Witness in Trial of Magnitsky’s Jail Doctor Receives Death Threats Before Court Testimony

November 12, 2012

Olga Grig­orie­va, for­mer­ly the sec­ond most senior offi­cial in the depart­ment of the Moscow Prison Ser­vice in charge of med­ical care, received death threats against her moth­er and son sev­er­al weeks before her tes­ti­mo­ny in Moscow court on the cir­cum­stances of Sergei Mag­nit­sky’s death. 

In the state­ment she made to the Tver­skoi Dis­trict Court in Moscow last Thurs­day, Ms. Grig­orie­va tes­ti­fied that a for­mer senior med­ical offi­cial at Butyr­ka prison called her on the phone two days after she received a court sum­mons, to say that she should fear for her son and moth­er and that Dmirtry Kra­tov, the only defen­dant in the case, might be killed. She was warned “not to talk”.

Ms. Grig­orie­va stat­ed that she was no longer employed by the Moscow Prison Ser­vice and that she felt that she could reveal these mat­ters. She fur­ther stat­ed that she did not trust the law enforce­ment bod­ies to report these threats.

Accord­ing to a state­ment by Ms. Grig­orie­va in court, the death threats came from Mikhail Tremasov, a for­mer senior med­ical offi­cial at the Butyr­ka prison. 

“There were warn­ings, threats came via phone: Take notice, do not talk,” said Ms. Grig­orie­va in court. 

“There is an order on this case. Every­thing is already known. You will be tes­ti­fy­ing and singing praise about Dmit­ry Boriso­vich [Kra­tov]. Every­thing has already been decid­ed. The guilty has been found. That’s it,” Mr. Tremasov told her, accord­ing to her testimony. 

Ms. Grig­orie­va said that Mr. Tremasov explained that he learned that she had been sum­moned to tes­ti­fy dur­ing his vis­it to the Prison Ser­vice, and said to her: 

“Do not talk. They have a whole dias­po­ra there. Every­thing is ordered there. Do not trav­el by car. Be afraid for your son. Be afraid for your mother.” 

Ms. Grig­orie­va explained that she received a call from Mr. Tremasov on 18 Octo­ber 2012, two days after she received a call from the court sum­mon­ing her for ques­tion­ing, and that Mr. Tremasov fur­ther said:

“Kra­tov will be killed in the deten­tion center.” 

Ms. Grig­orie­va com­ment­ed that it “could be a ram­ble” but she was con­cerned by it.

Niko­lai Gorokhov, the lawyer for Magnitsky’s moth­er, asked Ms. Grig­orie­va for details of threats to Mr. Kra­tov. Judge Tatiana Nevero­va did­n’t allow the ques­tion to pro­ceed on the ground that it was irrel­e­vant to the case. The lawyer for Mrs. Mag­nit­skaya for­mal­ly object­ed and stat­ed the court was obstruct­ing jus­tice by refus­ing to hear the details of threats to the par­tic­i­pants in the hearing.

Under the Russ­ian law (Arti­cle 11 of the Crim­i­nal Pro­ce­dure Code), the courts can pro­vide mea­sures of secu­ri­ty to the wit­ness­es in case of suf­fi­cient evi­dence of threats to their lives.

Ms. Grig­orie­va who tes­ti­fied about the warn­ings and threats was the sec­ond most senior per­son in the Moscow prison sys­tem in charge of med­ical care dur­ing Mag­nit­sky’s deten­tion. She was present in Bur­ty­ka Prison on the day of Mag­nit­sky’s death. She also was present at the Moscow coro­ner’s office on the same day that Mag­nit­sky’s autop­sy took place. 

Dmit­ry Kra­tov, for­mer deputy head of Butyr­ka prison, is the only defen­dant in the case into the death of Mr. Mag­nit­sky. In spite of repeat­ed requests from Magnitsky’s fam­i­ly to open an inves­ti­ga­tion into offi­cials of the Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Min­istry, Prosecutor’s Office and judges in rela­tion to his false arrest, tor­ture and mur­der, the Russ­ian author­i­ties pur­sued the alle­ga­tion only in rela­tion to Mr. Kra­tov alleg­ing “neg­li­gence” in med­ical care.

Sergei Mag­nit­sky, an out­side lawyer for the Her­mitage Fund, was arrest­ed and killed in Russ­ian police cus­tody at the age of 37 after he exposed the $230 mil­lion theft impli­cat­ing gov­ern­ment offi­cials. For four months pri­or to his death, he was held at Butyr­ka deten­tion cen­ter where the pre­scribed treat­ment for pan­cre­ati­tis and gall­stones and oper­a­tion were with­held from him. 

Sergei Mag­nit­sky was hon­ored posthu­mous­ly with 2010 Integri­ty Award by Trans­paren­cy Inter­na­tion­al, for his fight against offi­cial corruption.

Last year, the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment launched a posthu­mous pros­e­cu­tion of Sergei Mag­nit­sky, the first ever in Russ­ian his­to­ry. Last week they announced plans to send the case against him to tri­al with­out delay.

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