Kremlin’s TV Accused the CIA of a Plot to Cause the Death of Sergei Magnitsky

April 14, 2016

Last night, the Kremlin’s main TV pro­pa­gan­da chan­nel, Rossiya‑1, dis­trib­uted a video show­ing fake doc­u­ments claim­ing that the CIA had organ­ised the with­hold­ing of med­ical care to Sergei Mag­nit­sky in a Russ­ian deten­tion cen­ter to cause his death. To sup­port this claim, the TV chan­nel showed a CIA report dat­ed 20 Sep­tem­ber 2009, which accord­ing to one of the program’s par­tic­i­pants, was authen­ti­cat­ed in a foren­sic report by a UK com­pa­ny head­ed by a senior ex MI‑6 agent.

“The Kremlin’s pro­pa­gan­da is in con­tra­dic­tion with all offi­cial Russ­ian doc­u­ments describ­ing the tor­tur­ous con­di­tions that had been cre­at­ed by Russ­ian author­i­ties for Sergei Mag­nit­sky dur­ing his 358 days in deten­tion and the fact that senior offi­cials in the Russ­ian Gen­er­al Prosecutor’s Office refused his writ­ten requests for med­ical atten­tion,” said a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of Mag­nit­sky Jus­tice Campaign.

As a result of his mis­treat­ment for the first six months in deten­tion, Sergei Mag­nit­sky lost near­ly 20 kg, and devel­oped pan­cre­ati­tis and gall­stones, which were diag­nosed on 1 July 2009, as shown by reply from Matrosskaya Tishi­na deten­tion cen­ter. He was pre­scribed surgery. But one week before the sched­uled surgery, Sergei Mag­nit­sky was moved to a new deten­tion cen­ter, Butyr­ka, which did not have any med­ical facil­i­ties. The deci­sion was sanc­tioned by Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Min­istry inves­ti­ga­tor Silchenko and serv­ing head of the Russ­ian Pen­i­ten­tiary Sys­tem Petrukhin. All requests from Sergei Mag­nit­sky and his lawyers for med­ical care were refused by offi­cials from the Inte­ri­or Min­istry, Gen­er­al Prosecutor’s Office, deten­tion sys­tem, and judges (see The Tor­ture and Mur­der of Sergei Mag­nit­sky report).

In May 2009, the Coun­cil of Europe’s Rap­por­teur asked Russ­ian Gen­er­al Prosecutor’s Office to inves­ti­gate the tor­tur­ous con­di­tions Sergei Mag­nit­sky was sub­ject­ed to in deten­tion. She received an offi­cial response that Sergei Mag­nit­sky had not been arrest­ed and that the named police offi­cer did not work in the Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Min­istry. The UK Law Soci­ety wrote to Russ­ian Gen­er­al Pros­e­cu­tor Chai­ka in July 2009 urg­ing him to release Sergei Mag­nit­sky from cus­tody. In Octo­ber 2009, Gen­er­al Prosecutor’s Office respond­ed that there was no need to inter­vene, and that there was no vio­la­tion of his rights in custody.

On 16 Novem­ber 2009, after near­ly 12 months in cus­tody Sergei Mag­nit­sky was moved from Bytur­ka to Matrosskaya Tishi­na, alleged­ly for hos­pi­tal­i­sa­tion. But instead of being admit­ted to the hos­pi­tal, Sergei Mag­nit­sky was put in an iso­la­tion cell and beat­en by eight guards. Civil­ian doc­tors were not let into his cell until he was dead.  In spite of an appli­ca­tion from Sergei Magnitsky’s moth­er to bring to jus­tice over 50 offi­cials from the Gen­er­al Prosecutor’s Office, Inte­ri­or Min­istry, FSB and Pen­i­ten­tiary Sys­tem for the mur­der of her son, the Russ­ian Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee closed the case into his death claim­ing absence of crime.

The jour­nal­ist behind yesterday’s fake “evi­dence” on the alleged CIA Plot to kill Sergei Mag­nit­sky is Evgeniy Popov, who works for Rossiya‑1, and has been sanc­tioned by Ukraine for his role in the dis­in­for­ma­tion cam­paign about the war in Ukraine. Ear­li­er in April, Evgeniy Popov trav­eled to Lon­don to obtain a video footage of William Browder’s office there. Police had to be called in because of dis­rup­tion he caused.

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