French Prosecutor Makes Public Attempt to Whitewash Corrupt Russian Officials on the Magnitsky List in Ablyazov Extradition Case

October 23, 2014

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For Imme­di­ate Distribution

French Pros­e­cu­tor Makes Pub­lic Attempt to White­wash Cor­rupt Russ­ian Offi­cials on the Mag­nit­sky List in Ablya­zov Extra­di­tion Case

23 Octo­ber 2014 – French pub­lic pros­e­cu­tor Chris­t­ian Pon­sard pub­licly dis­missed the death of Russ­ian anti-cor­rup­tion lawyer Sergei Mag­nit­sky in Russ­ian police cus­tody as irrel­e­vant to cas­es of extra­di­tion to Rus­sia. He sug­gest­ed that there was no rea­son to refuse French legal assis­tance to Russ­ian offi­cials who were involved in denial of med­ical care and oth­er vio­la­tions of human rights in Mag­nit­sky case. 

Speak­ing in Lyon Court at an extra­di­tion hear­ing of Mukhtar Ablya­zov last Fri­day, Pros­e­cu­tor Pon­sard report­ed­ly said that the fact that this case was ini­ti­at­ed and inves­ti­gat­ed by Russ­ian offi­cials sanc­tioned by the US and placed on the Euro­pean Parliament’s list should have no bear­ing on the extra­di­tion of Ablyazov. 

“Accord­ing to peo­ple present to the hear­ing, the French pros­e­cu­tor pro­posed that it was fine to extra­dite peo­ple into the hands of US-sanc­tioned and EU Par­lia­ment-des­ig­nat­ed Russ­ian offi­cials respon­si­ble for Sergei Magnitsky’s false arrest, tor­ture and death,” said a Her­mitage Cap­i­tal representative.

The state­ment made by Pon­sard is in direct con­tra­dic­tion to the Euro­pean Parliament’s find­ings on the Mag­nit­sky case which said in the res­o­lu­tion adopt­ed on 2 April 2014: 

“The arrest and sub­se­quent death in cus­tody of Sergei Mag­nit­sky rep­re­sent a well-doc­u­ment­ed and sig­nif­i­cant case of dis­re­spect for human rights and fun­da­men­tal free­doms in Rus­sia, …and serve as a reminder of the many doc­u­ment­ed short­com­ings in respect for the rule of law in Russia.”

The Euro­pean Parliament’s res­o­lu­tion names 32 Russ­ian offi­cials and pri­vate indi­vid­u­als involved in the Mag­nit­sky case (http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/news-room/content/20140331IPR41184/html/Magnitsky-list-MEPs-call-for-EU-sanctions-against-32-Russian-officials).

“It is sim­ply impos­si­ble for France, as a mem­ber of EU, to ask for jus­tice in Sergei Mag­nit­sky case and then extra­dite some­body in the hands of exact­ly the same peo­ple who already bear respon­si­bil­i­ty for com­plete injus­tice against Sergei Mag­nit­sky,” said Her­mitage Cap­i­tal representative. 

French pros­e­cu­tor Pon­sard was sup­port­ed in his attempt to white­wash the crimes against Mag­nit­sky by Denis Gru­nis, head of Russ­ian Gen­er­al Prosecutor’s inter­na­tion­al coop­er­a­tion sec­tion, who par­tic­i­pat­ed in the same extra­di­tion hearing.

Russ­ian Pros­e­cu­tor Denis Gru­nis said he believed it did not mat­ter that the per­son who approved a request for Mr Ablyazov’s extra­di­tion was Moscow judge Alex­ei Krivoruchko, the same judge who two months before Magnitsky’s death, on 14 Sep­tem­ber 2009, refused com­plaints from Sergei Mag­nit­sky against cru­el treat­ment and denial of med­ical care and who pro­longed his detention. 

Mr Krivoruchko has been placed on both US and EU Par­lia­ment-des­ig­nat­ed Mag­nit­sky sanc­tions lists. 

The view of the French pub­lic pros­e­cu­tor is also in con­tra­dic­tion to the con­clu­sions by the 47-mem­ber state Par­lia­men­tary Assem­bly of the Coun­cil of Europe expressed in a report “Refus­ing Impuni­ty for the Killers of Sergei Mag­nit­sky” and adopt­ed by over­whelm­ing major­i­ty this Jan­u­ary (http://assembly.coe.int/nw/xml/XRef/Xref-XML2HTML-en.asp?fileid=20409&lang=en; http://assembly.coe.int/nw/xml/XRef/Xref-XML2HTML-FR.asp?fileid=20409&lang=FR).

Pros­e­cu­tor Pon­sard also ignores an ear­li­er res­o­lu­tion by the same inter­na­tion­al body which con­clud­ed that mutu­al legal assis­tance to Rus­sia should not be pro­vid­ed in polit­i­cal­ly-moti­vat­ed and abu­sive crim­i­nal cas­es, high­light­ing among such cas­es offi­cial attacks on Sergei Mag­nit­sky and oth­er Her­mitage lawyers in Russia. 

Russ­ian polit­i­cal cam­paign­er and world chess mas­ter, Gar­ry Kas­parov, who attend­ed the hear­ing in Lyon, said on his Face­book account: 

“[Pros­e­cu­tor] Pon­sard dis­counts …that sev­en of the Russ­ian judges and inves­ti­ga­tors [and oth­ers] in the case are on the US sanc­tions list for the per­se­cu­tion of Sergei Mag­nit­sky, an anti-cor­rup­tion attor­ney who died hor­ri­bly in prison… We all know there is no jus­tice in Putin’s Rus­sia. I was very much hop­ing to see bet­ter here in France.”(https://www.facebook.com/GKKasparov/posts/10152818145798307)

The court deci­sion in this pro­ceed­ing is expect­ed on Octo­ber 24, 2014, accord­ing to French press reports.

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion please contact:

Her­mitage Capital
Phone: +44 207 440 1777
Email: info@lawandorderinrussia.org
Web­site: http://lawandorderinrussia.org
Face­book: http://on.fb.me/hvIuVI
Twit­ter: @KatieFisher__

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