The Global Graft Report: What Happened To Sergei?

January 5, 2010

Her­mitage Cap­i­tal Man­age­ment was the biggest for­eign investor in Rus­sia. Then in 2005, it all went wrong. CEO William Brow­der was banned from the coun­try on what he says was a pre­text. Two years lat­er, 50 police offi­cers from the Moscow Inte­ri­or Min­istry raid­ed Her­mitage’s offices and those of its lawyers. The police took cor­po­rate doc­u­ments and seals. Those same instru­ments were alleged­ly used in 2008 to fraud­u­lent­ly obtain $230 mil­lion that the Her­mitage Fund com­pa­nies had paid in tax­es two years earlier.

Also in 2008, one of Her­mitage’s lawyers who did­n’t leave Rus­sia or go into hid­ing, Sergei Mag­nit­sky, above, was thrown into jail. He died in cus­tody in Novem­ber 2009 at age 37. His jail­ers first said he rup­tured his abdom­i­nal mem­brane; then they said it was a heart attack. Offi­cials have refused his fam­i­ly’s requests for an inde­pen­dent autopsy.

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Foreign Policy Magazine: They Killed My Lawyer. A story of Putin’s Russia.

December 25, 2009

Sergei Mag­nit­sky was our attor­ney, and friend, who died under excru­ci­at­ing cir­cum­stances in a Moscow pre-tri­al deten­tion cen­ter on Nov. 16, 2009. His sto­ry is one of extra­or­di­nary brav­ery and hero­ism, and ulti­mate­ly tragedy. It is also a sto­ry about how Stal­in­ism and the gulags are alive and well in Rus­sia today.

Ulti­mate­ly Sergei died for a prin­ci­ple — he died because believed in the rule of law in Rus­sia. When he stum­bled upon an enor­mous fraud against his clients and the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment, he thought he was sim­ply doing the right thing by report­ing it. He nev­er imag­ined that he would die for his efforts.

The pre­cise cir­cum­stances of his death are still unclear. We do know Sergei died sud­den­ly at the age of 37, after an 11-month deten­tion. At first, the deten­tion cen­ter where he died said the cause of his death was a rup­ture to his abdom­i­nal mem­brane, but on the same day the prison offi­cials changed their sto­ry, say­ing he had died of a heart attack. They refused his fam­i­ly’s request to con­duct an inde­pen­dent autop­sy. His diaries are report­ed to be missing.

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Ведомости: Памяти Сергея Магнитского: Совесть, честь и правосудие

December 25, 2009

Наш товарищ юрист Сергей Магнитский трагически погиб в московском следственном изоляторе 16 ноября 2009 г. История Сергея Магнитского — это история выдающегося мужества, патриотизма и героизма, которая должна служить примером для всех нас. Сергею было всего 37 лет. Он умер мучительной смертью, подвергнутый бесчеловечному обращению и пыткам. Что-то подобное, наверное, могло произойти в Средние века, но представить себе, что это произошло сегодня, просто невозможно.

Сергей работал в американской юридической фирме Fire­stone Dun­can в Москве и предоставлял юридические услуги многочисленным клиентам, одним из которых был фонд Her­mitage. Сергей не занимался политикой, не был олигархом или правозащитником. Он был компетентным профессионалом, которому можно было позвонить в конце рабочего дня с любым юридическим вопросом и он, откладывая свои личные планы на вечер, оставался в офисе до полуночи, чтобы подготовить ответ. Его смело можно отнести к лучшим представителям новой, современной России: умный, честный, порядочный человек, работающий на благо своей семьи.

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NPR: Lawyer’s Death In Russian Prison Sparks Haunted Anger

December 19, 2009

Sergei Mag­nit­sky, a lawyer for a Lon­don-based fund that was once the biggest in Rus­sia, wrote to his moth­er of wast­ing away from an ago­niz­ing ill­ness with­out prop­er med­ical care in a crowd­ed Moscow prison. He was await­ing tri­al for tax-eva­sion charges. But Mag­nit­sky even­tu­al­ly died in prison, just 11 days after his last let­ter reached his moth­er. Mag­nit­sky’s sto­ry has hit a nerve in Rus­sia, where mem­o­ries linger of the mil­lions who died of cold, star­va­tion and neglect in the harsh Sovi­et gulag. Host Scott Simon talks about the Mag­nit­sky case with NPR’s Anne Garrels.

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Time: The Danger of Doing Business in Russia

December 19, 2009

On Oct. 13, Russ­ian lawyer Sergei Mag­nit­sky, impris­oned on tax eva­sion charges, told Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Min­istry inves­ti­ga­tors that he was being denied med­ical care and sub­ject­ed to “inhu­mane and humil­i­at­ing con­di­tions” in Moscow’s noto­ri­ous Butyr­ka jail. The treat­ment, he said, result­ed from his refusal to give false tes­ti­mo­ny against him­self and oth­ers. A month lat­er, Mag­nit­sky, 37, was dead. The Inte­ri­or Min­istry, which had charged the lawyer with con­spir­ing to help William Brow­der, head of the Lon­don-based invest­ment firm Her­mitage Cap­i­tal, alleged­ly evade more than $3 mil­lion in tax­es, said it had not been aware that he had been ill. In prison notes released by his attor­neys, how­ev­er, Mag­nit­sky repeat­ed­ly com­plained about being refused treat­ment for pan­cre­ati­tis, a con­di­tion his friends and col­leagues say led to his death.

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