Magnitsky Case Files Identify New Information on Russian Officials Involved In $230 Million Tax Fraud Cover-Up

April 18, 2012

New files from the posthu­mous case files against Sergei Mag­nit­sky reveal the name of the main “expert” wit­ness used to absolve Inte­ri­or Min­istry offi­cers from lia­bil­i­ty for the $230 mil­lion cor­rup­tion scheme uncov­ered by Sergei Mag­nit­sky. The expert was Max­im Tre­ti­akov, head of the legal depart­ment of Moscow Tax Office No 28, the office at the cen­tre of the cor­rupt tax refunds scheme. 

In return for his “friend­ly tes­ti­mo­ny”, the Inte­ri­or Min­istry offi­cers who them­selves had a con­flict of inter­est, exon­er­at­ed him and his col­leagues and claimed that the $230 mil­lion tax refund was exe­cut­ed by a “sawmill employ­ee” and a “job­less” indi­vid­ual, and that all bank records prov­ing oth­er­wise had burned in a truck explo­sion and can­not be traced. As a result, offi­cials from the Moscow Tax Office Num­ber 28 were able to con­tin­ue with their cor­rupt scheme, and were recent­ly shown to have exe­cut­ed $1 bil­lion in fraud­u­lent tax refunds over a four-year peri­od from 2006 – 2010. Fam­i­lies of the tax and Inte­ri­or Min­istry offi­cers involved in the scheme have become $47 mil­lion rich­er after the thefts and have been shown to invest in lux­u­ri­ous for­eign real estate and for­eign bank accounts. Read more

MAGNITSKY CASE FILES SHOW RUSSIAN FSB BEHIND THE MASSIVE BUDGET THEFTS HE HAD UNCOVERED AND HIS SUBSEQUENT PERSECUTION

April 12, 2012

MAGNITSKY CASE FILES SHOW RUSSIAN FSB BEHIND THE MASSIVE BUDGET THEFTS HE HAD UNCOVERED AND HIS SUBSEQUENT PERSECUTION

12 April 2012 – New­ly-released crim­i­nal case files from the posthu­mous pros­e­cu­tion case against Sergei Mag­nit­sky reveal for the first time the cen­tral role that the FSB, Russia’s secret police, and in par­tic­u­lar, Depart­ment K, the FSB’s Finan­cial Coun­teres­pi­onage Depart­ment, played in the bud­get thefts uncov­ered by Sergei Mag­nit­sky, his sub­se­quent per­se­cu­tion and the state cov­er-up since his death.

“The first bun­dle of the Mag­nit­sky case files show the web of cor­rup­tion and the merg­er between the FSB, law enforce­ment agen­cies and organ­ised crim­i­nals in the scheme to steal hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars of bud­get funds, and to con­ceal the lia­bil­i­ty of gov­ern­ment offi­cials involved,” said a Her­mitage Cap­i­tal rep­re­sen­ta­tive. Read more

Kudrin Tries to Explain Why $1 Billion Was Stolen from the Russian Budget

April 12, 2012

For­mer Russ­ian Finance Min­is­ter Kudrin Tries to Explain Why $1 Bil­lion Was Stolen from the Russ­ian Bud­get in Con­nec­tion to the Mag­nit­sky Mur­der on His Watch and he Did Nothing
11 April 2012 — In an extra­or­di­nary state­ment issued on his polit­i­cal web­site, for­mer Russ­ian Finance Min­is­ter Alex­ei Kudrin explained how it was not his fault that $1 bil­lion was stolen from the Russ­ian trea­sury on his watch between 2006 and 2010 through a cor­rupt scheme uncov­ered by Her­mitage Fund’s Russ­ian lawyer Sergei Mag­nit­sky (http://akudrin.ru/news/otvety-na-voprosy.html#.T4Szz3lJri8.twitter).

In his state­ment refer­ring to the ille­gal approvals of tax refunds for mil­lions of dol­lars, Mr. Kudrin said: “Employ­ees of the Trea­sury can­not chal­lenge the appro­pri­ate­ness of such a deci­sion. Nei­ther the lead­er­ship of the Trea­sury, nor, espe­cial­ly, the lead­er­ship of the Min­istry of Finance inter­fere in this process.”
This state­ment came in response to a series of 7 pub­lic ques­tions to Kudrin from Andrei Illiar­i­onov, an oppo­si­tion politi­cian, post­ed in his blog on ‘Echo of Moscow’ web­site (http://www.echo.msk.ru/blog/aillar/875912-echo/), chal­leng­ing Alex­ei Kudrin after an inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tion by a Russ­ian news­pa­per, Novaya Gaze­ta, uncov­ered that the same offi­cers from the Fed­er­al Tax Ser­vice and the same orga­nized crim­i­nals who were involved in the $230m theft that Sergei Mag­nit­sky dis­cov­ered, stole a fur­ther 11.4 bil­lion Rubles in ($444 m) in 2009 and 2010. Read more

Russian Government Drops Criminal Charges Against Doctor Responsible for the Torture and Death of Sergei Magnitsky

April 12, 2012

Russ­ian Gov­ern­ment Drops Crim­i­nal Charges Against Doc­tor Respon­si­ble for the Tor­ture and Death of Sergei Magnitsky
9 April 2012 – On the eve of the 24 April 2012 dead­line of the inves­ti­ga­tion into the death of Sergei Mag­nit­sky, the Russ­ian Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee has announced that they have dropped charges against Lar­isa Litvi­no­va, one of the two doc­tors who were defen­dants in this case due to the expiry of the statute of lim­i­ta­tions. For 20 months after the death of Sergei Mag­nit­sky, the Russ­ian author­i­ties made pub­lic state­ments say­ing that there was no wrong­do­ing on the part of any offi­cials. Only after inter­na­tion­al pres­sure and the pub­lic dis­cus­sion of visa sanc­tions did the Russ­ian Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee open a crim­i­nal case into two low lev­el doc­tors from the Butry­ka prison for neg­li­gence. They charged Ms. Litvi­no­va with “unin­ten­tion­al acts caus­ing death” know­ing that the statute of lim­i­ta­tions would expire 4 months after the case was opened. Read more

Amnesty International Slams Russian Government’s Posthumous Prosecution of Sergei Magnitsky

April 6, 2012

On the eve of April 8^th, which would have been the 40^th birth­day of the late Russ­ian whis­tle-blow­ing lawyer Sergei Mag­nit­sky, Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al has pub­licly called on the Russ­ian Gov­ern­ment to stop his posthu­mous pros­e­cu­tion, and to bring his oppres­sors and those pres­sur­ing his fam­i­ly to justice.

“On 8 April 2012, lawyer Sergei Mag­nit­sky would have turned forty. He died over two years ago, after months of ill-treat­ment and hav­ing suf­fered mul­ti­ple human rights vio­la­tions. For many in Rus­sia and beyond, his death in cus­tody in Novem­ber 2009 has come to sym­bol­ize the injus­tices asso­ci­at­ed with Russia’s mal­func­tion­ing crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem and wide­spread cor­rup­tion,” said Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al in its pub­lic state­ment. (http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/EUR46/015/2012/en/6f21ef79-67fe-4014-a084-0f3e8fe8e95f/eur460152012en.pdf). Read more

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