Magnitsky Murder Tops List of Questions for Medvedev at Davos

January 25, 2011

In a unique ini­tia­tive, the World Eco­nom­ic Forum orga­niz­ers this year have asked mem­bers to pro­pose and vote online on the ques­tions to be asked of Pres­i­dent Medvedev at Davos. The most pop­u­lar ques­tions will be unveiled at the Forum’s open­ing ple­nary ses­sion on Wednes­day, 26 Jan­u­ary, at 18:30 CET.
Accord­ing to Russ­ian busi­ness news­pa­per Vedo­mosti, the online poll con­duct­ed by the WEF showed that the sin­gle most pop­u­lar ques­tion to Medvedev is the ques­tion about the impuni­ty of police who killed 37-year old anti-cor­rup­tion lawyer Sergei Magnitsky:

“We heard from you that every­thing will be done that the Mag­nit­sky case is inves­ti­gat­ed and those guilty pros­e­cut­ed. In fact the main out­come has been that the key com­plic­it offi­cials from the Inte­ri­or Min­istry and the Pros­e­cu­tor Office, includ­ing Lt Col Kuznetsov and Major Kar­pov, and many oth­ers, have been pro­mot­ed and con­tin­ue to acquire expen­sive real estate and lux­u­ry cars…Why has there been no real actions against those com­plic­it in Mag­nit­sky case?” Read more

British Politician Calls on UK Parliament to Categorize Magnitsky Killers as “Economic Terrorists” and Impose UK Visa Bans

January 21, 2011

Chris Bryant MP, a Shad­ow Jus­tice Min­is­ter and for­mer Min­ster for Europe, has called upon the UK Home Sec­re­tary There­sa May to ban entry into the UK for the 60 Russ­ian offi­cials who were involved in the arrest, tor­ture and death in police cus­tody of Sergei Mag­nit­sky, 37-year old anti-cor­rup­tion lawyer rep­re­sent­ing UK invest­ment firm, Her­mitage Capital.

An exten­sive 1,000-page dossier which had been put togeth­er with evi­dence of their involve­ment and col­lu­sion in the crimes, was sub­mit­ted by Mr Bryant to Her Majesty’s Gov­ern­ment today. The sug­ges­tion to add these cor­rupt Russ­ian offi­cials was made in the House of Com­mons as part of the dis­cus­sion on the updat­ing of the ‘Pre­ven­tion and Sup­pres­sion of Ter­ror­ism Act of 2000’ on Wednes­day 19^th Jan­u­ary. The debate focused on amend­ments to the act which would involve adding organ­i­sa­tions groups and indi­vid­u­als respon­si­ble for extrem­ist activ­i­ty and eco­nom­ic ter­ror­ism to the list of cur­rent­ly “pro­scribed organ­i­sa­tions”. A pro­scribed organ­i­sa­tion is banned from oper­at­ing, fundrais­ing and pro­mot­ing itself in the UK and it is a crim­i­nal offence to be con­nect­ed with such pro­scribed per­sons in the UK.

Chris Bryant MP said:

“Sergei Mag­nit­sky was work­ing for a British com­pa­ny in Rus­sia. He unveiled a vast nexus of cor­rup­tion in the Russ­ian system-$230 mil­lion-worth-and he was mur­dered in prison, hav­ing been put there with­out tri­al, and there has been absolute­ly no inves­ti­ga­tion since his death.”

“Those involved in the arrest, tor­ture and mur­der of Sergei Mag­nit­sky, and all those involved in the cor­rup­tion that he unveiled in Rus­sia, are and have been engaged in a form of eco­nom­ic ter­ror­ism against this coun­try. I hope that the Home Office will there­fore look at whether such an order is pre­cise­ly the right vehi­cle to use to seize any of those peo­ple’s assets in this coun­try, or to pro­scribe them from com­ing to this country.”

In a prompt answer to the Chris Bryant’s pro­pos­al, the UK Immi­gra­tion Min­is­ter Dami­an Green said in the House of Com­mons indi­cat­ed that the UK gov­ern­ment has in gen­er­al at its dis­pos­al sev­er­al ways to pro­tect the UK busi­ness­es and pub­lic from the reach of cor­rupt Russ­ian offi­cials respon­si­ble for the tor­ture and mur­der; same Russ­ian offi­cials have made threats to the Her­mitage Cap­i­tal lawyers in the UK.

Damien Green MP stat­ed that:

“The Gov­ern­ment have a wide range of counter-ter­ror­ism tools at their dis­pos­al, includ­ing asset freez­ing, exclu­sion and so forth.”

As of May 2009, a total of 46 groups were pro­scribed under Sched­ule 2 of the Ter­ror­ism Act 2000, includ­ing Al-Qa’i­da, Hizbol­lah and the People’s Mujahid­din of Iran.

Damien Green MP also told me Bryant that he would be “hap­py” to meet Chris Bryant per­son­al­ly to dis­cuss the details of the Sergei Mag­nit­sky case.

At the end of last year, the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment adopt­ed with an over­whelm­ing major­i­ty a res­o­lu­tion call­ing for “an EU entry ban for Russ­ian offi­cials involved in this [Magnitsky’s] case, and encour­ages EU law enforce­ment agen­cies to coop­er­ate in freez­ing bank accounts and oth­er assets of these Russ­ian offi­cials in all EU Mem­ber States”.

The leg­is­la­tion ban­ning entry and freez­ing assets of Russ­ian offi­cials respon­si­ble for cor­rup­tion uncov­ered by Mr Mag­nit­sky and his per­se­cu­tion in cus­tody was cre­at­ed last year in the US Con­gress and Cana­di­an Par­lia­ment. Ear­li­er, the pow­er­ful US Gov­ern­ment Helsin­ki Com­mis­sion man­dat­ed to mon­i­tor com­pli­ance with OSCE accords in the area of human rights com­piled a list of 60 com­plic­it Russ­ian offi­cials detail­ing their role in the theft of US$230 mil­lion of pub­lic funds, unlaw­ful arrest, tor­ture and death of 37-year old Sergei Mag­nit­sky. The list trig­gered a world­wide cam­paign for jus­tice around the world. Yet, in Rus­sia, respon­si­ble offi­cials were pro­mot­ed and giv­en top state hon­ors on the eve of one-year anniver­sary of Magnitsky’s death. In response to the on-going impuni­ty of Magnitsky’s tor­tur­ers in Rus­sia, lead­ing Russ­ian human rights activists have called upon the EU and US gov­ern­ments to take robust legal steps to cre­ate con­se­quences for Russ­ian offi­cials in Magnitsky’s case on their territories.

Watch a doc­u­men­tary about the life and death of Sergei Mag­nit­sky in Russ­ian custody:

www.justiceforsergei.com

For the full tran­script of the House of Com­mons debate on the Ter­ror­ism Act 2000 see this link:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmhansrd/cm110119/debtext/110119 – 0004.htm#11011978000001

Back­ground Information:

Under the UK Ter­ror­ism Act 2000, ‘ter­ror­ism’ is defined as

the use or threat designed to influ­ence the gov­ern­ment for the pur­pose of advanc­ing a polit­i­cal, reli­gious or ide­o­log­i­cal cause, when it involves seri­ous vio­lence against a per­son, seri­ous dam­age to prop­er­ty, endan­gers a person’s life, cre­ates a seri­ous risk to the health or safe­ty of the pub­lic or a sec­tion of the pub­lic. ‘Organ­i­sa­tion’ is defined as includ­ing ‘any asso­ci­a­tion or com­bi­na­tion of per­sons’. In decid­ing on the sta­tus of pro­scribed per­sons, the Home Sec­re­tary takes into account the spe­cif­ic threat that they pose to the UK and to British nation­als overseas.

Christo­pher Bryant, a British Labour Par­ty politi­cian, has been the Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment (MP) since 2001. He is the for­mer Min­is­ter of State for Europe and Par­lia­men­tary Under-Sec­re­tary of State at the For­eign and Com­mon­wealth Office. He is cur­rent­ly a shad­ow Jus­tice Min­is­ter, with respon­si­bil­i­ty for polit­i­cal and con­sti­tu­tion­al reform.

Sergei Mag­nit­sky (8 April 1972 – 16 Novem­ber 2009), an out­side lawyer for the Her­mitage Fund, blew the whis­tle on wide­spread Russ­ian gov­ern­ment cor­rup­tion, involv­ing offi­cials from Russ­ian law enforce­ment and secu­ri­ty ser­vices. The offi­cials he tes­ti­fied against arrest­ed and detained him, begin­ning a night­mare in which he was thrown into cus­tody with­out bail or tri­al, and sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly tor­tured for one year in an attempt to force him to retract his tes­ti­mo­ny. Despite the phys­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal pain Sergei Mag­nit­sky endured from his cap­tors, he refused to per­jure him­self, even as his health dete­ri­o­rat­ed. Denied med­ical care for the last four months of his deten­tion, he died in excru­ci­at­ing cir­cum­stances at the age of 37, hav­ing devel­oped a severe pan­cre­at­ic con­di­tion while being held in the Butyr­ka remand cen­ter — a noto­ri­ous Czarist-era jail that also that also held Alexan­der Solzhen­it­syn and Raoul Wallenberg.

United Nations Launches Investigation into Extrajudicial Killing and Torture of Russian Anti Corruption Lawyer Sergei Magnitsky

January 20, 2011

The Unit­ed Nations has launched a broad based inves­ti­ga­tion into the death in cus­tody of Russ­ian anti-cor­rup­tion lawyer, Sergei Mag­nit­sky. Through the Unit­ed Nations Spe­cial Rap­por­teurs on Extra­ju­di­cial Exe­cu­tions, Tor­ture and the Inde­pen­dence of Lawyers and Judges, the Unit­ed Nations has launched an unprece­dent­ed inves­ti­ga­tion into the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the false arrest, denial of med­ical care, tor­ture in police cus­tody and death of 37-year old lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.

The UN inves­ti­ga­tion was trig­gered by the appli­ca­tion from REDRESS, a pow­er­ful UK-based advo­ca­cy orga­ni­za­tion ded­i­cat­ed to assist­ing tor­ture vic­tims and mak­ing tor­tur­ers account­able around the world.

“More than one year after Magnitsky’s death, Russ­ian author­i­ties failed to car­ry out a full, effec­tive and impar­tial inves­ti­ga­tion into the alle­ga­tions capa­ble of lead­ing to the truth of what occurred and as appro­pri­ate, the pros­e­cu­tion of those respon­si­ble,” said REDRESS in their appli­ca­tion to the UN Spe­cial Rapporteurs.

REDRESS has request­ed that UN Spe­cial Rap­por­teurs launch their own inves­ti­ga­tion into the Sergei Mag­nit­sky case giv­en the fail­ure of the Russ­ian author­i­ties to bring to tri­al those respon­si­ble for Mr. Magnitsky’s tor­ture and mur­der and in light of the pro­mo­tions and rewards to com­plic­it offi­cials issued by the Russ­ian author­i­ties last year.

The UN Spe­cial Rap­por­teur on Tor­ture Dr Mendez has acknowl­edged the begin­ning of a for­mal inves­ti­ga­tion into Mag­nit­sky case. Three UN Spe­cial Rap­por­teurs – Dr Juan Mendez, UN Rap­por­teur on Tor­ture and Oth­er Cru­el, Inhu­man or Degrad­ing Treat­ment or Pun­ish­ment; Prof Alston, UN Rap­por­teur on Extra­ju­di­cial, Sum­ma­ry or Arbi­trary Exe­cu­tions, and Ms Knaul, Rap­por­teur on the Inde­pen­dence of Lawyers and Judges — have tak­en up the investigation.

To assist with their inves­ti­ga­tion, REDRESS pro­vid­ed the UN Spe­cial Rap­por­teurs with sub­stan­tial doc­u­men­tary evi­dence of tor­ture and extra­ju­di­cial exe­cu­tion avail­able in this case. In their 100-page appli­ca­tion to the UN, REDRESS has iden­ti­fied the spe­cif­ic Russ­ian state bod­ies respon­si­ble for order­ing and car­ry­ing out Magnitsky’s tor­ture in police cus­tody and deny­ing him any legal rem­e­dy dur­ing 358 days in deten­tion. REDRESS pro­vides spe­cif­ic evi­dence of the com­plic­i­ty of the Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Min­istry, the Russ­ian Fed­er­al Secu­ri­ty Ser­vice (a suc­ces­sor organ­i­sa­tion to KGB), Gen­er­al Pros­e­cu­tor Office, State Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee, deten­tion cen­tre offi­cials and Moscow city and dis­trict judges in Mr. Magnitsky’s death.

REDRESS said in its application:

“The meth­ods used against Mag­nit­sky, singly and in com­bi­na­tion- the inhu­man deten­tion con­di­tions, the iso­la­tion from his fam­i­ly, the lack of reg­u­lar access to his lawyers and the inten­tion­al refusal to pro­vide ade­quate med­ical assis­tance result­ed in the delib­er­ate inflic­tion of severe pain and suf­fer­ing, and ulti­mate­ly his death. These mea­sures were designed to increase his dis­com­fort and to put fur­ther pres­sure on him to con­fess and tes­ti­fy against oth­ers. The meth­ods were also used to force Mag­nit­sky to retract his tes­ti­monies against Russ­ian offi­cials. The acts were com­mit­ted by offi­cials as set out above. For these rea­sons, the acts were of such a sever­i­ty and car­ried the req­ui­site pur­pose to have amount­ed to tor­ture in vio­la­tion of Arti­cle 2 (1) and Arti­cle 1 of the UN Con­ven­tion against Tor­ture.”

REDRESS also high­light­ed in their appli­ca­tion par­tic­u­lar seri­ous vio­la­tions by the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion of a num­ber of UN con­ven­tions that amount­ed to torture.

“Magnitsky’s treat­ment in Butyr­ka deten­tion cen­tre… was con­trary to the UN Stan­dard Min­i­mum Rules for Treat­ment of Pris­on­ers which pro­vide that “sick pris­on­ers who require spe­cial­ist treat­ment shall be trans­ferred to spe­cial­ized insti­tu­tions or to civ­il hos­pi­tals. Where hos­pi­tal facil­i­ties are pro­vid­ed in an insti­tu­tion, their equip­ment, fur­nish­ings and phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal sup­plies shall be prop­er for the med­ical care and treat­ment of sick pris­on­ers, and there shall be a staff of suit­able trained offi­cers.”

“The con­tin­ued rejec­tion of his requests to see his wife, chil­dren and moth­er was con­trary to the UN Stan­dard Min­i­mum Rules for the Treat­ment of Prisoners.”

“The deten­tion of Mag­nit­sky in these cells vio­lat­ed recog­nised min­i­mum stan­dards of the con­di­tions of deten­tion, such as the UN Body of Prin­ci­ples for the Pro­tec­tion of All Per­sons under Any Form of Deten­tion or Impris­on­ment … and the UN Stan­dard Min­i­mum Rules for the Treat­ment of Pris­on­ers, which apply in Rus­sia by virtue of the Euro­pean Con­ven­tion on Human Rights.”

“The lack of ade­quate treat­ment exposed him to acute pain and suf­fer­ing over almost four months and appears to have ulti­mate­ly caused his death in deten­tion. The denial of nec­es­sary med­ical treat­ment to Mag­nit­sky, despite repeat­ed requests, there­fore vio­lat­ed his right to life. It also exposed him to a lev­el of dis­tress and hard­ship of an inten­si­ty that went beyond the unavoid­able lev­el of suf­fer­ing inher­ent in deten­tion and was in clear vio­la­tion of inter­na­tion­al stan­dards pro­hibit­ing tor­ture and cru­el, inhu­man or degrad­ing treat­ment.”

REDRESS has stressed that the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment is under clear oblig­a­tion to launch an imme­di­ate inves­ti­ga­tion into Magnitsky’s tor­ture and that such inves­ti­ga­tion must be trans­par­ent and void of any par­tic­i­pa­tion from the senior state offi­cials involved in Magnitsky’s per­se­cu­tion and the $230 mil­lion cor­rup­tion he exposed.

“To com­ply with its oblig­a­tions, it is incum­bent on the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment to order a prompt, inde­pen­dent and thor­ough inves­ti­ga­tion that is sub­ject to pub­lic scruti­ny. Accord­ing­ly, the inves­ti­ga­tion must be ful­ly inde­pen­dent of the insti­tu­tions and per­sons accused by Mag­nit­sky to be involved in the tax fraud and alleged­ly involved in his tor­ture. The inde­pen­dent nature of the inves­ti­ga­tion is par­tic­u­lar­ly impor­tant as the indi­vid­u­als alleged to be involved in this case include high rank­ing gov­ern­ment offi­cials, whose inves­ti­ga­tion requires polit­i­cal con­sent. The inves­ti­ga­tion must be able to pro­nounce on the respon­si­bil­i­ty of the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment if proved to have known and be involved in Magnitsky’s tor­ture and even­tu­al death and iden­ti­fy any indi­vid­u­als respon­si­ble, irre­spec­tive of their rank and posi­tion,” said REDRESS.

Sergei Mag­nit­sky (8 April 1972 – 16 Novem­ber 2009), an out­side lawyer for the Her­mitage Fund, dis­cov­ered that Russ­ian police were involved in mis­ap­pro­pri­at­ing his client’s invest­ment com­pa­nies and embez­zling $230 mil­lion of pub­lic funds through the largest tax refund fraud in Russ­ian his­to­ry. Mag­nit­sky tes­ti­fied against the state offi­cials involved, and in ret­ri­bu­tion they arrest­ed him, detained him for 12 months with­out tri­al and tor­tured him to with­draw his tes­ti­mo­ny. Despite the sys­tem­at­ic phys­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal tor­ture, Mag­nit­sky refused to change his tes­ti­mo­ny. He died on 16 Novem­ber 2009 at the age of 37 leav­ing a moth­er, wife and two chil­dren. Sergei Mag­nit­sky was posthu­mous­ly award­ed 2010 Integri­ty Award by Trans­paren­cy Inter­na­tion­al, a lead­ing inter­na­tion­al civ­il soci­ety organ­i­sa­tion fight­ing corruption.

More infor­ma­tion:

The UN Spe­cial Rap­por­teur on Tor­ture Dr Juan Mendez was tor­tured him­self dur­ing the for­mer Argen­tinean dic­ta­tor­ship. As a result of his involve­ment in rep­re­sent­ing polit­i­cal pris­on­ers, the Argen­tinean mil­i­tary dic­ta­tor­ship arrest­ed him and sub­ject­ed him to tor­ture and admin­is­tra­tive deten­tion for more than a year. Dur­ing this time, Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al recog­nised him as a “Pris­on­er of Con­science.” Dr Mendez holds exten­sive back­ground and human rights awards in the field of human rights and tran­si­tion­al justice.

The UN Spe­cial Rap­por­teur on Extra­ju­di­cial, Sum­ma­ry or Arbi­trary Exe­cu­tions Prof. Philip Alston is an inter­na­tion­al law schol­ar and human rights prac­ti­tion­er. He was appoint­ed by the Unit­ed Nations Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al in 1988 to sug­gest reforms to make the Unit­ed Nations human rights treaty mon­i­tor­ing sys­tem more effec­tive. His major reports in 1989, 1993, and 1997 pro­vid­ed the impe­tus for con­tin­u­ing efforts by the UN Office of the High Com­mis­sion­er for Human Rights and the UN Human Rights Coun­cil to stream­line and improve the rather unwieldy mon­i­tor­ing system.

UN Spe­cial Rap­por­teur on the inde­pen­dence of judges and lawyers Ms. Gabriela Knaul has a long-stand­ing expe­ri­ence as a judge in Brazil and is an expert in crim­i­nal jus­tice and the admin­is­tra­tion of judi­cial systems.

REDRESS is a human rights organ­i­sa­tion that helps tor­ture sur­vivors obtain jus­tice and repa­ra­tion. REDRESS works with sur­vivors to help restore their dig­ni­ty and to make tor­tur­ers accountable.

REDRESS

Juer­gen Schurr, Legal Advisor

+44 20 7793 1777

juergen@redress.org

http://www.redress.org/smartweb/home/home

Full text of the REDRESS appli­ca­tion to the Unit­ed Nations about the fail­ure of the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion to inves­ti­gate the tor­ture in cus­tody of anti-cor­rup­tion lawyer Sergei Magnitsky:

http://www.redress.org/smartweb/case-docket/allegation-letter-to-un-special-rapporteurs-on-torture-and-on-the-independence-of-the-judiciary-and-

Unit­ed Nations Human Rights Coun­cil home­page and infor­ma­tion on the UN Spe­cial Rapporteurs:

http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/

Members of European Parliament Vote Overwhelmingly in Favor of Sanctions in Magnitsky Case

December 16, 2010

Today the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment passed a res­o­lu­tion call­ing for sanc­tions against the Russ­ian offi­cials respon­si­ble for the false arrest, tor­ture and death of 37-year old Russ­ian anti-cor­rup­tion lawyer Sergei Mag­nit­sky. This is a cru­cial step in the fight to obtain jus­tice for Mr. Magnitsky.

With an over­whelm­ing major­i­ty of 318 in favour and 163 against (with 95 absten­tions), the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment called upon EU mem­ber states to con­sid­er impos­ing entry bans on the Russ­ian offi­cials who played a direct role in the Mag­nit­sky case. The Euro­pean Par­lia­ment also called on EU law enforce­ment agen­cies to coop­er­ate in freez­ing bank accounts and oth­er assets of these Russ­ian offi­cials in all EU Mem­ber States.

Hei­di Hau­ta­la, Chair of the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment Sub­com­mit­tee on Human Rights said:

“With this vote the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment is call­ing for jus­tice for an inno­cent man who died in prison. This death was one too many. There comes a point when silence is no longer an option. While there was an attempt by the Russ­ian offi­cials to por­tray this pro­pos­al as anti-Russ­ian, we have been moved by the vast sup­port we have received from inside Rus­sia.”

One year after Magnitsky’s death, Russ­ian author­i­ties have failed to open an inves­ti­ga­tion into his tor­ture. No one has been charged in rela­tion to his death. The inves­ti­ga­tion of the theft of $230 mil­lion by police offi­cials Mag­nit­sky tes­ti­fied against was entrust­ed to the offi­cials direct­ly impli­cat­ed in his death. Fur­ther­more many of those same offi­cials were pro­mot­ed and giv­en top state hon­ors on the one-year anniver­sary of Magnitsky’s death.

Mari­et­je Schaake, an MEP from the Group of the Alliance of Lib­er­als and Democ­rats for Europe said:

“Human rights vio­la­tions can­not be met with impuni­ty. For EU-Rus­sia rela­tions to devel­op con­struc­tive­ly, the rule of law must be upheld and the state has to inves­ti­gate crimes and pros­e­cute those who are respon­si­ble.”

William Brow­der, CEO of Her­mitage Cap­i­tal Man­age­ment said:

“We applaud the MEPs who sup­port­ed this land­mark deci­sion in the fight for jus­tice in Rus­sia. These sanc­tions are not against Rus­sia and the Russ­ian peo­ple, but specif­i­cal­ly against those Russ­ian offi­cials who played a part in the false arrest, tor­ture and death of Sergei Mag­nit­sky. This vote will give hope to mil­lions of Rus­sians who are tired of the impuni­ty shown by cor­rupt officials.

This vote is a crit­i­cal step in an inter­na­tion­al process to bring to jus­tice  those who played a role in cru­el­ly tak­ing the life of Sergei Mag­nit­sky.  The next step will be to active­ly imple­ment this impor­tant res­o­lu­tion across EU mem­ber states. ”

Sergei Mag­nitksy (8 April 1972 – 16 Novem­ber 2009), an out­side lawyer for the Her­mitage Fund,  blew the whis­tle on wide­spread Russ­ian gov­ern­ment cor­rup­tion, involv­ing offi­cials from Russ­ian law enforce­ment and secu­ri­ty ser­vices. The offi­cials he tes­ti­fied against, arrest­ed and detained him, begin­ning a night­mare in which he was thrown into cus­tody with­out bail or tri­al, and sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly tor­tured for one year in an attempt to force him to retract his tes­ti­mo­ny. Despite the phys­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal pain Sergei Mag­nit­sky endured from his cap­tors, he refused to per­jure him­self, even as his health dete­ri­o­rat­ed. Denied med­ical care for the last four months of his deten­tion, he died in excru­ci­at­ing cir­cum­stances at the age of 37, hav­ing devel­oped a severe pan­cre­at­ic con­di­tion while being held in the Butyr­ka remand cen­ter — a noto­ri­ous Czarist-era jail that also that also held Alexan­der Solzhen­it­syn and Raoul Wallenberg.

On the first anniver­sary of his death in Novem­ber 2009, Mag­nit­sky was posthu­mous­ly award­ed the 2010 Integri­ty Award by Trans­paren­cy Inter­na­tion­al in recog­ni­tion for his coura­geous fight and ulti­mate sac­ri­fice against Russ­ian corruption.

Watch a doc­u­men­tary about the life and death of Sergei Mag­nit­sky in Russ­ian custody:

www.justiceforsergei.com

Read full text of the Euro­pean Parliament’s call for jus­tice in Sergei Mag­nit­sky case, 16 Decem­ber 2010:

“[The Euro­pean Par­lia­ment] Urges the Russ­ian judi­cial author­i­ties to press ahead with the inves­ti­ga­tion of the death on 16 Novem­ber 2009 of Russ­ian lawyer Sergey Magnitsky; 

deplores that this case is still an out­stand­ing exam­ple of the seri­ous short­com­ings with­in the coun­try’s judi­cial system; 

regrets the sit­u­a­tion that, while human rights defend­ers are often sub­ject to a harsh treat­ment and tri­als that ignore the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion’s Code of Crim­i­nal Pro­ce­dure (such as its Arti­cle 72 in the case against Oleg Orlov of Memo­r­i­al for slan­der), those guilty of aggres­sions against and even mur­der of human rights defend­ers, inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ists and lawyers still too often enjoy impunity; 

calls on the Coun­cil, in the absence of pos­i­tive moves from the Russ­ian author­i­ties to coop­er­ate and inves­ti­gate the case of Sergey Mag­nit­sky, to insist that  the Russ­ian author­i­ties bring those respon­si­ble to jus­tice and to con­sid­er impos­ing an EU entry ban for Russ­ian offi­cials involved in this case, and encour­ages EU law enforce­ment agen­cies to coop­er­ate in freez­ing bank accounts and oth­er assets of these Russ­ian offi­cials in all EU Mem­ber States.”

Russian Delegation Travels to Strasbourg to Pressure MEPs to Drop Magnitsky Sanctions

December 13, 2010

The Euro­pean Par­lia­ment is sched­uled to vote this week to intro­duce visa bans and asset seizures against those Russ­ian state offi­cials who played a role in the mur­der in cus­tody of Sergei Mag­nit­sky or who car­ried out the $230 mil­lion fraud Mag­nit­sky uncov­ered. The Res­o­lu­tion appears in the Annu­al Report of Human Rights in the World (2009).

The Res­o­lu­tion was approved by the For­eign Affairs Com­mit­tee by a vote of 50 – 0 (with two absten­tions) in mid-Novem­ber and will go before the full Euro­pean Par­lia­ment in its Ple­nary Ses­sion in Stras­bourg on 14 – 15 December.

In response to the immi­nent threat of visa sanc­tions and asset seizures against cer­tain of its offi­cials with­in Europe, the Russ­ian Duma sent a del­e­ga­tion to Stras­bourg on 11 Decem­ber where they will urgent­ly lob­by against the pend­ing res­o­lu­tion. Accord­ing to Andrei Klimov, Deputy Chair­man of the Duma Com­mit­tee on Inter­na­tion­al Affairs:

“Mem­bers of our del­e­ga­tion are going to use all avail­able means, includ­ing for­mal and infor­mal meet­ings with Mem­bers of the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment, to try to con­vey to them the whole fail­ure of one of the amend­ments to the draft report con­cern­ing the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the death in jail of Sergei Mag­nit­sky.” Read more

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