US Appeals Court to Hear Emergency Motion on Disqualification of Lawyer John Moscow in the Magnitsky Case in New York

January 18, 2016

US Appeals Court to Hear Emer­gency Motion on Dis­qual­i­fi­ca­tion of Lawyer John Moscow in the Mag­nit­sky Case in New York

 

18 Jan­u­ary 2016 – The Unit­ed States Court of Appeals for the Sec­ond Cir­cuit has agreed to an emer­gency hear­ing to be held at 10 am on Fri­day, 22 Jan­u­ary 2016, on an appli­ca­tion from Her­mitage Cap­i­tal Man­age­ment seek­ing to sus­pend the case of US vs Pre­ve­zon, to hear an appeal which will deter­mine whether lawyers with a seri­ous con­flict of inter­est should be allowed to remain on the case.

 

Hermitage’s appli­ca­tion aris­es out of U.S. law firm Bak­er Hostetler and its part­ner, John Moscow, switch­ing sides in the Russ­ian mon­ey laun­der­ing case from rep­re­sent­ing the vic­tim – Her­mitage, to rep­re­sent­ing the ben­e­fi­cia­ry of the crime – Pre­ve­zon Holdings.

 

Her­mitage said in sup­port of its motion for stay in the legal proceeding:

 

“A stay pend­ing appeal is in the pub­lic inter­est. A lawyer’s oblig­a­tion to pre­serveclient con­fi­dences “touch­es upon vital con­cerns of the legal pro­fes­sion and the public’s inter­estin the scrupu­lous admin­is­tra­tion of justice.”

 

Hermitage’s motion is sup­port­ed by the US Depart­ment of Jus­tice, who said to the Appeals Court that the con­duct of Bak­er Hostetler rep­re­sents an “unheard of”, “extreme­ly rare” and “egre­gious” case of con­flict of inter­est giv­en that the law firm not only switched sides but went fur­ther by accus­ing Her­mitage, its for­mer client, of the crime of which Her­mitage has been the victim.

 

“The egre­gious sit­u­a­tion seen here, where an attor­ney for a vic­tim attempts to switch sides to rep­re­sent a ben­e­fi­cia­ry of the offense, is extreme­ly rare, and it is unheard of that such attor­ney would go fur­ther and accuse his for­mer client, the vic­tim, of com­mit­ting the offense. Accord­ing­ly, courts have sel­dom been called upon to rule on such an extreme con­flict, often because it is sim­ply not done,” said the US Depart­ment of Jus­tice in their affir­ma­tion of Hermitage’s motion.

 

On 18 Decem­ber 2015, the dis­trict court judge Thomas Griesa in the South­ern Dis­trict of New York grant­ed Hermitage’s motion to dis­qual­i­fy Bak­er Hostetler and John Moscow, find­ing it would be improp­er for Bak­er Hostetler to con­tin­ue to rep­re­sent defen­dants Pre­ve­zon Hold­ings because of Bak­er Hostetler’s pri­or rep­re­sen­ta­tion of Her­mitage. How­ev­er, on 8 Jan­u­ary 2016, Judge Griesa reversed his deci­sion rul­ing that Prevezon’s right to the choice of lawyers was more impor­tant than Hermitage’s right to not be betrayed by for­mer counsel.

 

Pre­ve­zon Hold­ings is owned by the son of a senior Russ­ian gov­ern­ment offi­cial and, accord­ing to the U.S. Depart­ment of Justice’s law­suit, has been involved in laun­der­ing pro­ceeds from the US$230 mil­lion fraud uncov­ered by Hermitage’s late lawyer Sergei Mag­nit­sky. The US Depart­ment of Jus­tice, hav­ing traced pro­ceeds stolen in Rus­sia to Prevezon’s real estate prop­er­ties in Man­hat­tan, filed a civ­il law­suit seek­ing mon­ey laun­der­ing fines and for­fei­ture of US$14 mil­lion in Prevezon’s US assets. After the assets were frozen, Pre­ve­zon sought the ser­vices of John Moscow and Bak­er Hostetler. In spite of the obvi­ous con­flict of inter­est, John Moscow and Bak­er Hostetler agreed to rep­re­sent alleged ben­e­fi­cia­ries of the US$230 mil­lion crime – ignor­ing the fact that they had been pre­vi­ous­ly hired by Her­mitage to iden­ti­fy and bring to jus­tice per­pe­tra­tors and ben­e­fi­cia­ries of this crime.

 

On 13 Jan­u­ary 2016, Her­mitage filed an emer­gency motion to sus­pend the pro­ceed­ings in the asset for­fei­ture case against Pre­ve­zon until the issue of John Moscow and Bak­er Hostetler’s dis­qual­i­fi­ca­tion is resolved.

 

In sup­port­ing the Hermitage’s motion, the US Depart­ment of Jus­tice stated:

 

“After tak­ing almost $200,000 of Hermitage’s mon­ey to attempt to pre­vent Her­mitage from being accused of com­mit­ting the fraud, [Bak­er Hostetler’s part­ner] Moscow is now tak­ing the mon­ey of an alleged ben­e­fi­cia­ry of the very same fraud to him­self accuse Her­mitage of com­mit­ting the fraud.”

 

“Allow­ing the tri­al to take place in this fash­ion, and to expose Her­mitage to such irrepara­ble injury at the hands of its for­mer coun­sel, would be a mis­car­riage of jus­tice set­ting a prece­dent that would severe­ly harm crime vic­tims’ inter­ests and could chill the coop­er­a­tion of vic­tims with law enforce­ment,” said the US Jus­tice Depart­ment in its filing.

 

The US$230 fraud and mon­ey laun­der­ing case was uncov­ered by Hermitage’s Russ­ian lawyer, Sergei Mag­nit­sky, who was tor­tured and killed in Russ­ian police cus­tody after he had giv­en tes­ti­mo­ny impli­cat­ing Russ­ian gov­ern­ment offi­cials in the scheme. To per­pe­trate the US$230 mil­lion fraud, the Russ­ian crim­i­nal organ­i­sa­tion stole three Russ­ian com­pa­nies belong­ing to the Her­mitage Fund and then sought an ille­gal refund of US$230 mil­lion of tax­es pre­vi­ous­ly paid by those companies.

 

When Hermitage’s Russ­ian lawyers report­ed the offi­cials involved, the lawyers them­selves became sub­ject of retal­i­a­tion from Russ­ian author­i­ties. In 2008, Her­mitage hired Bak­er Hostetler’s part­ner John Moscow to pro­tect Her­mitage and its lawyers and exec­u­tives from the retal­i­a­tion. Mr. Moscow had pre­vi­ous­ly been a spe­cial­ist in com­bat­ing Russ­ian organ­ised crime and cor­rup­tion in the New York Dis­trict Attorney’s office. He assist­ed Her­mitage with the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of the ben­e­fi­cia­ries of the US$230 mil­lion fraud and liais­ing with the US law enforce­ment in bring­ing those ben­e­fi­cia­ries to jus­tice. Sev­er­al years lat­er the US Depart­ment of Jus­tice traced some of the US$230 mil­lion pro­ceeds to Man­hat­tan prop­er­ties owned by Pre­ve­zon and filed a law­suit in which John Moscow and Bak­er Hostetler appeared for Prevezon.

 

The hear­ing will take place in New York in the Thur­good Mar­shall U.S. Cour­t­house, 17^th floor, Room 1703 lat­er this week, on 22 Jan­u­ary 2016.

 

For more infor­ma­tion, please contact: 

 

Jus­tice for Sergei Mag­nit­sky Campaign

+44 207 440 1777

e‑mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org

www.lawandorderinrussia.org

Twit­ter: @KatieFisher__

www.facebook.com/russianuntouchables

 

 

Sergei Magnitsky’s Mother Demands Answers from Russia’s General Prosecutor Chaika About False Statements Against Her Son

December 22, 2015

Sergei Mag­nit­sky’s Moth­er Demands Answers from Rus­si­a’s Gen­er­al Pros­e­cu­tor Chai­ka About False State­ments Against Her Son

 

22 Decem­ber 2015  – Sergei Mag­nit­sky’s moth­er has demand­ed answers from Russ­ian Gen­er­al pros­e­cu­tor Chai­ka over his hys­ter­i­cal let­ter con­tain­ing false infor­ma­tion about Sergei Mag­nit­sky pub­lished last week in Russ­ian news­pa­per Kom­m­er­sant. Chaika’s let­ter was a response to Russ­ian blog­ger Alex­ei Naval­ny’s explo­sive video about the cor­rup­tion and abuse of office involv­ing Chaika’s two sons and senior pros­e­cu­tors in the country.

 

In Chaika’s14 Decem­ber 2015 let­ter to Kom­m­er­sant, he claimed that Sergei Mag­nit­sky had nev­er inves­ti­gat­ed the $230 mil­lion theft from the Russ­ian budget.

 

In Sergei Mag­nit­sky’s moth­er’s appli­ca­tion to the Gen­er­al Pros­e­cu­tor’s office which was filed at the end of last week, she refut­ed Chaika’s false state­ments and placed the respon­si­bil­i­ty on Chai­ka him­self for the cov­er up of the $230 mil­lion theft and its per­pe­tra­tors impli­cat­ed by Sergei Mag­nit­sky in sworn testimony.

 

“The infor­ma­tion you have dis­sem­i­nat­ed inflicts pain on a moth­er who lost her son, it is not based on facts, it has not been cor­rob­o­rat­ed by courts, and it is refut­ed by doc­u­ments, includ­ing the crim­i­nal case files about Mag­nit­sky’s death,” said Ms. Mag­nit­skaya to Pros­e­cu­tor Chaika.

 

“Thanks to Sergei Mag­nit­sky’s inves­ti­ga­tion which he con­duct­ed on instruc­tion from his client — the Her­mitage Fund — the theft of 5.4 bil­lion rubles [$230 mil­lion] was uncov­ered, and report­ed to you on 25 July 2008 in an appli­ca­tion seek­ing to inves­ti­gate the fraud and pros­e­cute its per­pe­tra­tors. In response your senior aid Bumazhkin replied that the inves­ti­ga­tion had been ter­mi­nat­ed …due to the lack of crime. Your aid also report­ed that the out­comes of this inves­ti­ga­tion were under con­trol of the Gen­er­al Pros­e­cu­tor’s Office,” said the appli­ca­tion from Ms. Magnitskaya.

 

“It fol­lows that under the con­trol and with knowl­edge of the Russ­ian Gen­er­al Pros­e­cu­tor’s Office head­ed by you, per­pe­tra­tors who com­mit­ted a grandiose theft of 5.4 bil­lion rubles from the bud­get, remained for a long time free, had oppor­tu­ni­ty to destroy evi­dence of their crime and con­tin­ue it unhin­dered through laun­der­ing the pro­ceeds stolen from the Russ­ian peo­ple via bank wire trans­fers,” said Ms. Mag­nit­skaya’s application.

 

Sergei Mag­nit­sky’s moth­er’s appli­ca­tion asks Chai­ka whether the infor­ma­tion he had dis­sem­i­nat­ed was his per­son­al opin­ion, or his offi­cial con­clu­sion as Gen­er­al pros­e­cu­tor of Rus­sia tasked by Russ­ian pres­i­dent to per­son­al­ly over­see all cas­es con­nect­ed to Sergei Mag­nit­sky. The reply from Pros­e­cu­tor Chai­ka to Mag­nit­sky’s moth­er appli­ca­tion is yet not known.

 

For more infor­ma­tion please contact: 

 

Jus­tice for Sergei Magnitsky

 

+44 207 440 1777

e‑mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org

www.lawandorderinrussia.org

Twit­ter: @KatieFisher__

www.facebook.com/russianuntouchables

www.billbrowder.com

New York Federal Court Disqualifies Lawyer John Moscow and BakerHostetler in Magnitsky Money Laundering Case

December 21, 2015

New York Fed­er­al Court Dis­qual­i­fies Lawyer John Moscow and Bak­er­Hostetler in Mag­nit­sky Mon­ey Laun­der­ing Case

 

21 Decem­ber 2015 – The fed­er­al court in New York has dis­qual­i­fied lawyer John Moscow and his firm, Bak­er­Hostetler, who rep­re­sent­ed the alleged Russ­ian recip­i­ents of mon­ey laun­der­ing pro­ceeds from the US$230 mil­lion Russ­ian fraud that Sergei Mag­nit­sky uncov­ered, in a civ­il for­fei­ture case brought by the US Depart­ment of Jus­tice. The case alleges mon­ey laun­der­ing of pro­ceeds of Russ­ian fraud into mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar Man­hat­tan real estate by Pre­ve­zon, a com­pa­ny owned by a son of for­mer Vice-pre­mier of the Moscow Region and the cur­rent Vice-pres­i­dent of Russ­ian Rail­ways Pyotr Katsyv.

 

John Moscow and Bak­er­Hostetler had orig­i­nal­ly worked for Her­mitage in 2008 to defend Her­mitage against unfound­ed accu­sa­tions relat­ing to the fraud, includ­ing (among oth­er projects) by track­ing the stolen US$230 mil­lion and its recip­i­ents, and bring­ing the evi­dence of this com­plex Russ­ian fraud which vic­timised Her­mitage, to the US Depart­ment of Jus­tice. On Her­mitage’s behalf, John Moscow per­son­al­ly pre­sent­ed the find­ings from the Her­mitage’s and Sergei Mag­nit­sky’s inves­ti­ga­tions of the $230 mil­lion fraud to the U.S. Attor­ney’s Office.

 

On 25 Novem­ber 2008, one day after Sergei Mag­nit­sky’s arrest by cor­rupt Russ­ian offi­cials on false charges, John Moscow also became involved in Her­mitage’s legal actions to free Sergei Mag­nit­sky from Russ­ian deten­tion. Pri­or to his arrest, Sergei Mag­nit­sky gave tes­ti­mo­ny to Russ­ian author­i­ties impli­cat­ing Russ­ian offi­cials in the theft of Her­mitage’s Russ­ian com­pa­nies and of US$230 mil­lion the Her­mitage’s com­pa­nies had paid to the Russ­ian government.

 

One year lat­er, on 16 Novem­ber 2009, Sergei Mag­nit­sky was killed in Russ­ian police cus­tody before he could tes­ti­fy in an open trial.

 

In 2013, John Moscow and Bak­er­Hostetler switched sides, and went from rep­re­sent­ing Her­mitage to rep­re­sent­ing Russ­ian-owned Pre­ve­zon, an alleged ben­e­fi­cia­ry of the US$230 mil­lion fraud, that Sergei Mag­nit­sky’s inves­ti­ga­tion had led to after his death. The US Depart­ment of Jus­tice has traced to Pre­ve­zon near­ly US$2 mil­lion of the US$230 mil­lion fraud pro­ceeds and more funds in false and ques­tion­able trans­ac­tions.  The US court has frozen about US$14 mil­lion in Pre­ve­zon’s assets, includ­ing bank accounts and sev­er­al Man­hat­tan properties.

 

In Novem­ber 2015, John Moscow and Bak­er­Hostetler made fil­ings on Pre­ve­zon’s behalf in which they explic­it­ly accused Her­mitage of com­mit­ting the US$230 mil­lion fraud that they orig­i­nal­ly have been hired to defend against.

 

On 15 Decem­ber 2015, Her­mitage filed a motion to dis­qual­i­fy Bak­er­Hostetler and John Moscow.

 

In Judge Griesa’s opin­ion, issued on 18 Decem­ber 2015, the U.S. Court for South­ern Dis­trict of New York ordered:

 

“The court is now con­vinced that it would be improp­er for Bak­er­Hostetler and Moscow to con­tin­ue as coun­sel to defen­dants. …Her­mitage’s motion to dis­qual­i­fy Bak­er­Hostetler and Moscow as coun­sel to defen­dants is granted.”

 

Her­mitage Cap­i­tal’s rep­re­sen­ta­tive said of the dis­qual­i­fi­ca­tion of John Moscow and Bak­er­Hostetler:

 

“This dis­qual­i­fi­ca­tion is a stark reminder that lawyers can’t switch sides just because there is mon­ey being offered to them.”

 

Under Rule 1.9 of the New York Rule of Pro­fes­sion­al Con­duct, lawyers are not allowed to betray their for­mer clients. In par­tic­u­lar, the rule says:

 

“A lawyer who has for­mer­ly rep­re­sent­ed a client in a mat­ter shall not there­after rep­re­sent anoth­er per­son in the same or a sub­stan­tial­ly relat­ed mat­ter in which that person’s inter­ests are mate­ri­al­ly adverse to the inter­ests of the for­mer client unless the for­mer client gives informed con­sent, con­firmed in writing.”

 

Her­mitage became the vic­tim of the US$230 mil­lion fraud in 2007 when a Russ­ian crim­i­nal organ­i­sa­tion, com­pris­ing FSB, Inte­ri­or Min­istry and tax offi­cials and head­ed by a con­vict­ed fraud­ster Dmit­ry Klyuev, raid­ed offices of Her­mitage and its law firm in Moscow, unlaw­ful­ly seized statu­to­ry and finan­cial doc­u­ments for its cor­po­rate Russ­ian sub­sidiaries. Using those doc­u­ments, the Russ­ian crime group forged con­tracts and pow­ers of attor­ney, fraud­u­lent­ly re-reg­is­tered the stolen Her­mitage com­pa­nies to felons pre­vi­ous­ly con­vict­ed for vio­lent crimes, and through sham court pro­ceed­ings obtained about US$1 bil­lion judg­ments against the stolen Her­mitage com­pa­nies, in order to claim US$230 mil­lion in pur­port­ed­ly “over­paid” taxes.

 

The fraud­u­lent US$230 mil­lion tax refund was grant­ed by Russ­ian tax offi­cials, who were mem­bers of the crime group, in one day, and paid out two days lat­er to two small Russ­ian banks, where fraud­sters had opened bank accounts, and then laun­dered through Russ­ian banks and around the world.

 

Through efforts of Her­mitage and law enforce­ment author­i­ties around the world, about US$40 mil­lion con­nect­ed to the US$230 mil­lion fraud uncov­ered by Sergei Mag­nit­sky have been iden­ti­fied and frozen.

 

Bak­er­Hostetler is an “Am Law 100 law firm” with more than 900 attor­neys and 14 offices. John Moscow is a for­mer New York pros­e­cu­tor and a part­ner at Bak­er Hostetler.

 

For more infor­ma­tion please contact: 

 

Jus­tice for Sergei Magnitsky

+44 207 440 1777

e‑mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org

www.lawandorderinrussia.org

Twit­ter: @KatieFisher__

www.facebook.com/russianuntouchables

www.billbrowder.com

U.S. Senate Unanimously Passes the Global Magnitsky Act

December 18, 2015

U.S. Sen­ate Unan­i­mous­ly Pass­es the Glob­al Mag­nit­sky Act

 

18 Decem­ber 2015 –  In a ground-break­ing move, Unit­ed States Sen­ate unan­i­mous­ly passed the Glob­al Mag­nit­sky bill. The bill offi­cial­ly called, “S.284 – Glob­al Mag­nit­sky Human Rights Account­abil­i­ty Act”, directs the Pres­i­dent to sanc­tion human rights vio­la­tors from any­where around the world. The spe­cif­ic sanc­tions are visa bans, asset freezes, and pub­lic place­ment on the US Trea­sury’s OFAC registry.

 

“This is the new tech­nol­o­gy for fight­ing human rights abuse and an impor­tant lega­cy for Sergei Mag­nit­sky who gave up his life fight­ing for the truth in Rus­sia,” said Bill Brow­der, author of “Red Notice”, a book ded­i­cat­ed to Sergei Magnitsky.

 

In Decem­ber 2012, the US Con­gress adopt­ed the Sergei Mag­nit­sky Rule of Law Account­abil­i­ty Act, which impos­es visa and finan­cial sanc­tions on vio­la­tors of rights of human rights defend­ers in Russia.

 

The bill is named after Sergei Mag­nit­sky, a Russ­ian lawyer, who uncov­ered the largest pub­licly-known cor­rup­tion case in Rus­sia involv­ing the theft of $230 mil­lion. Sergei Mag­nit­sky tes­ti­fied about it nam­ing com­plic­it Russ­ian offi­cials. He was arrest­ed by some of the impli­cat­ed offi­cials, held in pre-tri­al deten­tion for 358 days, and killed in Russ­ian police cus­tody on 16 Novem­ber 2009.  After Sergei Magnitsky’s death, the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment pro­mot­ed and hon­oured offi­cials involved in his deten­tion and death.

 

The Glob­al Mag­nit­sky bill was spon­sored in the Sen­ate by U.S. Sen­a­tor Ben Cardin, and had 10 co-spon­sors:

Sen Blu­men­thal, Richard [CT] — 1/28/2015

Sen Coons, Christo­pher A. [DE] — 7/23/2015

Sen Cruz, Ted [TX] — 2/25/2015

Sen Durbin, Richard [IL] — 1/28/2015

Sen Kirk, Mark Steven [IL] — 1/28/2015

Sen Markey, Edward J. [MA] — 1/28/2015

Sen McCain, John [AZ] — 1/28/2015

Sen Rubio, Mar­co [FL] — 1/28/2015

Sen Sha­heen, Jeanne [NH] — 1/28/2015

Sen Wick­er, Roger F. [MS] — 1/28/2015

 

The next step is for the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives to con­sid­er the bill.

 

For more infor­ma­tion please contact: 

 

Jus­tice for Sergei Magnitsky

 

+44 207 440 1777

e‑mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org

www.lawandorderinrussia.org

Twit­ter: @KatieFisher__

www.facebook.com/russianuntouchables

www.billbrowder.com

 

Prosecutor Chaika’s Role in Magnitsky Case Explains His Unhinged Attack on Bill Browder in Response to Corruption Expose Produced by Navalny

December 18, 2015

Pros­e­cu­tor Chaika’s Role in Mag­nit­sky Case Explains His Unhinged Attack on Bill Brow­der in Response to Cor­rup­tion Expose Pro­duced by Navalny

 

18 Decem­ber 2015 – Russ­ian Gen­er­al Pros­e­cu­tor Yuri Chai­ka played a sig­nif­i­cant  role in the ill-treat­ment and death in cus­tody of Sergei Mag­nit­sky and the sub­se­quent cov­er up in his case. Chaika’s recent emo­tion­al attack on Bill Brow­der, the head of Mag­nit­sky Jus­tice Cam­paign, can be explained by his com­plic­i­ty in the Mag­nit­sky case and the pres­sure it has put on him internationally.

 

“It is no coin­ci­dence that in response to alle­ga­tions of brazen abuse by his sons and senior pros­e­cu­tors made in Alex­ei Naval­ny’s video ear­li­er this month, Gen­er­al Pros­e­cu­tor Chai­ka decid­ed to unleash his frus­tra­tion on Mag­nit­sky jus­tice cam­paign­ers. This is because of Chaika’s per­son­al role in the Mag­nit­sky case and its sub­se­quent cov­er up,” said Bill Brow­der, head of the Mag­nit­sky Jus­tice Cam­paign, and author of ‘Red Notice’.

 

The chronol­o­gy of Chaika’s role in the Mag­nit­sky case is sum­ma­rized below:

 

1) On Decem­ber 3^rd 2007, the Her­mitage Fund wrote a crim­i­nal com­plaint to Pros­e­cu­tor Chai­kabased on Sergei Mag­nit­sky’s inves­ti­ga­tion about the theft of Her­mitage Fund’s com­pa­nies and the cre­ation of $1 bil­lion of fake lia­bil­i­ties which were exe­cut­ed with doc­u­ments seized by the police. This was three weeks before $230 mil­lion were stolen from the Russ­ian bud­get. Chai­ka assigned the crime report to his deputy Vic­tor Grin, who took no action. Had Chai­ka and Grin act­ed, they would have pre­vent­ed the theft of $230 mil­lion from the Russ­ian people.

 

2) On July 23^rd 2008, the Her­mitage Fund filed a sec­ond crim­i­nal com­plaintto Pros­e­cu­tor Chai­ka pre­pared based on Sergei Mag­nit­sky’s inves­ti­ga­tion describ­ing the dis­cov­ery that the theft of the Her­mitage Fund’s com­pa­nies was per­pe­trat­ed in order to steal $230 mil­lion of tax­es paid by Her­mitage Fund’s com­pa­nies to the Russ­ian Gov­ern­ment. Pros­e­cu­tor Chai­ka became per­son­al­ly involved in over­see­ing the inves­ti­ga­tion, with his senior aid pros­e­cu­tor Bumazhkin respond­ing on 18 August 2008 that the inves­ti­ga­tion was under the con­trol of the Gen­er­al Pros­e­cu­tor’s Office and had exon­er­at­ed the low-lev­el per­pe­tra­tors for the lack of crime in their actions. Chaika’s office lat­er also exon­er­at­ed all tax offi­cials who approved the largest tax refund in Russ­ian his­to­ry in one day say­ing they were ‘tricked and deceived.’

 

3) On Novem­ber 24^th 2008, Her­mitage’s lawyer Sergei Mag­nit­sky was arrest­ed by the same police offi­cials who were impli­cat­ed in his tes­ti­mo­ny and the crime report Her­mitage sub­mit­ted to Chai­ka that sum­mer. He was sub­se­quent­ly tor­tured in prison to get him to retract his testimony.

 

4) On June 8^th 2009, the Inter­na­tion­al Bar Asso­ci­a­tion wrote to Pros­e­cu­tor Chai­ka seek­ing his inter­ven­tion in the case of unlaw­ful arrest of Sergei Mag­nit­sky. A sim­i­lar let­ter of inter­ven­tion was addressed to Chai­ka on 24 July 2009 by the Eng­lish Law Soci­ety. In Sep­tem­ber 2009, Chaika’s office respond­ed that there were “no vio­la­tions in Sergei Mag­nit­sky’s case and no rea­sons to intervene.”

 

5) On August 17^th 2009, Sergei Mag­nit­sky filed a com­plaint against Pros­e­cu­tor Chai­kaand held him per­son­al­ly respon­si­ble for the vio­la­tion of his human rights in deten­tion by Chaika’s sub­or­di­nates (pros­e­cu­tors Burov and Peche­gin) who by law were man­dat­ed to intervene.

 

6) On Sep­tem­ber 11^th 2009, Sergei Mag­nit­sky’s lawyers wrote to Pros­e­cu­tor Chai­ka about the pres­sure being applied to Sergei Mag­nit­sky to force him to give false tes­ti­mo­ny and the with­hold­ing of med­ical care. Chaika’s office replied in Octo­ber 2009 stat­ing that ‘no phys­i­cal or psy­cho­log­i­cal pres­sure was exert­ed on defen­dant  S.L.Magnitsky…There are no grounds to take mea­sures of pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al response.”

 

7) On Novem­ber 16^th 2009, after suf­fer­ing from months of tor­ture and neglect, Sergei Mag­nit­sky died after a beat­ing with rub­ber batons by guards.

 

8) In July 2010, Pros­e­cu­tor Chai­ka com­ment­ed on Mag­nit­sky case not find­ing any respon­si­bil­i­ty of the Gen­er­al Pros­e­cu­tor’s office, only of prison per­son­nel.

 

9) In May 2011, Chaika’s senior sub­or­di­nate issued con­clu­sions exon­er­at­ing Inte­ri­or Min­istry offi­cers from respon­si­bil­i­ty for the false arrest and tor­ture in deten­tion of Sergei Magnitsky.

 

10) On 31 May 2011, Pres­i­dent Medvedev ordered Chai­kato exer­cise per­son­al con­trol over the Mag­nit­sky death inves­ti­ga­tion and the inves­ti­ga­tion into the $230 mil­lion fraud.

 

11) On 1 June 2011, Pros­e­cu­tor Chai­ka announced that he would bring creme de la creme of pros­e­cu­tors to over­see the Mag­nit­sky case. The offi­cial Gen­er­al Pros­e­cu­tor’s Office state­ment said: “Due to the pub­lic res­o­nance on instruc­tion from the Pres­i­dent of Rus­sia, the Gen­er­al Pros­e­cu­tor’s Office has cre­at­ed a group of pros­e­cu­tors com­pris­ing employ­ees of dif­fer­ent spe­cialised depart­ments in order to strength­en and ensure qual­i­fied over­sight over the process and results of the inves­ti­ga­tion of crim­i­nal cas­es by the Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee of Rus­sia and the Inves­tiga­tive Depart­ment of the Inte­ri­or Min­istry of Russia.”

 

12) On Jan­u­ary 23^d 2012, Pros­e­cu­tor Chai­ka per­son­al­ly blocked the pro­pos­al from the Pres­i­den­t’s Human Rights Coun­cil to com­bine the inves­ti­ga­tions of Sergei Mag­nit­sky’s death and the $230 mil­lion fraud he had uncov­ered, hav­ing con­cealed in his report to the Pres­i­dent that the con­clu­sions drawn by his senior sub­or­di­nates had exon­er­at­ed Inte­ri­or Min­istry offi­cials in the Mag­nit­sky case.

 

13) In March 2013, the inves­ti­ga­tion into Mag­nit­sky’s death was closed, find­ing no crime occurred, the con­clu­sion that was approved by Chaika’s sub­or­di­nate pros­e­cu­tor Bochkaryev.

 

14) In 2013, Chaika’s Pros­e­cu­tor’s Office advanced the posthu­mous tri­al over Sergei Mag­nit­sky, the first in Russ­ian legal his­to­ry, with posthu­mous indict­ment of Sergei Mag­nisky sanc­tioned by Chaika’s deputy Vic­tor Grin.

 

“Pros­e­cu­tor Chai­ka was one of the key Russ­ian offi­cials respon­si­ble for the human rights vio­la­tions of Sergei Mag­nit­sky when he was still alive and the cov­er-up of offi­cial respon­si­bil­i­ty of Sergei Mag­nit­sky’s mur­der after he died. It’s clear that he wants to silence the peo­ple who are call­ing him out,” said  Bill Browder.

 

For more infor­ma­tion please contact: 

 

Jus­tice for Sergei Magnitsky

 

+44 207 440 1777

e‑mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org

www.lawandorderinrussia.org

Twit­ter: @KatieFisher__

www.facebook.com/russianuntouchables

www.billbrowder.com

 

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