Russian Authorities Defy Council of Europe Magnitsky Resolution by Upholding Posthumous Guilty Verdict Against Sergei Magnitsky

January 31, 2014

Today, the Russ­ian author­i­ties defied the res­o­lu­tion adopt­ed three days ago by the Par­lia­men­tary Assem­bly of the Coun­cil of Europe (PACE) by uphold­ing the posthu­mous guilty ver­dict against Sergei Mag­nit­sky who was tor­tured and killed in Russ­ian cus­tody four years ago.
The Moscow City Court announced this morn­ing that the posthu­mous ver­dict against Mag­nit­sky “auto­mat­i­cal­ly” came into force “because nobody chal­lenged it”.
Just three days ago, del­e­gates from 47 mem­ber coun­tries of PACE have adopt­ed with an 81% vote the res­o­lu­tion enti­tled “Refus­ing Impuni­ty for the Killers of Sergei Mag­nit­sky”, call­ing on Russ­ian author­i­ties “to close the posthu­mous tri­al against Mr Mag­nit­sky.” Instead, the Russ­ian offi­cials went ahead with the posthu­mous case.
The PACE res­o­lu­tion calls for “tar­get­ed sanc­tions against indi­vid­u­als (visa bans and freez­ing accounts)” by Coun­cil of Europe mem­ber states in the case of Rus­sia fail­ing to address the rec­om­men­da­tions con­tained in the resolution.
“It is clear from today’s deci­sion that Russ­ian author­i­ties have imme­di­ate­ly defied the PACE res­o­lu­tion and deserve sanc­tions. More­over, it shows that the jus­tice sys­tem in Rus­sia has been bas­tardized to sup­port high-lev­el gov­ern­ment cor­rup­tion,” said a Her­mitage Cap­i­tal representative.
Last year, Pres­i­dent Putin pro­mot­ed judge of Tver­skoi Dis­trict Court Igor Alisov who issued to Sergei Mag­nit­sky a guilty ver­dict in the first posthu­mous tri­al in Russ­ian legal history.

PACE Doc­u­ments “Refus­ing Impuni­ty for the Killers of Sergei Magnitsky”
PACE Res­o­lu­tion 1966 (2014)1: http://www.assembly.coe.int/nw/xml/XRef/X2H-Xref-ViewPDF.asp?FileID=20409&lang=en
“18. The Assem­bly resolves to fol­low close­ly the imple­men­ta­tion of the above pro­pos­als. It recalls its Res­o­lu­tion 1597 (2007) and Rec­om­men­da­tion 1824 (2007) on Unit­ed Nations Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil and Euro­pean Union black­lists. It fur­ther resolves that if, with­in a rea­son­able peri­od of time, the com­pe­tent author­i­ties have failed to make any or any ade­quate response to this res­o­lu­tion, the Assem­bly should rec­om­mend to mem­ber States of the Coun­cil of Europe to fol­low as a last resort the exam­ple of the Unit­ed States in adopt­ing tar­get­ed sanc­tions against indi­vid­u­als (visa bans and freez­ing of accounts), hav­ing first giv­en those named indi­vid­u­als the oppor­tu­ni­ty to make appro­pri­ate rep­re­sen­ta­tions in their defence.”
PACE Rec­om­men­da­tion: http://www.assembly.coe.int/nw/xml/XRef/X2H-Xref-ViewPDF.asp?FileID=20410&lang=en
“1. The Par­lia­men­tary Assem­bly refers to its Res­o­lu­tion 1966 (2014) on refus­ing impuni­ty for the killers of Sergei Mag­nit­sky, and invites the Com­mit­tee of Min­is­ters to exam­ine ways and means:
1.1. of improv­ing inter­na­tion­al co-oper­a­tion in inves­ti­gat­ing the “mon­ey trail” of the funds orig­i­nat­ing in the fraud­u­lent tax reim­burse­ments denounced by Mr Mag­nit­sky; and, in particular,
1.2. of ensur­ing that the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion ful­ly par­tic­i­pates in these efforts and holds to account the per­pe­tra­tors and ben­e­fi­cia­ries both of the crime com­mit­ted against Sergei Mag­nit­sky and that denounced by him.”

PACE Report “Refus­ing Impuni­ty for the Killers of Sergei Mag­nit­sky”: http://www.assembly.coe.int/nw/xml/XRef/Xref-DocDetails-EN.asp?fileid=20084&wrqid=0&wrqref=&ref=1&lang=EN

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