Russian Interior Ministry Tries to Impose Gagging Order on Magnitsky’s Brother-In-Law Before Interrogation

March 1, 2013

The Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Min­istry has placed a gag­ging order on Andrei Zharikov, Sergei Mag­nit­sky’s broth­er-in-law who was sum­moned for intero­ga­tion at the Inte­ri­or Min­istry this week. Inte­ri­or Min­istry Inves­ti­ga­tor Rasul Salakhbekov threat­ened Mag­nit­sky’s borther-in-law with crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion if he dis­closed the mat­ters of the inter­ro­ga­tion. Dur­ing the pre­lim­i­nary ques­tion­ing, the Inte­ri­or Min­istry refused to even divulge which crim­i­nal case Mag­nit­sky’s broth­er-in-law was being asked to address, but still insist­ed on a gag­ging order. After the inter­ro­ga­tion, Zharikov’s lawyer filed a com­plaint with the Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Min­istry chal­leng­ing the gag­ging order. Specif­i­cal­ly, the com­plaint said:

“Giv­en that nei­ther the lawyer, nor the wit­ness have been made aware of any pre­lim­i­nary inves­ti­ga­tion infor­ma­tion [under an unknown crim­i­nal case], there are no rea­son­able grounds to demand an under­tak­ing from them not to dis­close what they do not know, and this action is clear­ly a fur­ther attempt by inves­ti­ga­tors to exert psy­cho­log­i­cal pres­sure on peo­ple close to Sergei Mag­nit­sky, and to use the pow­ers of pub­lic office for the unlaw­ful obstruc­tion of the con­sti­tu­tion­al right for free­dom of speech and free­dom of expres­sion.” Read more

Magnitsky’s Brother-In-Law is Summoned for Questioning at Russia’s Interior Ministry

February 27, 2013

In a fur­ther esca­la­tion of intim­i­da­tion and pres­sure on Sergei Mag­nit­sky’s fam­i­ly and col­leagues, the Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Min­istry is now sum­mon­ing Sergei Mag­nit­sky’s broth­er-in-law, Andrei Zharikov, for ques­tion­ing today. The sum­mons was issued by Inte­ri­or Min­istry Inves­ti­ga­tor P. Tam­bovt­sev (office phone stat­ed in notice: +7495 667 39 08). 

Mr Magnitsky’s broth­er-in-law was asked to “show up for ques­tion­ing,” with no fur­ther expla­na­tion, at Inves­ti­ga­tor Tambovtsev’s office in the Inte­ri­or Ministry’s Inves­ti­ga­tions Com­mit­tee, at Gazetny Pereulok in Moscow. This is the same build­ing where Mr Mag­nit­sky was brought for ques­tion­ing more than four years ago, on 24 Novem­ber 2008, and from where he nev­er left a free man.
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The European Union Has Joined the Money Laundering Investigation of the $230m of Stolen Money Exposed by Sergei Magnitsky

February 25, 2013

Finan­cial intel­li­gence experts from six EU mem­ber states have joined forces to inves­ti­gate the mon­ey laun­der­ing trail uncov­ered and exposed by late whis­tle-blow­ing Russ­ian lawyer Sergei Mag­nit­sky, report­ed EU Observ­er. Read more

‘Blasphemous’ Posthumous Trial Against Magnitsky Begins with the Forced Appointment of a State Sanctioned Lawyer to Magnitsky

February 18, 2013

Today at 11 am at the Moscow Tver­skoi Dis­trict Court, a closed pre­lim­i­nary hear­ing will be held in the posthu­mous tri­al of the late whis­tle-blow­ing lawyer Sergei Mag­nit­sky. At the pre­vi­ous hear­ing, the judge ordered the appoint­ment of a state sanc­tioned lawyer to rep­re­sent and give ‘legal advice’ to Sergei Mag­nit­sky who has been dead for more than three years. The for­mal pur­pose of tomor­row’s hear­ing is for the judge to deter­mine if Mag­nit­sky has been ‘prop­er­ly noti­fied’ of the tri­al and if pros­e­cu­tor has ‘obtained the con­fir­ma­tion of noti­fi­ca­tion in writ­ing’ from Magnitsky.

“The fact that this posthu­mous tri­al is going ahead, indi­cates that jus­tice in Rus­sia is turn­ing into raw and out­right ble­sphamy. The only place where a notice to Sergei Mag­nit­sky can be deliv­ered is to his grave at the Pre­o­brazhen­skoye ceme­tery, and any writ­ten con­fir­ma­tion would need to be obtained from his corpse. There is a spe­cial place in hell for the peo­ple orga­niz­ing this,” said a Her­mitage Cap­i­tal rep­re­sen­ta­tive. Read more

Following Putin’s Public Attack on Magnitsky’s Colleagues, Russian Authorities Have Opened a New Criminal Case and Threaten Use of “Special Units” against HSBC Bank in Moscow

February 15, 2013

The Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Min­istry has opened a new crim­i­nal case against col­leagues of the late Sergei Mag­nit­sky, who was killed in Russ­ian police cus­tody in 2009. Details of the new crim­i­nal case are not yet known oth­er than that it alleges ‘fraud­u­lent actions’. 

The new case was opened on Jan­u­ary 24, 2013 fol­low­ing pub­lic state­ments by Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin at a Decem­ber 2012 press con­fer­ence that he need­ed to “dig deep­er” into the Mag­nit­sky case.
Under this new crim­i­nal case, the Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Min­istry is now pres­sur­ing HSBC Bank Moscow to pro­vide wide-rang­ing finan­cial and bank­ing infor­ma­tion con­cern­ing the com­pa­nies of the Her­mitage Fund and its advis­ers dat­ing all the way back to 1996. Read more

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