Following Death in Custody of Hermitage Fund Lawyer Sergei Magnitsky and Release of YouTube Video about the Perpetrators, Hermitage Capital Executive Receives New Death Threat

July 7, 2010

7 July 2010 – A UK-based Her­mitage Cap­i­tal exec­u­tive has received a new death threat, the lat­est in a series of threats which start­ed one month pri­or to the death in cus­tody last year of Sergei Mag­nit­sky, a lawyer for Her­mitage Fund, after he had tes­ti­fied about the theft of $230 mil­lion by Russ­ian officials.

On 23 June 2010, friends of Sergei Mag­nit­sky released details of mil­lions of dol­lars of illic­it assets acquired by a Russ­ian police offi­cer impli­cat­ed by Sergei Mag­nit­sky in the $230 mil­lion theft (see: http://russian-untouchables.com). Ten days after the release of this video, a Lon­don-based Her­mitage Cap­i­tal exec­u­tive received a new death threat.

The death threat was sent to the Her­mitage executive’s cor­po­rate UK phone voice­mail box bypass­ing the nor­mal tele­phone sys­tem, at 3:53 am on Sat­ur­day, 3 July. The voice mes­sage was left by a com­put­er-altered voice say­ing: “I am com­ing for you. I am going for you f***…. I’ll f***.. you, f***… hell…”

Yes­ter­day, lawyers rep­re­sent­ing Her­mitage Cap­i­tal filed a com­plaint with the Counter Ter­ror­ism Com­mand (SO15) of Lon­don’s Met­ro­pol­i­tan Police (http://www.met.police.uk/so/counter_terrorism.htm), spe­cial Ser­vice of Scot­land Yard engaged in com­bat­ing ter­ror­ist, domes­tic extrem­ist and relat­ed offences with the expe­ri­ence in inves­ti­ga­tion of ter­ror­ist attacks in Lon­don in July 2005. The unit brings togeth­er world-renowned exper­tise in intel­li­gence, inves­ti­ga­tion and oper­a­tional sup­port. In the filed com­plaint there was a clear ref­er­ence made in rela­tion to indi­vid­u­als, who should be banned from enter­ing in the ter­ri­to­ry of the Unit­ed King­dom in light of the recent events.

In the let­ter filed with SO15 Her­mitage lawyers said: “The most recent threat received on 3 July 2010, and the ear­li­er mes­sages, were plain­ly from the very per­sons who self-avowed­ly com­mit­ted the mur­der of Mr Mag­nit­sky, claimed “cred­it” for it.”

The YouTube video which pre­cip­i­tat­ed the new death threat was released two weeks ago under title: “Russ­ian Untouch­ables. Episode 1. Artem Kuznetsov” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZB3YoAvEro). The video details how Sergei Mag­nit­sky tes­ti­fied about the involve­ment of Russ­ian police offi­cers in the theft of $230 mil­lion of bud­get funds, and how those same police offi­cers then arrest­ed and tor­tured him to coerce him to with­draw his tes­ti­mo­ny. After he refused, he was found dead in a deten­tion cen­tre cell. At the same time, Lt Col Artem Kuznetsov, the police offi­cer Sergei Mag­nit­sky tes­ti­fied against, has been enjoy­ing a $3 mil­lion lifestyle on a $850 month­ly salary. The video has imme­di­ate­ly become one of the most blogged videos in Rus­sia and has already been viewed by over 180,000 people.

This is not the first time that UK-based Her­mitage Cap­i­tal employ­ees and lawyers have received death threats. On 23 Octo­ber 2009, three weeks before the death of Sergei Mag­nit­sky on 16 Novem­ber 2009, a Lon­don-based lawyer for Her­mitage Fund received the fol­low­ing SMS mes­sage: “Don’t know what is more ter­ri­ble … death … or prison.”

One week before the death of Sergei Mag­nit­sky, the Lon­don-based lawyer for Her­mitage Fund received the fol­low­ing SMS mes­sage: “If his­to­ry has taught us any­thing, it is that you can kill any­one. Michael Corleone”.

Two days before Magnitsky’s death, a voice mes­sage with a record­ing of some­one being severe­ly beat­en was received by a Her­mitage executive.

Two days fol­low­ing the death of Sergei Mag­nit­sky, a Her­mitage Fund lawyer received anoth­er SMS mes­sage boast­ing about Magnitsky’s death: “There is a lawyer, who died in prison under a very inter­est­ing crim­i­nal case. Land­mark event. The paid-up arti­cles will not work. Extra­di­tion will follow…”

All SMS mes­sages orig­i­nat­ed from a Russ­ian mobile phone, not reg­is­tered to any spe­cif­ic name in Moscow. Such unreg­is­tered num­bers gen­er­al­ly belong to the Russ­ian secu­ri­ty ser­vices. Accord­ing to an inves­ti­ga­tion con­duct­ed by the inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ists of the New Times Mag­a­zine in Rus­sia, cer­tain offi­cials of the Russ­ian intel­li­gence ser­vices received a $6 mil­lion fee for the ille­gal impris­on­ment and tor­ture of Sergei Mag­nit­sky (see in Russ­ian: http://newtimes.ru/articles/detail/11454).

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