Telegraph: Russia called to probe police role in Magnitsky death

April 23, 2010

Mr Mag­nit­sky, who rep­re­sent­ed Her­mitage Cap­i­tal Man­age­ment, the hedge fund run by Bill Brow­der, died in prison after being held for 358 days with­out tri­al on tax eva­sion charges.

He had pre­vi­ous­ly tes­ti­fied about the involve­ment of Russ­ian police offi­cers in the alleged theft of $230m (£150m) of tax­pay­er funds. An inves­ti­ga­tion was launched into his death fol­low­ing pub­lic out­cry, but its focus was on the fail­ure of the On Thurs­day, Lyud­mi­la Alek­seye­va, the founder of the inde­pen­dent Moscow Helsin­ki Group, called for an inquiry into the police offi­cers alleged to have brought “the crim­i­nal case against Mr Mag­nit­sky and used tor­ture against him”.

She claimed prison offi­cials denied Mr Mag­nit­sky med­ical assis­tance once he devel­oped pan­cre­ati­tis “specif­i­cal­ly on their instruc­tion and with their direct knowl­edge”. He died from com­pli­ca­tions caused by the ill­ness he devel­oped in jail.

Mr Mag­nit­sky doc­u­ment­ed his alleged tor­ture in 450 com­plaints writ­ten while in prison. He was arrest­ed in 2008 after mak­ing alle­ga­tions against Mr Kuznetsov and died in a squalid Moscow jail the fol­low­ing Novem­ber. The 37-year-old father of two made his claims after inves­ti­gat­ing a $230m tax fraud using com­pa­nies stolen from Hermitage.

Ms Alek­seye­va is demand­ing an inves­ti­ga­tion on the grounds that the Mr Mag­nit­sky’s treat­ment broke Rus­si­a’s oblig­a­tions set out under Arti­cle 12 of the UN Con­ven­tion Against Torture.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/7621046/Russia-called-to-probe-police-role-in-Magnitsky-death.html

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