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Зампрокурор Виктор Гринь и следователь СК РФ Стрижов включены в список Магнитского

December 30, 2014

Сегодня вечером правительство США включило в список санкций по делу Магнитского заместителя генерального прокурора  РФ Виктора Гриня и следователя Следственного комитета РФ Андрея Стрижова. Оба несут личную ответственность за сокрытие правды о гибели юриста фонда Her­mitage и укрывательство причастных от суда.

Их имена опубликованы на официальном сайте Министерства финансов США.

В отношении лиц, включенных в список Магнитского, вводится запрет на выдачу виз и замораживание их активов в США.

«В список Магнитского сегодня включены две одиозные фигуры, включая высокопоставленного укрывателя преступлений, как совершенных против Сергея Магнитского, так и разоблаченных им, – работающего в должности заместителя Генерального прокурора Виктора Гриня, а также следователя, не нашедшего в истязаниях и убийстве человека в следственном изоляторе «события преступления»», — сказал представитель программы «Справедливость для Сергея Магнитского».

На сегодняшний день спустя пять лет после гибели Сергея Магнитского и два года с даты введения в США закона имени Магнитского в санкционный список правительством США включено 34 человека, включая 28 человек, имеющих непосредственное отношение к делу Магнитского.

О роли прокурора Виктора Гриня программа «Справедливость для Сергея Магнитского» подробно рассказала еще год назад в рубрике «Сокрытие преступлений по делу Магнитского — в лицах и документах».

5 декабря 2007 года, за три недели до кражи 5,4 миллиардов рублей из российской казны прокурору Гриню поступило заявление юристов фонда Her­mitage о содействии группы сотрудников МВД мошенникам. Прокурор Гринь отказал в проведении проверки, заявление Her­mitage было передано на рассмотрение одному из сотрудников МВД, названных в нем в качестве подозреваемого, а спустя три недели из бюджета были украдены 5,4 миллиардов рублей.

10 апреля 2009 года прокурор Гринь подписал обвинительное заключение, которым освободил от ответственности названных в показаниях Сергея Магнитского и заявлениях Her­mitage cотрудников МВД и налоговых органов, списав хищение 5.4 миллиардов рублей на «работника лесопилки», тут же осужденного в «особом порядке»  c согласия прокуратуры без рассмотрения судом доказательств на основе одних его признательных показаний.

6 ноября 2009 года прокурору Гриню было поручено провести проверку по заявлению о нарушении прав Магнитского и лишении его медицинской помощи, направленному коллегой Магнитского американским юристом Джемисоном Файерстоуном. Прокурор Гринь не провел никакой проверки, не принял мер прокурорского реагирования, а 10 дней спустя Сергей Магнитский вместо экстренной госпитализации был помещен в изоляционный бокс следственного изолятора и убит.

После убийства Сергея Магнитского прокурору Гриню было доверено надзирать за ходом следствия об обстоятельствах заключения Магнитского под стражу и его смерти. В ходе расследования прокурор Гринь подписал заключение, в котором не нашел правонарушений в действиях сотрудников МВД, отвечавших за арест и преследование Магнитского.

Прокурор Гринь также несет личную ответственность за инициирование двух посмертных уголовных дел против Сергея Магнитского – одного, завершившегося судебным приговором – первым в истории посмертным судилищем,  и второго, расследование которого продолжается, несмотря на протесты родственников Магнитского.

Включенный в санкционный список следователь Следственного комитета РФ Андрей Стрижов несет ответственность за отказ привлечь к ответственности лиц, участвовавших в незаконном аресте, пытках и убийстве Сергея Магнитского, несмотря на неоднократные обращения семьи. В марте 2013 года следователь Стрижов подписал постановление о прекращении уголовного дела о смерти Магнитского, не найдя в нем спустя три с половиной года расследования «события преступления», несмотря на выводы независимых российских и международных организаций, указывающих на создание пыточных условий содержания под стражей и конфликт интересов преследовавших Магнитского сотрудников МВД.

Magnitsky’s Mother Goes to the Russian Supreme Court to Overturn the Second Posthumous Case Against Her Murdered Son

November 21, 2014

Sergei Magnitsky’s moth­er has filed a com­plaint with the judi­cial col­legium of the Supreme Court of Rus­sia in rela­tion to the sec­ond posthu­mous pro­ceed­ing orga­nized against her son by the Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Ministry.

Under this sec­ond posthu­mous case, Sergei Mag­nit­sky has been named after his death as a “co-con­spir­a­tor” in the $230 mil­lion tax refund fraud that he had in fact uncov­ered and exposed.

“…Inves­ti­ga­tor Urzhumt­sev in vio­la­tion of the prin­ci­ple of pre­sump­tion of inno­cence, in vio­la­tion of the con­sti­tu­tion­al right for defence, in the absence of a court order, in the absence of pre­lim­i­nary inves­ti­ga­tion, had stat­ed in his decree [from Decem­ber 2010] that Sergei Mag­nit­sky who died a year before [in Novem­ber 2009] in Matrosskaya Tishi­na deten­tion cen­ter, com­mit­ted a seri­ous crime… the theft of 5.4 bil­lion rubles [$230 mil­lion]…The con­clu­sion itself must be qual­i­fied as slan­der in rela­tion to know­ing­ly inno­cent per­son,” says the complaint.

 “He [Inves­ti­ga­tor Urzhumt­sev] knew very well, that Mag­nit­sky not only was not com­plic­it in the theft of 5.4 bil­lion rubles, but that Mag­nit­sky was the first per­son who had uncov­ered the crime com­mit­ted against the three com­pa­nies of his client, and who had exposed the crim­i­nal activ­i­ty of per­haps one of the largest crim­i­nal groups which spe­cial­izes in unlaw­ful tax refunds,” says the complaint.

Inte­ri­or Min­istry Inves­ti­ga­tor Oleg Urzhumt­sev was includ­ed on both the inves­tiga­tive team on the case against Sergei Mag­nit­sky under which Mag­nit­sky was arrest­ed and ill-treat­ed in cus­tody; and on the case to inves­ti­gate the $230 mil­lion theft that Mag­nit­sky had uncov­ered. The sec­ond inves­ti­ga­tion led by Inves­ti­ga­tor Urzhumt­sev fin­ished by exon­er­at­ing all Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Min­istry and tax offi­cials from lia­bil­i­ty for the $230 mil­lion theft, and nam­ing Sergei Mag­nit­sky as co-con­spir­a­tor posthu­mous­ly and in secret from his rel­a­tives. Urzhumt­sev also was respon­si­ble for assign­ing the blame for the crime to a “job­less” per­son named Vyach­eslav Khleb­nikov in a fast-track pro­ceed­ing which end­ed with a lenient sen­tence of five years for the $230 mil­lion theft. As part of that pro­ceed­ing con­duct­ed after Magnitsky’s death, Khleb­nikov gave a false tes­ti­mo­ny against Mag­nit­sky from detention.

“As mem­ber of the inves­tiga­tive group [on the case Sergei Mag­nit­sky was detained], Urzhumt­sev knew that Mag­nit­sky was arrest­ed soon after his tes­ti­mo­ny impli­cat­ing offi­cials in the theft of 5.4 bil­lion rubles, and that some of those offi­cials were includ­ed on the same inves­tiga­tive team,-  points out the com­plaint. — Mag­nit­sky stat­ed that his crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion was a mea­sure of repres­sion aimed to pun­ish him for the assis­tance he pro­vid­ed to his client dur­ing the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of cir­cum­stances of the theft of his client’s com­pa­nies — Rilend, Makhaon, and Par­fe­nion.”

The com­plaint says that Inves­ti­ga­tor Urzhumt­sev has con­cealed the real per­pe­tra­tors by blam­ing the $230 mil­lion theft on Sergei Mag­nit­sky, and two oth­er deceased indi­vid­u­als (Mr Gasanov and Mr Korobeinikov), nei­ther of whom were alive and could be ques­tioned at the time of the investigation.

“The evi­dence in the case file objec­tive­ly demon­strates that Inves­ti­ga­tor Urzhumt­sev act­ed in the inter­ests of per­sons who per­pe­trat­ed the theft of 5.4 bil­lion rubles [$230 mil­lion], and who using his own ter­mi­nol­o­gy, “found” two deceased indi­vid­u­als in order to put on them the lia­bil­i­ty for the theft of bud­get funds, and in order to pro­vide the ser­vice of con­ceal­ment for the real per­pe­tra­tors of the crime,” says the complaint.

It was since uncov­ered that Mr Gasanov died on 1 Octo­ber 2007, two months before the $230 mil­lion was com­mit­ted. Mr Korobeinikov died in Sep­tem­ber 2008, “falling of a bal­cony” of a build­ing under con­struc­tion, accord­ing to the Russ­ian investigation.

Ms Mag­nit­skaya asks the Russ­ian Supreme Court to exam­ine the law­ful­ness of inves­ti­ga­tor Urzhumtsev’s actions and annul pre­vi­ous deci­sions by low­er-lev­el Russ­ian courts who reject­ed her complaints.

“The court must check the law­ful­ness and the jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for the Investigator’s decree… The pre­vi­ous rejec­tion vio­lates the con­sti­tu­tion­al prin­ci­ple of the pre­sump­tion of inno­cence because deceased Mag­nit­sky was named by Inves­ti­ga­tor Urzhumt­sev as a co-con­spir­a­tor in a crime,” says the complaint.

“The court had an oppor­tu­ni­ty to check the argu­ments using the crim­i­nal case files, and by invit­ing inves­ti­ga­tor Urzhumt­sev to give tes­ti­mo­ny, but it failed to do so…As a result, the con­clu­sion of the court [of low­er instance] is not sup­port­ed by the fac­tu­al cir­cum­stances, which is … the ground to can­cel the court deci­sion,” says the com­plaint in conclusion.

Pre­vi­ous com­plaints from Ms Mag­nit­skaya addressed to low­er instance courts have been reject­ed by Moscow dis­trict judge Tatiana Nevero­va, and Moscow city court judges Andrei Titov and Lyubov Ishmuratova.

In the Unit­ed States, 26 Russ­ian offi­cials and pri­vate indi­vid­u­als involved in Sergei Magnitsky’s deten­tion and ill-treat­ment in cus­tody and in the crim­i­nal con­spir­a­cy Mag­nit­sy had uncov­ered have been sanc­tioned under the US Mag­nit­sky Act. The list includes sev­er­al col­leagues of Inves­ti­ga­tor Urzhumt­sev on the Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Ministry’s inves­tiga­tive team in the Mag­nit­sky case.

Sergei Magnitsky’s Mother Slams the Russian Authorities Refusal to Investigate the Murder of Her Son on the 5^th Anniversary of His Death

November 19, 2014

Sergei Magnitsky’s moth­er has spo­ken of the suf­fer­ing she has been sub­ject­ed to in her calls to seek jus­tice for her mur­dered son in Russia.

In an exten­sive inter­view to the Open Rus­sia web­site, Natalia Mag­nit­skaya spoke of her grief of the way that Russ­ian offi­cials have dealt with her complaints.

“All our appli­ca­tions and com­plaints to all gov­ern­ment bod­ies are being reject­ed. I can’t read these rejec­tions any more. It is clear that they are sim­ply mock­ing us. For exam­ple, they sent us mate­ri­als to read, but the copies are so poor it was impos­si­ble to read them. My lawyer filed a com­plaint to the high­er-lev­el body, but his com­plaint was reject­ed. They said essen­tial­ly that all is ok, there is no need for you to read them.”

Natalia Mag­nit­skaya also depict­ed her anguish at the lies offi­cial­ly issued by the Russ­ian Gen­er­al Prosecutor’s Office, which jus­ti­fied the posthu­mous tri­al of her son by claim­ing that the fam­i­ly had asked for it:

“Recent­ly, one of the doc­u­ments from the Gen­er­al Prosecutor’s Office said that they had ini­ti­at­ed the case against Mag­nit­sky on the request from his moth­er. But we had stat­ed in writ­ing on so many occa­sions that we do not want the posthu­mous pros­e­cu­tion. Howcouldthisbe?”

Natalia Mag­nit­skaya described the strug­gle to seek jus­tice for her son in Rus­sia as “fac­ing a wall,” but said she con­tin­ues to chal­lenge the rejec­tions nev­er­the­less and seek jus­tice and is not pre­pared to give up:

“So far every­thing has been with­out effect. In spite of this we try to chal­lenge every­thing, but it gives you the feel­ing that you are fac­ing a wall…But we should not stop…It is impos­si­ble to give in.”

In anoth­er report on the Open Rus­sia web­site in mem­o­ry of Sergei Mag­nit­sky, Russ­ian jour­nal­ist and human rights activist Zoya Sve­to­va recalled how she and oth­er mem­bers of the Moscow Pub­lic Over­sight Com­mis­sion inves­ti­gat­ed the cir­cum­stances of his mur­der in detention.

“We wrote a report and sent it on 31 Decem­ber 2009 to the Pres­i­dent of Rus­sia, the Gen­er­al Prosecutor’s Office and the Min­istry of Jus­tice. In our report, we wrote that we do not trust the tes­ti­mo­ny of deten­tion offi­cials and are con­vinced that the right to life of Mag­nit­sky was vio­lat­ed. In oth­er words, the lawyer was murdered.” 

Also on the Open Rus­sia web­site, Russ­ian play­wright Ele­na Grem­i­na, author of the play, “One Hour Eigh­teen Min­utes,” which depicts the last hours of Sergei Magnitsky’s life, spoke of how work­ing with the Mag­nit­sky sto­ry changed her and those who worked on the play with her:

“It was decid­ed, as usu­al­ly hap­pens with new ideas, to gath­er doc­u­ments and mate­ri­als about Sergei Mag­nit­sky to see if his sto­ry had poten­tial for a play. I did not know then that the gath­er­ing of mate­ri­als for this prospec­tive play would change us, would intro­duce us to new ideas and new peo­ple, that it would change a lot in me.”

Mate­ri­als to Com­mem­o­rate the 5^th Anniver­sary of Sergei Magnitsky’s Killing in Cus­tody can be found on Open Rus­sia web­site.

Statement by Bill Browder on 5^th Anniversary of Sergei Magnitsky’s Killing in Russia

November 16, 2014

Dear Friends and supporters,

 Today marks the 5^th anniver­sary of Sergei Mag­nit­sky’s killing in Russ­ian police custody. 

Sergei was my lawyer who was mur­dered because he exposed one of the largest gov­ern­ment cor­rup­tion schemes in Russ­ian his­to­ry. After he tes­ti­fied against the police offi­cers involved, he was arrest­ed by the same offi­cers and was then sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly tor­tured for 358 days. On Novem­ber 16, 2009 he went into crit­i­cal con­di­tion and instead of being treat­ed, he was put in an iso­la­tion cell and beat­en by eight riot guards with rub­ber batons until he was dead at the age of 37.

When I learned of Sergei’s death, it was the worst news I had ever received in my life. It was like a knife going into my heart and I made a vow to myself, his fam­i­ly and his mem­o­ry that I would get jus­tice for him. For five years, I have tried to get that jus­tice, but the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment has used every tool at their dis­pos­al to thwart me. They claimed Sergei was nev­er tor­tured and he died of nat­ur­al caus­es. They claimed that he nev­er uncov­ered or exposed a crime, but was the one guilty of one. And most shock­ing­ly, they exon­er­at­ed every sin­gle Russ­ian state employ­ee involved in spite of a moun­tain of doc­u­men­tary evi­dence to the contrary.

 It became clear to me that there was no pos­si­bil­i­ty of jus­tice inside of Rus­sia so I sought jus­tice out­side of Rus­sia and have advo­cat­ed for sanc­tions against the peo­ple who killed Sergei in many coun­tries in the West. Three years after Sergei’s death, the US gov­ern­ment signed the Sergei Mag­nit­sky Rule of Law Account­abil­i­ty Act impos­ing visa sanc­tions and asset freezes on those involved in Sergei’s death as well as oth­er human rights vio­la­tions. Sim­i­lar sanc­tions are being con­sid­ered by gov­ern­ments in Europe as well.

 Putin and his gov­ern­ment have become infu­ri­at­ed at the glob­al reac­tion to Sergei’s case and have lashed out in all sorts of ways. Short­ly after the Mag­nit­sky Act was passed, Putin banned US adop­tions of dis­abled Russ­ian chil­dren. In 2013, more than three years after Sergei died, they put him on tri­al in the first ever posthu­mous tri­al in the his­to­ry of Rus­sia. They also put me on tri­al in absen­tia as his co-defen­dant and sen­tenced me to nine years.

 When I first start­ed this cam­paign, many peo­ple thought that what hap­pened to Sergei was some kind of anom­aly. They said “this is a sad sto­ry, but prob­a­bly a one-off”, but as time has gone by, more and more cas­es like this have sur­faced and it’s becom­ing obvi­ous to every­one that Rus­sia is a crim­i­nal state tak­ing inno­cent peo­ple hostage and doing hor­rif­ic things to them. The most recent actions in Ukraine make it clear to even the most ardent Russ­ian apol­o­gists that Rus­sia is engag­ing in all sorts of atroc­i­ties and brazen­ly cov­er­ing them up.

What hap­pened to Sergei is now a glob­al sym­bol of every­thing that is wrong with Rus­sia, from the actu­al crime of what they did to Sergei to the high lev­el cov­er-up to the threats against me and oth­ers seek­ing jus­tice. Despite the many hor­rif­ic threats and all the mis­in­for­ma­tion Rus­sia is spew­ing out in this case, I won’t back down in my call for jus­tice for Sergei Mag­nit­sky and nei­ther will those close to him.  We will not stop until the peo­ple who tor­tured and killed Sergei are prop­er­ly brought to justice.

Thank you for your con­tin­ued sup­port on this impor­tant mission.

European Parliamentarians Challenge EU’s New Foreign Policy Chief on Russia and Demand EU to Implement Magnitsky Sanctions in Europe

November 12, 2014

Euro­pean Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans Chal­lenge EU’s New For­eign Pol­i­cy Chief on Rus­sia and Demand EU to Imple­ment Mag­nit­sky Sanc­tions in Europe

12 Novem­ber 2014 – Over twen­ty deputies in the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment have writ­ten to Fed­er­i­ca Mogheri­ni, EU’s new for­eign pol­i­cy chief, ask­ing her to imple­ment the Euro­pean Parliament’s rec­om­men­da­tion to sanc­tion 32 per­sons involved in the arrest, tor­ture and mur­der of whis­tle-blow­ing Russ­ian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.

“We are writ­ing to you in rela­tion to the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment Rec­om­men­da­tion to the Coun­cil of 2 April 2014 on estab­lish­ing com­mon visa restric­tions for Russ­ian offi­cials involved in the Sergei Mag­nit­sky case. …As the new head of the Euro­pean Exter­nal Action Ser­vice, what near­est actions do you plan to under­take to fol­low through on this rec­om­men­da­tion?” — said Euro­pean Par­lia­ment deputies in their let­ter to Ms Mogheri­ni — “We ask you now in your new posi­tion to answer these ques­tions so the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment can then take a view of what to do next to make sure there is no fur­ther impuni­ty in the Mag­nit­sky case.”

Since Sergei Magnitsky’s mur­der in Russ­ian police deten­tion five years ago, the only sig­nif­i­cant actions tak­en in Rus­sia have been the posthu­mous tri­al of Sergei Mag­nit­sky him­self and the clo­sure of the inves­ti­ga­tion into his death, which found “no signs of crime,” and absolved all offi­cials from respon­si­bil­i­ty. The inves­ti­ga­tion was closed fol­low­ing Pres­i­dent Putin’s pub­lic inter­ven­tion at a Decem­ber 2012 press con­fer­ence, where he claimed that Mag­nit­sky was not tor­tured, but “died from a heart attack.” 

Sergei Mag­nit­sky’s case and the impuni­ty of the Russ­ian offi­cials involved have become a sym­bol of the endem­ic cor­rup­tion and fail­ing jus­tice sys­tem in Rus­sia, and high­light­ed the abuse that Russ­ian cit­i­zens face when they chal­lenge the author­i­ties. The case lead to a dra­mat­ic move­ment in Russ­ian civ­il soci­ety, call­ing on the West to cre­ate con­se­quences for those involved and specif­i­cal­ly to impose sanc­tions in the form of visa bans and freezes on assets in West­ern banks. 

In response to the Russ­ian impuni­ty, on 2 April 2014 the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment adopt­ed a res­o­lu­tion with­out any objec­tions requir­ing the Euro­pean Exter­nal Action Ser­vice, EU’s for­eign affairs body, to pro­pose the sanc­tions to the EU Coun­cil of Ministers. 

Since the res­o­lu­tion was passed, no action was tak­en by Baroness Cather­ine Ash­ton, the pre­vi­ous head of the EU’s Exter­nal Action Service. 

In addi­tion to the Euro­pean Par­lia­men­t’s actions in the Mag­nit­sky case, the U.S. passed the “Sergei Mag­nit­sky Rule of Law Account­abil­i­ty Act” in Decem­ber 2012, impos­ing sanc­tions on the com­plic­it Russ­ian offi­cials. Addi­tion­al­ly, the Par­lia­men­tary Assem­bly of the OSCE and the Par­lia­men­tary Assem­bly of the Coun­cil of Europe (PACE), inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tions com­pris­ing up to 57 coun­tries, passed res­o­lu­tions urg­ing their mem­bers and their nation­al par­lia­ments to adopt a course sim­i­lar to the US by imple­ment­ing Mag­nit­sky sanctions. 

Sergei Mag­nit­sky was a 37-year old lawyer and out­side coun­sel for the Her­mitage Fund, who was tor­tured to death in Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Min­istry cus­tody after he tes­ti­fied about the involve­ment of Inte­ri­or Min­istry offi­cials in the theft of his client’s com­pa­nies and the $230 mil­lion theft. The Russ­ian offi­cials respon­si­ble for his arrest, tor­ture and killing were absolved from any respon­si­bil­i­ty, pro­mot­ed and dec­o­rat­ed with state honours.

For more infor­ma­tion, please contact:

Mag­nit­sky Jus­tice Campaign
+44 2074401777
info@lawandorderinrussia.org
lawandorderinrussia.org

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