Russian General Prosecutor Ignores Sergei Magnitsky’s Mother’s Complaint Against Him for Slander

June 16, 2016

PRESS RELEASE

For Imme­di­ate distribution

 

Russ­ian Gen­er­al Pros­e­cu­tor Ignores Sergei Magnitsky’s Moth­er’s Com­plaint Against Him for Slander

 

16 June 2016 – Russ­ian Gen­er­al Pros­e­cu­tor Chai­ka refused to respond to Sergei Magnitsky’s moth­er’s appli­ca­tion chal­leng­ing his posthu­mous slan­der against her son. Ms Magnitskaya’s appli­ca­tion high­light­ed new infor­ma­tion on the cov­er up since 2008 of per­pe­tra­tors of the US$230 Mil­lion crime her son had uncov­ered, by the Gen­er­al Prosecutor’s Office and specif­i­cal­ly by Chaika’s aid, pros­e­cu­tor Bumazhkin. The cov­er up involved the ear­ly exon­er­a­tion of all per­pe­tra­tors of the theft of bud­get funds from any lia­bil­i­ty, allow­ing them to con­ceal evi­dence and laun­der the stolen funds in the year fol­low­ing the theft.

On Decem­ber 14, 2016, Yuri Chai­ka accused Sergei Mag­nit­sky of being a per­pe­tra­tor of the $230 mil­lion fraud that Mag­nit­sky had uncov­ered. His accu­sa­tion was pub­lished in an “open let­ter” in the Russ­ian news­pa­per Kommersant.

Magnitsky’s moth­er filed a for­mal appli­ca­tion to Yuri Chai­ka stat­ing that his claim is not based on facts, is con­tra­dict­ed by avail­able doc­u­ments, and sought the full dis­clo­sure of mate­r­i­al that Chai­ka relied on to make the posthu­mous accu­sa­tion against her son.

Pros­e­cu­tor Chai­ka failed to respond to Ms Mag­nit­skaya. Instead, pros­e­cu­tor A.V. Kulikov of the 2^nd unit of the Russ­ian Gen­er­al Pros­e­cu­tor’s Office in charge of high­ly impor­tant cas­es signed a for­mal reply stat­ing that Magnitsky’s moth­er does not have the pro­ce­dur­al stand­ing to receive any documents.

“Your appli­ca­tion to pro­vide doc­u­ments and on oth­er mat­ters have been considered…The inves­tiga­tive body does not have doc­u­ments to ver­i­fy that you have a stand­ing in the crim­i­nal case…Therefore, your client and you do not have the right to access the mate­ri­als of the pre­lim­i­nary inves­ti­ga­tion,” said pros­e­cu­tor Kulikov.

The appli­ca­tion on behalf of Mrs Mag­nit­skaya to which Chai­ka failed to respond, said:

“Despite the numer­ous suf­fer­ings and tor­ture that he[Magnitsky] had been sub­ject­ed to by inves­ti­ga­tion in deten­tion, he… repeat­ed the tes­ti­mo­ny giv­en before his arrest about the com­plic­i­ty of Inte­ri­or Min­istry offi­cials in the crime against its cit­i­zens  — the theft of 5.4 bil­lion rubles [$230 mln], and the crime against his client – the theft of the three com­pa­nies of the Her­mitage fund, and filed com­plaints against the vio­la­tions of his rights com­mit­ted per­son­al­ly by you and by your sub­or­di­nates in the Gen­er­al Prosecutor’s Office.

 His lawyers did not ask him to sign doc­u­ments about unknown events, but instead filed com­plaints, includ­ing com­plaints addressed to you per­son­al­ly, about the vio­la­tions of his rights in deten­tion, the unlaw­ful depri­va­tion of med­ical care, the pres­sure exert­ed to break his will and force him to give false testimony.

 Mag­nit­sky did not sign false returns and forged doc­u­ments and did not pass them to Gasanov and Markelov to use in the fraud­u­lent refund of 5.4 bil­lion rubles from the bud­get; these doc­u­ments were man­u­fac­tured by mem­bers of the crim­i­nal orga­ni­za­tion exposed by Mag­nit­sky which com­prised offi­cials of the Inte­ri­or Min­istry and Gen­er­al Prosecutor’s Office who pro­tect­ed this orga­ni­za­tion, that for many years has spe­cial­ized in the ille­gal tax refunds at the Moscow tax offices no 25 and no 28. 

 Thanks to the inves­ti­ga­tion by Mag­nit­sky, con­duct­ed for his client – the Her­mitage fund, the theft of 5.4 bil­lion rubles was uncov­ered, noti­fied to you on 25 July 2008 …seek­ing to bring those com­plic­it to jus­tice, in response to which your aid A.K.Bumazhkin sent a reply dat­ed 18.08.2008 that the inves­ti­ga­tion was sus­pend­ed “due to the inabil­i­ty of sus­pects to par­tic­i­pate” in the case, and then closed in rela­tion to Markelov, Kurochkin and Khleb­nikov …“due to the absence of crime in their actions.” Your aid also informed that the “out­comes of the inves­ti­ga­tion were under con­trol of the Gen­er­al Prosecutor’s Office.

 There­fore, under the con­trol and with the knowl­edge of the Gen­er­al Prosecutor’s Office, of which you are in charge, the per­pe­tra­tors who com­mit­ted the grandiose theft from the bud­get of 5.4 bil­lion rubles, remained for a long time at large, had an oppor­tu­ni­ty to destroy evi­dence of their crime and con­tin­ue it through unre­strained bank trans­fers designed to laun­der funds stolen from their fel­low citizens.”

Sergei Mag­nit­sky was Hermitage’s lawyer who uncov­ered the US$230 mil­lion fraud and tes­ti­fied about the com­plic­i­ty of Russ­ian offi­cials in it. He 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” by William Brow­der and in a series of cam­paign videos on Youtube chan­nel “Russ­ian Untouchables.”

 

Jus­tice for Sergei Magnitsky

+44 207 440 1777

e‑mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org

www.lawandorderinrussia.org

www.billbrowder.com

www.twitter.com/Billbrowder

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