

Jus­tice for Sergei Mag­nit­sky campaign
+44 207 440 1777
info@lawandorderinrussia.org

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