President Medvedev Fires Major General Anatoly Mikhalkin of the Moscow Interior Ministry

December 15, 2009

PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

– Mikhalkin head­ed the Depart­ment that coor­di­nat­ed the cam­paign against HSBC and Her­mitage Cap­i­tal and the per­se­cu­tion and ille­gal deten­tion of Sergei Magnitsky –

15 Decem­ber 2009 – Pres­i­dent Dmit­ry Medvedev today signed a decree dis­miss­ing Major Gen­er­al Ana­toly Mikhalkin, Head of the Tax Crimes Depart­ment of the Moscow Branch of the Inte­ri­or Ministry.

In the sum­mer of 2007 Major Gen­er­al Mikhalkin sent a num­ber of requests, pre­pared by his sub­or­di­nate, Lieu­tenant Colonel Artem Kuznetsov, to the Moscow branch­es of inter­na­tion­al banks seek­ing con­fi­den­tial infor­ma­tion about the hold­ing com­pa­nies of the Her­mitage Fund. One month lat­er these invest­ment com­pa­nies were stolen by an orga­nized crim­i­nal group using the mate­ri­als seized by Kuznetsov in the June 2007 raids of Her­mitage’s and its lawyers’ Moscow offices. In Decem­ber 2007, $230 mil­lion was ulti­mate­ly stolen from the Russ­ian bud­get under the guise of refunds of sup­pos­ed­ly “over­paid” tax­es. This colos­sal tax refund – the largest in Russ­ian his­to­ry – was approved and paid out by Moscow Tax Inspec­torates Nos. 25 and 28 in a sin­gle day. Accord­ing to state­ments by tax inspec­torate employ­ees, they approved the tax rebate based on the results of a check con­duct­ed by the Moscow Inte­ri­or Min­istry into the valid­i­ty of the tax refund requests.

In June and Octo­ber 2008 Sergei Mag­nit­sky tes­ti­fied about the role of the Moscow Inte­ri­or Min­istry and in par­tic­u­lar Kuznetsov in the theft of the Her­mitage Fund com­pa­nies and sub­se­quent theft of $230 mil­lion from the state bud­get. One month lat­er Mag­nit­sky was arrest­ed by sub­or­di­nates of Kuznetsov on false pre­tens­es. One month before his death, on 13 Octo­ber 2009, Sergei Mag­nit­sky again con­firmed his state­ment regard­ing Lieu­tenant Colonel Kuznetsov and testified:

“Kuznetsov and oth­er law enforce­ment offi­cers who entered into a con­spir­a­cy with him, could be com­plic­it in my opin­ion in the theft of Rilend, Mahaon, and Par­fe­nion and in the sub­se­quent theft of 5.4 bil­lion rubles ($230 mil­lion) from the state bud­get as described above. They were extreme­ly inter­est­ed in the sup­pres­sion of my activ­i­ties to assist my client in the inves­ti­ga­tion of the cir­cum­stances of the crimes against my client, and that was the rea­son for my unlaw­ful crim­i­nal per­se­cu­tion car­ried out by inves­ti­ga­tor Silchenko.”

“Pres­i­dent Medvedev has tak­en an impor­tant step by going after the peo­ple who are direct­ly respon­si­ble for the per­se­cu­tion of Sergei Mag­nit­sky and the loss of $230 mil­lion in state funds. How­ev­er, the loss of some­one’s job can nev­er be com­pared to the loss of an inno­cent man’s life. We are call­ing for all those indi­vid­u­als who were involved in Sergei Magnitsky’s ille­gal deten­tion and death – along with those involved in the $230 mil­lion theft he uncov­ered – to be brought to jus­tice,” said William Brow­der, CEO of Her­mitage Cap­i­tal, com­ment­ing on today’s fir­ing of Mikhalkin.

For fur­ther information:
+ 44 20 7440 1777
info@lawandorderinrussia.org

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