Moscow Court Allows Posthumous Prosecution of a Dead Lawyer to Go Ahead

April 3, 2012

Today, judge Yulia Bobro­va of Ostank­in­sky Dis­trict Court of Moscow, reject­ed a law­suit from the moth­er of the late Sergei Mag­nit­sky seek­ing to rec­og­nize as unlaw­ful the deci­sion to pros­e­cute her son posthu­mous­ly after he was killed in police cus­tody two years ago. 

“Today’s Moscow court deci­sion opens a new chap­ter in the Russ­ian legal his­to­ry. The Moscow court for­mal­ly allowed the pros­e­cu­tion of a dead man. This is a clear-cut breach of the Euro­pean Human Rights Con­ven­tion and Russia’s own Con­sti­tu­tion,” said a Her­mitage Cap­i­tal rep­re­sen­ta­tive. Read more

New Investigator in the Magnitsky’s Death Case Refuses to Prosecute Senior Prison Officials

March 29, 2012

Russ­ian author­i­ties have appoint­ed a new inves­ti­ga­tor in the case of the mur­der in police cus­tody of the 37-year old whis­tle-blow­ing lawyer Sergei Mag­nit­sky. The first deci­sion by the new­ly appoint­ed inves­ti­ga­tor, Major A. Strizhov of the Russ­ian Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee, was to reject the peti­tion from the Mag­nit­sky fam­i­ly to inves­ti­gate the role of senior prison offi­cials in tor­tur­ing him. Read more

UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Condemns Russian Government’s Cover-Up of Magnitsky Case

March 27, 2012

The UN Spe­cial Rap­por­teur on Tor­ture Juan E. Mén­dez has unveiled the results of his review of Sergei Mag­nit­sky case. The UN Spe­cial Rap­por­teur has called “unper­sua­sive” the Russ­ian government’s response to the tor­ture and in-cus­tody death of 37-year old lawyer. The UN Spe­cial Rap­por­teur stressed that in this case, Rus­sia is sub­ject­ed to inter­na­tion­al oblig­a­tions under the UN Anti-tor­ture Con­ven­tion and the UN Prin­ci­ples on Extrale­gal and Arbi­trary Exe­cu­tions which it has failed to com­ply with.

“When an indi­vid­ual dies as a con­se­quence of injuries sus­tained while in State cus­tody, there is a
pre­sump­tion of State respon­si­bil­i­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly when the per­son was in good health at the time of his arrest,” says the UN Report. Read more

William Browder Testifies to the U.S. Congress that Russian Government Now Functions as a Criminal Enterprise

March 21, 2012

William Brow­der, CEO of Her­mitage Cap­i­tal Man­age­ment, tes­ti­fied today at the U.S. House For­eign Affairs Com­mit­tee, stat­ing that Rus­sia no longer func­tions as a nor­mal state, but is oper­at­ing akin to a crim­i­nal enter­prise. At the com­mit­tee hear­ing enti­tled “Rus­sia 2012: Increased Repres­sion, Ram­pant Cor­rup­tion, Assist­ing Rogue Regimes” Mr. Brow­der spoke about the sto­ry of his Russ­ian lawyer, Sergei Mag­nit­sky, who had uncov­ered and exposed a $230 mil­lion gov­ern­ment cor­rup­tion scheme, and was arrest­ed and tor­tured to death in police cus­tody by the same Russ­ian offi­cials he had exposed.
“The sto­ry I’m going to share with you will leave you in no doubt that the Russ­ian state no longer func­tions as a nor­mal state as we know it, but some­thing more akin to a crim­i­nal enter­prise,” said Mr Brow­der to the U.S. congressmen.

“Sergei Magnitsky’s case has become the most well-doc­u­ment­ed and emblem­at­ic case of the tor­ture, cor­rup­tion and state-sanc­tioned mur­der in mod­ern Rus­sia,” said Mr Brow­der. Read more

Russia’s UK Ambassador Joins Cover-Up in Magnitsky Case

March 18, 2012

The Russ­ian Ambas­sador to the UK, Alexan­der Yakovenko, issued a strange state­ment late on Fri­day deny­ing that Russ­ian author­i­ties were pros­e­cut­ing Sergei Mag­nit­sky posthu­mous­ly, in spite of the doc­u­men­tary evi­dence to the contrary. 

In a post dis­trib­uted via the Russ­ian Embassy’s twit­ter account, the Ambas­sador said:
“Alle­ga­tions of a posthu­mous pros­e­cu­tion of Sergey Mag­nit­sky spread by the Her­mitage Cap­i­tal invest­ment fund and some inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tions have no legal grounds.”
The lat­est Russ­ian embassy’s state­ment is direct­ly con­tra­dict­ed by a series of suc­ces­sive actions of the Russ­ian author­i­ties and offi­cial doc­u­ments show­ing the Russ­ian gov­ern­men­t’s clear inten­tion to pros­e­cute Sergei Mag­nit­sky more than two years after he died. Read more

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