Members of European Parliament Vote Overwhelmingly in Favor of Sanctions in Magnitsky Case

December 16, 2010

Today the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment passed a res­o­lu­tion call­ing for sanc­tions against the Russ­ian offi­cials respon­si­ble for the false arrest, tor­ture and death of 37-year old Russ­ian anti-cor­rup­tion lawyer Sergei Mag­nit­sky. This is a cru­cial step in the fight to obtain jus­tice for Mr. Magnitsky.

With an over­whelm­ing major­i­ty of 318 in favour and 163 against (with 95 absten­tions), the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment called upon EU mem­ber states to con­sid­er impos­ing entry bans on the Russ­ian offi­cials who played a direct role in the Mag­nit­sky case. The Euro­pean Par­lia­ment also called on EU law enforce­ment agen­cies to coop­er­ate in freez­ing bank accounts and oth­er assets of these Russ­ian offi­cials in all EU Mem­ber States.

Hei­di Hau­ta­la, Chair of the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment Sub­com­mit­tee on Human Rights said:

“With this vote the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment is call­ing for jus­tice for an inno­cent man who died in prison. This death was one too many. There comes a point when silence is no longer an option. While there was an attempt by the Russ­ian offi­cials to por­tray this pro­pos­al as anti-Russ­ian, we have been moved by the vast sup­port we have received from inside Rus­sia.”

One year after Magnitsky’s death, Russ­ian author­i­ties have failed to open an inves­ti­ga­tion into his tor­ture. No one has been charged in rela­tion to his death. The inves­ti­ga­tion of the theft of $230 mil­lion by police offi­cials Mag­nit­sky tes­ti­fied against was entrust­ed to the offi­cials direct­ly impli­cat­ed in his death. Fur­ther­more many of those same offi­cials were pro­mot­ed and giv­en top state hon­ors on the one-year anniver­sary of Magnitsky’s death.

Mari­et­je Schaake, an MEP from the Group of the Alliance of Lib­er­als and Democ­rats for Europe said:

“Human rights vio­la­tions can­not be met with impuni­ty. For EU-Rus­sia rela­tions to devel­op con­struc­tive­ly, the rule of law must be upheld and the state has to inves­ti­gate crimes and pros­e­cute those who are respon­si­ble.”

William Brow­der, CEO of Her­mitage Cap­i­tal Man­age­ment said:

“We applaud the MEPs who sup­port­ed this land­mark deci­sion in the fight for jus­tice in Rus­sia. These sanc­tions are not against Rus­sia and the Russ­ian peo­ple, but specif­i­cal­ly against those Russ­ian offi­cials who played a part in the false arrest, tor­ture and death of Sergei Mag­nit­sky. This vote will give hope to mil­lions of Rus­sians who are tired of the impuni­ty shown by cor­rupt officials.

This vote is a crit­i­cal step in an inter­na­tion­al process to bring to jus­tice  those who played a role in cru­el­ly tak­ing the life of Sergei Mag­nit­sky.  The next step will be to active­ly imple­ment this impor­tant res­o­lu­tion across EU mem­ber states. ”

Sergei Mag­nitksy (8 April 1972 – 16 Novem­ber 2009), an out­side lawyer for the Her­mitage Fund,  blew the whis­tle on wide­spread Russ­ian gov­ern­ment cor­rup­tion, involv­ing offi­cials from Russ­ian law enforce­ment and secu­ri­ty ser­vices. The offi­cials he tes­ti­fied against, arrest­ed and detained him, begin­ning a night­mare in which he was thrown into cus­tody with­out bail or tri­al, and sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly tor­tured for one year in an attempt to force him to retract his tes­ti­mo­ny. Despite the phys­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal pain Sergei Mag­nit­sky endured from his cap­tors, he refused to per­jure him­self, even as his health dete­ri­o­rat­ed. Denied med­ical care for the last four months of his deten­tion, he died in excru­ci­at­ing cir­cum­stances at the age of 37, hav­ing devel­oped a severe pan­cre­at­ic con­di­tion while being held in the Butyr­ka remand cen­ter — a noto­ri­ous Czarist-era jail that also that also held Alexan­der Solzhen­it­syn and Raoul Wallenberg.

On the first anniver­sary of his death in Novem­ber 2009, Mag­nit­sky was posthu­mous­ly award­ed the 2010 Integri­ty Award by Trans­paren­cy Inter­na­tion­al in recog­ni­tion for his coura­geous fight and ulti­mate sac­ri­fice against Russ­ian corruption.

Watch a doc­u­men­tary about the life and death of Sergei Mag­nit­sky in Russ­ian custody:

www.justiceforsergei.com

Read full text of the Euro­pean Parliament’s call for jus­tice in Sergei Mag­nit­sky case, 16 Decem­ber 2010:

“[The Euro­pean Par­lia­ment] Urges the Russ­ian judi­cial author­i­ties to press ahead with the inves­ti­ga­tion of the death on 16 Novem­ber 2009 of Russ­ian lawyer Sergey Magnitsky; 

deplores that this case is still an out­stand­ing exam­ple of the seri­ous short­com­ings with­in the coun­try’s judi­cial system; 

regrets the sit­u­a­tion that, while human rights defend­ers are often sub­ject to a harsh treat­ment and tri­als that ignore the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion’s Code of Crim­i­nal Pro­ce­dure (such as its Arti­cle 72 in the case against Oleg Orlov of Memo­r­i­al for slan­der), those guilty of aggres­sions against and even mur­der of human rights defend­ers, inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ists and lawyers still too often enjoy impunity; 

calls on the Coun­cil, in the absence of pos­i­tive moves from the Russ­ian author­i­ties to coop­er­ate and inves­ti­gate the case of Sergey Mag­nit­sky, to insist that  the Russ­ian author­i­ties bring those respon­si­ble to jus­tice and to con­sid­er impos­ing an EU entry ban for Russ­ian offi­cials involved in this case, and encour­ages EU law enforce­ment agen­cies to coop­er­ate in freez­ing bank accounts and oth­er assets of these Russ­ian offi­cials in all EU Mem­ber States.”

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