Russian Government Continues to Eliminate Evidence in the Magnitsky Case by Destroying Video Recordings of Magnitsky’s Last Hours in Detention

June 5, 2015

Russ­ian Gov­ern­ment Con­tin­ues to Elim­i­nate Evi­dence in the Mag­nit­sky Case by Destroy­ing Video Record­ings of Magnitsky’s Last Hours in Detention

5 June 2015 – The Russ­ian author­i­ties have told Sergei Magnitsky’s moth­er that they have destroyed the video record­ings of Sergei Magnitsky’s last hours before his killing in Matrosskaya Tishi­na deten­tion center.

 In cor­re­spon­dence with Sergei Magnitsky’s moth­er, Gen­er­al Major V. Aly­shev, Deputy Head of the Russ­ian Inves­tiga­tive Committee’s Main Inves­tiga­tive Depart­ment, has con­firmed the Russ­ian author­i­ties have destroyed the video records from Matrosskaya Tishina.

“Video record­ings from video sur­veil­lance cam­eras …have not been seized due to objec­tive rea­sons – due to the expiry of the peri­od of stor­age on the disc,” said Gen­er­al Major of the Russ­ian Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee V. Alyshev.

Sergei Mag­nit­sky was trans­ferred to Matrosskaya Tishi­na deten­tion cen­ter at 6:30 pm of 16 Novem­ber 2009. Less than three hours lat­er he was found dead with signs of bod­i­ly injuries in the iso­la­tion cell. The offi­cial Russ­ian inves­ti­ga­tion into his death found that he died from a heart prob­lem and that he had caused his own injuries.

An inde­pen­dent domes­tic inves­ti­ga­tion by the Moscow Pub­lic Over­sight Com­mis­sion con­clud­ed Sergei Mag­nit­sky was kept in deten­tion in tor­tur­ous con­di­tions, that civil­ian doc­tors were not allowed by deten­tion cen­ter offi­cials to enter his cell for an hour and eigh­teen min­utes before his death, while a team of eight deten­tion cen­ter offi­cers restrained him and beat him. Imme­di­ate­ly after Magnitsky’s death, deten­tion cen­ter offi­cials showed some video footage of Sergei Mag­nit­sky to mem­bers of the Moscow Pub­lic Over­sight Com­mis­sion. How­ev­er, video record­ings from Matrosskaya Tishi­na have been absent from the Magnitsky’s death case inves­ti­ga­tion file.

In response to the request from Mag­nit­sky fam­i­ly about the where­abouts of the video footage from Matrosskaya Tishi­na, the Russ­ian Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee report­ed that the record­ing has been destroyed:

“[Video record­ing] is auto­mat­i­cal­ly delet­ed from the hard dri­ve after 30 days, and new infor­ma­tion is record­ed in its place,” Gen­er­al Major Aly­shev has informed Magnitsky’s mother.

“It is con­sis­tent with the over­all cov­er-up of Sergei Mag­nit­sky’s mur­der that the key video evi­dence from the crime scene was not pre­served. An inves­ti­ga­tion should be opened into those who allowed the destruc­tion of the videos,” said a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of Jus­tice for Sergei Mag­nit­sky campaign.

 For more infor­ma­tion, please contact:

 Mag­nit­sky Jus­tice Campaign

+44 2074401777

e‑mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org

web­site: www.lawandorderinrussia.org

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