Russian Interior Ministry Rejects the Findings of President Medvedev’s Human Rights Council on the Magnitsky Case

August 2, 2011

The Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Min­istry has reject­ed the find­ings of Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Medvedev’s Human Rights Coun­cil, which con­clud­ed that senior Inte­ri­or Min­istry offi­cers were com­plic­it in the false arrest, tor­ture and death of 37-year old anti-cor­rup­tion lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky.

In doc­u­ments issued on 14 July 2011, Inves­ti­ga­tor Boris Kibis of the Cen­tral Fed­er­al Dis­trict of the Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Min­istry stat­ed that the offi­cial posi­tion of the Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Min­istry is that the President’s Human Rights Com­mis­sion report was “inad­mis­si­ble” and the offi­cials in the Mag­nit­sky case have com­mit­ted no wrong­do­ing. Fur­ther­more, Kibis con­clud­ed there is no basis to open a crim­i­nal case against them.

These Inte­ri­or Min­istry find­ings fol­low the sec­ond inter­ven­tion by Pres­i­dent Medvedev in the Mag­nit­sky case, when, on 31 May 2011, he ordered Russ­ian law enforce­ment agen­cies to reex­am­ine their role in the events lead­ings up to Magnitsky’s death. In response, the Head of the Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Ministry’s Cen­tral Fed­er­al Dis­trict, Pavel Lap­shov and Inves­ti­ga­tor Kibis, were assigned respon­si­bil­i­ty of over­see­ing the “impar­tial inves­ti­ga­tion” into the Inte­ri­or Ministry’s role in Magnitsky’s death. Inves­ti­ga­tor Kibis was also appoint­ed to replace Inves­ti­ga­tor Oleg Silchenko, who was per­son­al­ly respon­si­ble for the arrest and tor­ture of Sergei Mag­nit­sky in custody.

In his writ­ten com­mu­ni­ca­tions with lawyers for Her­mitage Cap­i­tal regard­ing the wrong­ful con­duct of Inves­ti­ga­tor Silchenko and his team on the Mag­nit­sky case, Inte­ri­or Min­istry Inves­ti­ga­tor Kibis stated:

“The Report by the President’s Human Rights Coun­cil from 5 July 2011 on the cir­cum­stances of the death of S. L. Mag­nit­sky does not con­tain any infor­ma­tion iden­ti­fy­ing the exis­tence or absence of cir­cum­stances to be proven in this case … From the infor­ma­tion cit­ed, one can find no grounds to con­duct any checks into the alleged wrong­do­ing of mem­bers of the inves­tiga­tive and oper­a­tional team on Case 153123 [the case under which Mag­nit­sky was false­ly arrest­ed and detained for one year until his death in custody].”

Inves­ti­ga­tor Kibis fur­ther stated:

“From the grounds cit­ed in the peti­tion [find­ings by the President’s Human Rights Coun­cil and pre­vi­ous com­plaints], I find no grounds to con­duct a probe into the wrong­do­ing by mem­bers of the inves­tiga­tive and oper­a­tional team on Case 153123. The review of the mate­ri­als of this crim­i­nal case has shown that all com­plaints and peti­tions dur­ing the pre-tri­al inves­ti­ga­tion regard­ing the facts of ille­gal and unjus­ti­fied deci­sions of offi­cials has already been con­sid­ered by inves­tiga­tive author­i­ties and courts in accor­dance with the pro­ce­dure stip­u­lat­ed by the law.”

In a sep­a­rate writ­ten com­mu­ni­ca­tion to Her­mitage Capital’s lawyers, Mr. Lap­shov stated:

“No data has been found indi­cat­ing any vio­la­tions of human rights, access to jus­tice or restric­tions on lawyers.”

These lat­est con­clu­sions by the Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Min­istry ful­ly con­tra­dict the find­ings by the President’s Human Rights Coun­cil, which deter­mined Mag­nit­sky was arrest­ed unlaw­ful­ly, denied med­ical care, and beat­en to death in cus­tody. The Human Rights Coun­cil fur­ther con­clud­ed that the $230 mil­lion theft from the Russ­ian Trea­sury that was per­pe­trat­ed by Inte­ri­or Min­istry offi­cials – as exposed by Mag­nit­sky pri­or to his arrest and death – has not been prop­er­ly investigated.

The Russ­ian President’s Human Rights Coun­cil pre­sent­ed their inde­pen­dent find­ings on the Mag­nit­sky case to Pres­i­dent Medvedev on 5 July 2011. In par­tic­u­lar, the Council’s report cit­ed evi­dence that Mag­nit­sky was arrest­ed in vio­la­tion of the law and pros­e­cut­ed by the same Inte­ri­or Min­istry offi­cers he had exposed pri­or to his arrest in the theft of $230 mil­lion of pub­lic funds, the largest known tax refund fraud in Russ­ian his­to­ry. Fur­ther, despite a clear con­flict of inter­est, the same Inte­ri­or Min­istry offi­cers were appoint­ed to inves­ti­gate the $230 mil­lion theft (i.e. to inves­ti­gate the crime for which they were named as sus­pect­ed per­pe­tra­tors). The Human Rights Coun­cil con­clud­ed these acts amount­ed to clear vio­la­tions of Russ­ian law.

A rep­re­sen­ta­tive from Her­mitage Cap­i­tal said:

“The lat­est actions by Russ­ian law enforce­ment bod­ies clear­ly show that in the absence of con­cert­ed glob­al action tak­en out­side Rus­sia, no jus­tice is to be expect­ed for Sergei Mag­nit­sky with­in Rus­sia. Even with the entire world watch­ing, the Russ­ian author­i­ties sim­ply ignore the obvi­ous crim­i­nal con­duct of offi­cials in their own gov­ern­ment and have no inter­est in obtain­ing jus­tice for the young life that was been cru­el­ly taken.”

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