Physicians for Human Rights: Destruction of Medical Samples in Magnitsky Case is a Clear Obstruction of Justice

June 6, 2012

Physi­cians for Human Rights, an inde­pen­dent US organ­i­sa­tion sup­port­ing vic­tims of tor­ture and abuse using sci­en­tif­ic and med­ical analy­sis, released a state­ment reveal­ing that Russ­ian author­i­ties have destroyed evi­dence in the Mag­nit­sky case files which could be used to deter­mine the true cause of his death. In par­tic­u­lar, they point­ed out that cer­tain of Mag­nit­sky’s tis­sues sam­ples which had been tak­en at the time of his death and stored have now been destroyed by Russ­ian author­i­ties. These are the same tis­sues sam­ples which Mag­nit­sky’s fam­i­ly has repeat­ed­ly request­ed to be giv­en access to and whose requests were repeat­ed­ly denied by the Russ­ian State Inves­tiga­tive Committee. 

Physi­cians for Human Rights (PHR) point­ed out that the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment also refused Mag­nit­sky family’s request seek­ing PHR’s inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tion into Magnitsky’s death. PHR said in their state­ment that the destruc­tion of sam­ples in the Mag­nit­sky case appears to be “a delib­er­ate and cal­cu­lat­ed attempt to pre­vent jus­tice” on the part of the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment.

For fur­ther details, please vis­it PHR’s web­site and read their state­ment on the Mag­nit­sky case at:

http://physiciansforhumanrights.org/press/press-releases/destruction-of-samples-in-magnitsky-case-appears-to-be-a-deliberate-and-calculated-attempt-to-prevent-justice.html

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Destruc­tion of Sam­ples in Mag­nit­sky Case Appears to be a Delib­er­ate and Cal­cu­lat­ed Attempt to Pre­vent Justice

Physi­cians for Human Rights (PHR) today raised con­cerns over the cre­ma­tion of tis­sue, organs, and oth­er sam­ples in the death inves­ti­ga­tion of 37-year-old lawyer Sergei Mag­nit­sky. Giv­en the ongo­ing and con­tro­ver­sial nature of the inves­ti­ga­tion, destruc­tion of the sam­ples by the Russ­ian author­i­ties is con­trary to best prac­tices with­in any judi­cial system.
Mag­nit­sky, a Russ­ian lawyer inves­ti­gat­ing a cor­rup­tion case for a client, UK-based invest­ment firm Her­mitage Cap­i­tal Man­age­ment, died fol­low­ing 358 days in police cus­tody in Moscow in Novem­ber 2009. Mag­nit­sky, who had uncov­ered an alleged $230 mil­lion tax fraud per­pe­trat­ed by a group of senior police offi­cers and gov­ern­ment offi­cials, was arrest­ed on Novem­ber 24, 2008 and charged with tax eva­sion. The high pro­file case has focused inter­na­tion­al atten­tion on human rights abuse and cor­rup­tion in Russia.

PHR’s experts, includ­ing a lead­ing foren­sic pathol­o­gist, reviewed avail­able doc­u­men­ta­tion to pro­vide an inde­pen­dent voice in sup­port of the Mag­nit­sky fam­i­ly. In April, Russ­ian offi­cials turned down a for­mal request by Magnitsky’s moth­er, seek­ing PHR’s inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tion into her son’s trag­ic death. 

Russ­ian inves­ti­ga­tors have iden­ti­fied heart fail­ure due to a pre­ex­ist­ing con­di­tion as Magnitsky’s cause of death, but have ignored sig­nif­i­cant find­ings about the con­tin­u­ous­ly wors­en­ing and tor­tur­ous con­di­tions he endured while in-cus­tody. Dur­ing the year Mag­nit­sky was impris­oned, he devel­oped con­di­tions requir­ing med­ical assis­tance, but received none despite the 450 let­ters he wrote about his lack of treatment

“The more we learn about this case, the more it seems that the Russ­ian author­i­ties are inten­tion­al­ly cov­er­ing up the cause of death of Sergei Mag­nit­sky and are con­tin­u­ing to stonewall any mean­ing­ful inves­ti­ga­tion into the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing his death,” said PHR’s foren­sic expert pathol­o­gist Dr. Robert C. Bux. “By the time the sam­ples were destroyed, the Russ­ian Gov­ern­ment was well aware of Mr. Mag­nistky’s mother’s desire to have the case reviewed by an out­side inde­pen­dent orga­ni­za­tion in accor­dance with Russ­ian law. Yet her request was bla­tant­ly ignored and the sam­ples were con­ve­nient­ly destroyed.”

Last year, in the first inde­pen­dent med­ical eval­u­a­tion of the Mag­nit­sky case, Dr. Bux found Magnitsky’s death in deten­tion was the result of cumu­la­tive inhu­mane treat­ment and delib­er­ate and cal­cu­lat­ed med­ical neglect.

“From the day he was arrest­ed until the day he died, Mr. Mag­nit­sky received inad­e­quate med­ical eval­u­a­tion and treat­ment,” said Bux. “A crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion must be launched lead­ing to arrests and pros­e­cu­tion. Magnitsky’s fam­i­ly deserves to final­ly have some justice.”

In addi­tion to call­ing for a full inter­na­tion­al, inde­pen­dent review of the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing Magnitsky’s death, PHR has also called upon the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment to accept respon­si­bil­i­ty under the UN Anti-tor­ture Con­ven­tion for the tor­ture, med­ical neglect, and inhu­mane con­di­tions that caused his death. PHR addressed its appeal for an inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tion to the UN Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary, UN High Com­mis­sion­er for Human Rights, Chair of the OSCE, lead­ers of the US Con­gress, and Pres­i­dent of the Euro­pean Coun­cil, among others.

“We con­tin­ue to find evi­dence of tor­ture and delib­er­ate med­ical neglect through­out this case,” said Ste­fan Schmitt, PHR’s Inter­na­tion­al Foren­sic Pro­gram Direc­tor. “Mr. Mag­nit­sky died almost three years ago, but there still has not been a crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion against those respon­si­ble for his impris­on­ment and ulti­mate­ly his death.”

Physi­cians for Human Rights (PHR) is an inde­pen­dent orga­ni­za­tion that uses med­i­cine and sci­ence to stop mass atroc­i­ties and severe human rights vio­la­tions against indi­vid­u­als. We are sup­port­ed by the exper­tise and pas­sion of health pro­fes­sion­als and con­cerned cit­i­zens alike.

Since 1986, PHR has con­duct­ed inves­ti­ga­tions in more than 40 coun­tries around the world, includ­ing Afghanistan, Con­go, Rwan­da, Sudan, the Unit­ed States, the for­mer Yugoslavia, and Zimbabwe.

• 1988 — First to doc­u­ment Iraq’s use of chem­i­cal weapons against Kurds
• 1996 — Exhumed mass graves in the Balkans
• 1996 — Pro­duced crit­i­cal foren­sic evi­dence of geno­cide in Rwanda
• 1997 — Shared the Nobel Peace Prize for the Inter­na­tion­al Cam­paign to Ban Landmines
• 2003 — Warned of health and human rights cat­a­stro­phe pri­or to the inva­sion of Iraq
• 2004 — Doc­u­ment­ed and ana­lyzed the geno­cide in Darfur
• 2005 — Detailed the sto­ry of tor­tured detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guan­tá­namo Bay
• 2010 — Showed how CIA med­ical per­son­nel sought to improve water­board­ing and oth­er inter­ro­ga­tion tech­niques that amount to torture
• 2011 — Cham­pi­oned the prin­ci­ple of non­in­ter­fer­ence with med­ical ser­vices in times of armed con­flict and civ­il unrest dur­ing the Arab Spring

Media Con­tact
Megan Prock
Senior Press Officer
PHYSICIANS FOR HUMAN RIGHTS (PHR)

Email: mprock@phrusa.org
Tel: 617−301−4237
Cell: 617−510−3417
Cam­bridge, Mass.

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