Oslo City Court Confirms to Sergei Magnitsky’s Family that Anti-Magnitsky Propaganda Film Will Not Be Shown

June 7, 2016

PRESS RELEASE

For Imme­di­ate distribution

Oslo City Court Con­firms to Sergei Mag­nit­sky’s Fam­i­ly that Anti-Mag­nit­sky Pro­pa­gan­da Film Will Not Be Shown

7 June 2016 – The wid­ow and moth­er of late Sergei Mag­nit­sky have been informed by the Oslo City Court that the Nor­we­gian film fes­ti­val, Kort­film­fes­ti­valen, has removed the anti-Mag­nit­sky film from its 9 – 10 June  2016 pro­gram, fol­low­ing the fam­i­ly’s appli­ca­tion for  court injunction.

“The film­mak­ers have act­ed neg­li­gent­ly when they decid­ed to put for­ward such defama­tion on a clear­ly defi­cient fac­tu­al basis.Kort­film­fes­ti­valen must be iden­ti­fied with the notion of neg­li­gence when it has not made the fac­tu­al inves­ti­ga­tion of the alle­ga­tion in the film,” said the injunc­tion appli­ca­tion filed by Carl Bore, lawyer for the Mag­nit­sky family.

The Oslo City Court accept­ed the injunc­tion appli­ca­tion on Mon­day, 6 June 2016, and set the oral hear­ing date for Wednes­day, 8 June 2016. How­ev­er, at a pre­lim­i­nary hear­ing today, 7 June 2016, the Kort­film­fes­ti­valen announced that they will not show the film by Andrei Nekrasov.

Judge Hen­ning Kris­tiansen signed the tran­script of the pro­ceed­ing, which con­firms that the fes­ti­val will not show the film in any version.

“Mag­nit­sky Act shall not be shown at the fes­ti­val, nei­ther in whole or in part, nor in any ver­sion. This also cov­ers oth­er ver­sions includ­ed in the cur­rent film project,” says the court pro­to­col signed by the judge.

“No pub­lic inter­est dic­tates spread­ing of an untrue and gross­ly defam­a­to­ry film of this nature. As pre­vi­ous­ly men­tioned, defama­tion in the film includes the “acquit­tal” of Russ­ian author­i­ties for gross cor­rup­tion and seri­ous human rights vio­la­tions in the Mag­nit­sky case. The pub­lic is not well served by dis­in­for­ma­tion,” said the Mag­nit­sky fam­i­ly in their injunc­tion application.

The Mag­nit­sky fam­i­ly first wrote to the Kort­film­fes­ti­valen on Mon­day, 30 May 2016, ask­ing the fes­ti­val to remove the film from the pro­gram because of its false and defam­a­to­ry con­tent. The let­ter from the Mag­nit­sky fam­i­ly was sup­port­ed by numer­ous doc­u­ments and evi­dence demon­strat­ing the fal­si­ty of film’s alle­ga­tions. How­ev­er, Nor­we­gian Kort­film­fes­ti­valen refused to dis­as­so­ci­ate them­selves from the film, and main­tained the film in the pro­gram for 9 – 10 June 2016.

Because of the festival’s refusal, the Mag­nit­sky fam­i­ly had to apply to the Nor­we­gian court seek­ing an injunc­tion. The injunc­tion appli­ca­tion was filed on behalf of the Mag­nit­sky fam­i­ly and William Brow­der, leader of Mag­nit­sky jus­tice move­ment, with the Oslo City Court on Mon­day, 6 June 2016. The fes­ti­val only announced that it would with­draw the film from the pro­gram after they had been tak­en to court. How­ev­er, Kort­film­fes­ti­valen simul­ta­ne­ous­ly assert­ed on its web­site that it “con­tin­ues to sup­port Piraya Film and Nekrasov in their desire to fin­ish this film project,” appar­ent­ly being unmoved by the pain and dis­tress their actions have caused Sergei Mag­nit­sky’s wid­ow and mother.

Kort­film­fes­ti­valen is run with fund­ing from the Nor­we­gian state, Aust-Agder coun­ty and Grim­stad municipality.

Pre­vi­ous­ly, the anti-Mag­nit­sky film by Andrei Nekrasov was with­drawn from broad­cast by the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment, French TV sta­tion ARTE and Ger­man TV sta­tion ZDF.

The anti-Mag­nit­sky film was direct­ed by Andrei Nekrasov and pro­duced by a Nor­we­gian film com­pa­ny, Piraya Film AS.PirayaFilm AS is co-owned by Nor­we­gians Bjarte Mørn­er Tveit and Torstein Grude, who also serve as Piraya Film’s CEO and Chair­man respec­tive­ly, with a fur­ther 10% owned by Sobra AS, a real estate com­pa­ny belong­ing to Find Gjede­bo, accord­ing to the Nor­we­gian cor­po­rate registry.

Sergei Mag­nit­sky, Hermitage’s lawyer who uncov­ered the US$230 mil­lion fraud and tes­ti­fied about the com­plic­i­ty of Russ­ian offi­cials in it, was false­ly arrest­ed, detained for 358 days with­out tri­al, tor­tured and killed in Russ­ian police cus­tody at the age of 37. The events of this case are described in the New-York Times best-sell­er “Red Notice. How I Became Putin’s No 1 Ene­my” by William Brow­der, leader of the glob­al Mag­nit­sky jus­tice move­ment, and in a series of cam­paign videos on Youtube chan­nel “Russ­ian Untouch­ables.” Recent­ly, thanks to Pana­ma Papers, pro­ceeds of US$230 mil­lion fraud uncov­ered by Sergei Mag­nit­sky, were traced to Swiss account of a com­pa­ny owned by Sergei Roldug­in, a close friend of Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin.

For more infor­ma­tion, please contact:

Jus­tice for Sergei Magnitsky

+44 207 440 1777

e‑mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org

www.lawandorderinrussia.org

billbrowder.com

twitter.com/Billbrowder

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