Russian Government Destroys Evidence in the Magnitsky Death Case In Spite of his Family’s Request to Preserve Them

June 3, 2015

Russ­ian Gov­ern­ment Destroys Evi­dence in the Mag­nit­sky Death Case In Spite of his Family’s Request to Pre­serve Them

3 June 2015 – The Russ­ian Gov­ern­ment has been destroy­ing records and evi­dence in the Sergei Mag­nit­sky death case defy­ing his family’s appeals to pre­serve them.

Sergei Tely­at­nikov, Head of Butyr­ka deten­tion cen­ter, has noti­fied the Mag­nit­sky fam­i­ly that the deten­tion cen­ter has destroyed all records con­tain­ing data on trans­port­ing Sergei Mag­nit­sky to court and there­fore could not dis­close to the fam­i­ly infor­ma­tion evi­denc­ing his con­di­tions. This is in spite of numer­ous requests from the Mag­nit­sky fam­i­ly to the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment bod­ies to safe­guard and pre­serve all doc­u­ments and evi­dence con­cern­ing him.

“Those involved in destroy­ing the records in rela­tion to the Mag­nit­sky case should real­ize their respon­si­bil­i­ty in cov­er­ing up his tor­ture and mur­der. Appeals have been filed to all Russ­ian state bod­ies to pre­serve this evi­dence so jus­tice can be obtained for the Mag­nit­sky fam­i­ly in this hor­rif­ic case,” said a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Jus­tice for Sergei Mag­nit­sky campaign.

Sergei Mag­nit­sky described the cir­cum­stances of his trans­porta­tion to court from Butyr­ka in his com­plaints and let­ters to his lawyer.

In a let­ter to his lawyer dat­ed 8 August 2009, Sergei Mag­nit­sky  described them as “meat grinder for labour camps”:

“Jus­tice in these con­di­tions turns into the process of grind­ing human meat into mince for pris­ons and labour camps, the process in which a man can­not effec­tive­ly defend him­self, can­not even com­pre­hend what is hap­pen­ing to him, and can only think when all of this is going to end, when can he get rid of this phys­i­cal and emo­tion­al tor­ture and get to the camp where the degree of human suf­fer­ing …turns out to be less …than here where you are being put through the grinder.”

Sergei Mag­nit­sky detailed one episode of being trans­port­ed back to his deten­tion cen­ter cell from a court hear­ing at which he chal­lenged his rights vio­la­tions by the Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Ministry.

“All of us, about 20 peo­ple, were placed in a col­lec­tion cell… This cell is about 22 sqm, with­out win­dows, with one ven­ti­la­tion hatch to the cor­ri­dor, which also does not have win­dows… The toi­let was not sep­a­rat­ed and no one could make them­selves use it...There was no tap with water… We banged on the door, but for a long time nobody came. Final­ly, a staffer of the deten­tion cen­ter came and asked why we are bang­ing. I said that I need­ed to take med­i­cine and asked that we be tak­en to our cells soon.The staffer said that it will hap­pen soon, closed the door and left. In anoth­er half hour, we heard the noise of the locks, and I heard that the door was being opened. But instead of tak­ing us out, they brought in anoth­er 20 peo­ple who came from oth­er court hear­ings. Almost all of them start­ed smok­ing. One could not breath. There were at least 40 peo­ple in the cell… We spent like this anoth­er hour and a half, and then they start­ed tak­ing us to cells. I end­ed up in my cell only half past eleven.….”

For more infor­ma­tion, please contact:

 Mag­nit­sky Jus­tice Campaign

+44 2074401777

e‑mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org

web­site: www.lawandorderinrussia.org

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