European Commission Calls for Magnitsky’s Torturers to Be Brought to Justice

April 20, 2012

At a mid­day Euro­pean Com­mis­sion brief­ing today, the spokesman for the Euro­pean Jus­tice Com­mis­sion­er Cecil­ia Malm­strom made a strong state­ment call­ing upon the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion to bring to jus­tice the tor­tur­ers of late whis­tle-blow­ing lawyer Sergei Mag­nit­sky and to stop his posthu­mous prosecution. 

Com­mis­sion­er Malmstrom’s spokesper­son said:

“You know the case of Mr Mag­nit­sky, the lawyer who was killed. This is an issue which has been raised by Com­mis­sion­er Malm­strom on a num­ber of occa­sions and every time that she has met the Russ­ian author­i­ties and she has called on the Russ­ian author­i­ties to shed full light on this extreme­ly con­tro­ver­sial issue.”

“The Com­mis­sion­er has called on the Russ­ian author­i­ties to find the killers of Mr. Mag­nit­sky who was beat­en to death and tor­tured before that… Noth­ing has been done to resolve it. It must be resolved in a clear and cred­i­ble way,” said Com­mis­sion­er Malmstrom’s spokesperson.

“The Com­mis­sion con­sid­ers it extreme­ly sur­pris­ing that the Russ­ian court rec­og­nizes as legal the idea of con­tin­u­ing the case against Mr Mag­nit­sky posthu­mous­ly. The idea of try­ing some­one who is dead and there­fore can­not defend him­self or her­self rais­es seri­ous issue in the con­text of the Euro­pean Con­ven­tion on Human Rights,” fur­ther said Com­mis­sion­er Malmstrom’s spokesperson.

Two and a half years after Mr. Magnitsky’s mur­der in Russ­ian police cus­tody, no one has been pros­e­cut­ed in Rus­sia. The law enforce­ment offi­cers in charge of Magnitsky’s arrest on trumped-up charges have been pro­mot­ed and giv­en state hon­ors. The $230 mil­lion Russ­ian gov­ern­ment cor­rup­tion he had uncov­ered has been cov­ered up. In a fur­ther trou­bling devel­op­ment, the Russ­ian author­i­ties opened the first-in-his­to­ry posthu­mous pros­e­cu­tion of Mr Mag­nit­sky, in order to for­mal­ly exon­er­ate all offi­cials who per­se­cut­ed him. Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al recent­ly issued a pub­lic appeal to the Russ­ian author­i­ties urg­ing them to seize the posthu­mous pros­e­cu­tion stat­ing it was in breach of inter­na­tion­al and domes­tic human rights laws.

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