Russian Delegation Travels to Strasbourg to Pressure MEPs to Drop Magnitsky Sanctions

December 13, 2010

The Euro­pean Par­lia­ment is sched­uled to vote this week to intro­duce visa bans and asset seizures against those Russ­ian state offi­cials who played a role in the mur­der in cus­tody of Sergei Mag­nit­sky or who car­ried out the $230 mil­lion fraud Mag­nit­sky uncov­ered. The Res­o­lu­tion appears in the Annu­al Report of Human Rights in the World (2009).

The Res­o­lu­tion was approved by the For­eign Affairs Com­mit­tee by a vote of 50 – 0 (with two absten­tions) in mid-Novem­ber and will go before the full Euro­pean Par­lia­ment in its Ple­nary Ses­sion in Stras­bourg on 14 – 15 December.

In response to the immi­nent threat of visa sanc­tions and asset seizures against cer­tain of its offi­cials with­in Europe, the Russ­ian Duma sent a del­e­ga­tion to Stras­bourg on 11 Decem­ber where they will urgent­ly lob­by against the pend­ing res­o­lu­tion. Accord­ing to Andrei Klimov, Deputy Chair­man of the Duma Com­mit­tee on Inter­na­tion­al Affairs:

“Mem­bers of our del­e­ga­tion are going to use all avail­able means, includ­ing for­mal and infor­mal meet­ings with Mem­bers of the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment, to try to con­vey to them the whole fail­ure of one of the amend­ments to the draft report con­cern­ing the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the death in jail of Sergei Magnitsky.”

The his­toric nature of the Mag­nit­sky vote and the Russ­ian Duma’s strong pres­sure on Mem­bers of the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment has sparked a sweep­ing response from both inside and out­side Rus­sia to sup­port the sanctions.

U.S. Sen­a­tor John McCain, in a speech on Fri­day 10 Decem­ber, said:
“Cas­es like [Magnitsky’s] make a mock­ery of the idea that Rus­sia is gov­erned by the rule of law … Con­gress should build on the leg­is­la­tion that Sen­a­tor Ben Cardin and I intro­duced – which impos­es sanc­tions and trav­el bans on those respon­si­ble for the mur­der of Sergei Mag­nit­sky – and expand these mea­sures to oth­er Russ­ian offi­cials who are com­plic­it in human rights vio­la­tions. We should also block their fam­i­lies from trav­el­ing to, study­ing and vaca­tion­ing in Amer­i­ca – and we should encour­age our Euro­pean allies to do the same. This would be a good first step in impos­ing some very per­son­al costs on the most cor­rupt officials.”
(http://mccain.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressOffice.PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=d07fd54f-e2c4-0c13-4f8d-5af54bbf1c3e)

Boris Nemtsov, for­mer First Deputy Prime Min­is­ter of Rus­sia, and lead­ing Russ­ian oppo­si­tion can­di­date, wrote to Mem­bers of Euro­pean Par­lia­ment to approve the sanc­tions on 10 Decem­ber, urg­ing them to approve the sanctions:
“It seems fair­ly obvi­ous to most peo­ple around the world that Sergei Mag­nit­sky will not get jus­tice in Rus­sia. So I call on you in the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment to help bring some jus­tice in the case of Sergei Mag­nit­sky … Russ­ian politi­cians did not do a sin­gle thing while Sergei was in prison … Yet they gal­va­nized them­selves in one day fol­low­ing a threat of being banned from trav­el­ling into Europe. I am very pleased to know that there will be a vote in the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment on pre­cise­ly this issue … This vote is not only about Sergei Mag­nit­sky, but about human­i­ty, rule of law, jus­tice, free­dom and human rights for all the peo­ple of Russia.”
(http://russian-untouchables.com/docs/D235.pdf)

Mikhail Kasyanov, for­mer Prime Min­is­ter of Rus­sia, spoke on 8 Decem­ber 2010 regard­ing the upcom­ing vote in Stras­bourg and urged the Mem­bers of the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment to ensure that Rus­sia abides by its inter­na­tion­al human rights treaty obligations:
“[There is an] ini­tia­tive in con­nec­tion with the death of Sergei Mag­nit­sky … I believe that the demo­c­ra­t­ic forces, the polit­i­cal forces in the Euro­pean Union who want to see Rus­sia as a nor­mal demo­c­ra­t­ic coun­try, should demand from the Russ­ian author­i­ties the exe­cu­tion of nor­mal demo­c­ra­t­ic laws. Human rights are not an inter­nal affair of the coun­try. We have signed an inter­na­tion­al agree­ment … Rus­sia must auto­mat­i­cal­ly abide by the Euro­pean Con­ven­tion on Human Rights and Fun­da­men­tal Freedoms.”
(http://khodorkovsky.ru/documents/2010/12/08/13826/?reply_to=41386)

Lud­mi­la Alek­see­va, Chair­man of the Moscow Helsin­ki Group, Russia’s old­est human rights orga­ni­za­tion, and recip­i­ent of the Euro­pean Parliament’s 2009 Sakharov Prize for Free­dom of Thought, wrote:
“The Russ­ian side has not tak­en any real steps to inves­ti­gate the cir­cum­stances of the arrest, deten­tion and death of Mag­nit­sky … We appeal to oth­er states, for which we hope ‘human rights’ are not emp­ty words … We appeal to the lead­er­ship of the Euro­pean Union to deny entry to those offi­cials who appear on the list of Sen­a­tor Cardin [respon­si­ble for the tor­ture and death of Mag­nit­sky and the fraud he uncovered].”
(http://www.novayagazeta.ru/data/2010/101/05.html)

Alex­ei Naval­ny, a lead­ing anti cor­rup­tion activist in Rus­sia, wrote on 12 Decem­ber to the Mem­bers of the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment and urged them to resist the aggres­sive lob­by­ing of the Russ­ian state:
“You are being lob­bied by Russ­ian offi­cials to oppose these sanc­tions. How­ev­er, the vast major­i­ty of the Russ­ian peo­ple favour these sanc­tions … The lob­by­ing efforts against the sanc­tions are not on behalf of the Russ­ian peo­ple … This lob­by­ing is on behalf of the per­son­al inter­ests of the offi­cials lob­by­ing you and on behalf of scores of oth­er offi­cials who are ter­ri­fied that these sanc­tions if adopt­ed could be expand­ed to include oth­er cas­es involv­ing cor­rupt officials.”
(http://russian-untouchables.com/docs/D239.pdf)

Car­la Fer­st­man, Direc­tor of REDRESS, the Lon­don-based anti-tor­ture orga­ni­za­tion that seeks to hold account­able the gov­ern­ments and indi­vid­u­als who per­pe­trate tor­ture, wrote to the mem­ber­ship of the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment on 10 December:
“Over one year since Mr. Magnitsky’s death in pre-tri­al deten­tion, there has been a fail­ure to car­ry out a full, effec­tive and impar­tial inves­ti­ga­tion into the alle­ga­tions of wrong-doing, includ­ing the defraud­ing of the state bud­get and the ill-treat­ment and tor­ture of Mr. Mag­nit­sky …[Pass­ing the sanc­tions] would send an impor­tant sig­nal to the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion and the Inter­na­tion­al Com­mu­ni­ty as a whole that those accused of tor­ture and relat­ed crimes must be held to account and that the EU does not tol­er­ate impuni­ty for such crimes.”
(http://russian-untouchables.com/docs/D237.pdf)

REDRESS also point­ed out that not approv­ing the sanc­tions would be equiv­a­lent to tol­er­at­ing tor­ture in the Euro­pean Union and fur­ther remind­ed the Mem­bers of the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment of the oblig­a­tions of EU coun­tries to pros­e­cute, under Arti­cle 5(2) of the UN Con­ven­tion Against Tor­ture, indi­vid­u­als guilty of human rights vio­la­tions should such indi­vid­u­als be found in their mem­ber countries.

David J. Kramer, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of Free­dom House, the US-based orga­ni­za­tion mon­i­tor­ing human rights around the world, appealed to the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment to approve the sanc­tions, writ­ing on 7 December:
“The lack of account­abil­i­ty and jus­tice in Rus­sia com­pels those of us in Europe, Cana­da and the Unit­ed States to do what we can to under­score that such behav­iour is sim­ply unac­cept­able. It runs counter to the norms and stan­dards embod­ied in the Helsin­ki Final Act and mem­ber­ship in the Coun­cil of Europe. That is why [Free­dom House] joins with Russ­ian human rights activists in urg­ing to you stand on the side of rule of law, jus­tice and human rights and vote in favour of the res­o­lu­tion impos­ing visa and eco­nom­ic sanc­tions against those state offi­cials in Rus­sia involved in Sergei Magnitsky’s murder.”
(http://russian-untouchables.com/docs/D236.pdf)

TAGLaw, a glob­al alliance of 147 law firms from more than 80 coun­tries rep­re­sent­ing near­ly 7,700 lawyers, wrote direct­ly to Pres­i­dent Medvedev on 12 Decem­ber in advance of the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment vote:
“TAGLaw is deeply con­cerned that the Russ­ian State not only allowed [Magnitsky’s tor­ture and death] to occur, but that it is not inves­ti­gat­ing whether Mr. Mag­nit­sky was false­ly detained and inten­tion­al­ly tor­tured to death to pre­vent him from tes­ti­fy­ing against Min­istry of Inte­ri­or Offi­cers … We can­not rec­om­mend that our world­wide mem­bers or their tens of thou­sands of clients con­sid­er invest­ing in Russ­ian oper­a­tions with­out tak­ing note of the almost total lack of legal pro­tec­tion and absence of effec­tive restraints on gov­ern­ment offi­cials who are appar­ent­ly free to act to the detri­ment of investors and their Russ­ian investments.”
(http://russian-untouchables.com/docs/D238.pdf)

Rus­sia is a sig­na­to­ry to the Euro­pean Human Rights Con­ven­tion that guar­an­tees right to life (Arti­cle 2) and pro­hibits tor­ture and inhu­mane treat­ment (Arti­cle 3). The rat­i­fi­ca­tion of this con­ven­tion was a con­di­tion of Russia’s mem­ber­ship in the Coun­cil of Europe. Rus­sia is also bound by the Unit­ed Nations Con­ven­tion Against Torture.

Sergei Mag­nit­sky (8 April 1972 – 16 Novem­ber 2009), an out­side lawyer for the Her­mitage Fund, dis­cov­ered that Russ­ian police were involved in steal­ing his client’s invest­ment com­pa­nies and sub­se­quent­ly embez­zling $230 mil­lion of pub­lic funds through the largest tax refund fraud in Russ­ian his­to­ry. Mag­nit­sky tes­ti­fied against the state offi­cials involved, and in ret­ri­bu­tion these offi­cials arrest­ed him on false pre­texts, detained him for 12 months with­out tri­al and tor­tured him to with­draw his tes­ti­mo­ny. Despite the sys­tem­at­ic phys­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal tor­ture he endured, Mag­nit­sky refused to change his tes­ti­mo­ny. He died on 16 Novem­ber 2009 at the age of 37. He is sur­vived by his moth­er, his wife and two children.

Addi­tion­al State­ments by Euro­pean Offi­cials on Sergei Magnitsky

State­ment on Sergei Mag­nit­sky by Pres­i­dent of the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment, Jerzy Buzek:

“Sergey Mag­nit­sky was a brave man, who in his fight against cor­rup­tion was unjus­ti­fi­ably impris­oned under ruth­less con­di­tions and then died in jail with­out receiv­ing appro­pri­ate med­ical care. This is a shock­ing exam­ple show­ing that peo­ple fight­ing against cor­rup­tion in Rus­sia can feel nei­ther safe nor pro­tect­ed. It is a para­dox, because the lawyer Sergey Mag­nit­sky believed very strong­ly in justice.

His death high­light­ed the seri­ous short­com­ings of the prison and judi­cial sys­tem in Rus­sia and the pre­vail­ing atmos­phere of impuni­ty. I raised the case of Sergey Mag­nit­sky’s death dur­ing my meet­ing with Pres­i­dent Medvedev in June in Moscow”

See full text:
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/president/view/en/press/press_release/2010/2010-November/press_release-2010-November-14.html

State­ment on Sergei Mag­nit­sky by the Euro­pean Commission:

“The death of Mr Mag­nit­sky is unfor­tu­nate­ly not a iso­lat­ed case. It should be viewed in con­text of the over­all sit­u­a­tion of, to use the Pres­i­dent words, “legal nihilism” in the Russ­ian Federation…

We have to admit of course that despite the President’s rhetoric and despite the con­tin­u­ous domes­tic as well as inter­na­tion­al pres­sure, until date not one per­son has been offi­cial­ly charged with a crime in this case. Also, no fur­ther inquiries have been made into the cor­rup­tion case that Mr Mag­nistky was work­ing on pri­or to his death. The Euro­pean Home Affairs Com­mis­sion­er Malm­ström expressed in May 2010, at a meet­ing in Kazan, seri­ous con­cerns to Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Min­is­ter Nur­galiyev and Jus­tice Min­is­ter Kono­val­ov with regard to Moscow’s fail­ure to inves­ti­gate Inte­ri­or Min­istry offi­cials involved in a $230 mil­lion cor­rup­tion case exposed by Sergei Magnitsky.

Today, the Mag­nit­sky case remains an impor­tant lit­mus test of whether Pres­i­dent Medvedev is seri­ous in his recent calls for mod­ern­iza­tion and rule-of-law in Rus­sia. In view of this, the Com­mis­sion will con­tin­ue rais­ing this and oth­er sim­i­lar cas­es in its con­tacts with Rus­sia at var­i­ous lev­els, includ­ing the high­est, and call­ing for an effec­tive and impar­tial investigation.”

See full text:
http://www.heidihautala.fi/2010/10/eu-commission-magnitsky-case-an-important-litmus-test-for-president-medvedev/

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