// Press Releases (in English)

Bill Browder Testified to British Parliament about the Luxury Spending Spree by Klyuev Money Laundering Network in London

May 4, 2016

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Bill Brow­der Tes­ti­fied to British Par­lia­ment about the Lux­u­ry Spend­ing Spree by Klyuev Mon­ey Laun­der­ing Net­work in London 

 

4 May 2016 – Bill Brow­der, leader of the glob­al “Jus­tice for Sergei Mag­nit­sky” cam­paign, revealed the results of a 6‑year long inves­ti­ga­tion of the Klyuev mon­ey laun­der­ing net­work uncov­ered by Sergei Mag­nit­sky. Mag­nit­sky, Hermitage’s out­side legal coun­sel, was killed in Russ­ian police cus­tody after giv­ing tes­ti­mo­ny about Russ­ian offi­cials’ com­plic­i­ty in the US$230 mil­lion fraud – the largest known tax refund fraud in mod­ern Russ­ian history.

 

In the tes­ti­mo­ny giv­en to the UK Parliament’s Home Affairs Com­mit­tee, William Brow­der iden­ti­fied more than US$30 mil­lion in pro­ceeds which came to the UK through the Klyuev mon­ey laun­der­ing network.

 

The head of the net­work, Dmit­ry Klyuev, was sen­tenced in Rus­sia in 2006, and was sanc­tioned by the US Gov­ern­ment in 2014 for his role in the Mag­nit­sky case under the US law, Sergei Mag­nit­sky Rule of Law Account­abil­i­ty Act.”

 

Dmit­ry Klyuev was own­er of ‘Uni­ver­sal Sav­ings Bank,’ which received a por­tion of the stolen US$230 mil­lion direct­ly from the Russ­ian trea­sury. Some of these pro­ceeds, through a series of shell com­pa­nies, end­ed up in the Cyprus bank accounts of his two con­nect­ed BVI com­pa­nies, Altem Invest and Zibar Man­age­ment, which then wired funds to the UK.

 

In addi­tion, the Klyuev mon­ey laun­der­ing net­work used UKIO BANKAS (Lithua­nia) for exten­sive  mon­ey laun­der­ing, accu­mu­lat­ing and laun­der­ing pro­ceeds from the US$230 mil­lion fraud and relat­ed crim­i­nal activ­i­ty, and wiring them abroad, includ­ing to recip­i­ents in the UK.

 

US$30 mil­lion were spent in the UK to hire pri­vate jets, pay for exclu­sive inte­ri­or design projects, pay tuition at an exclu­sive col­lege, pur­chase a wed­ding dress and cloth­ing from fash­ion bou­tiques, spend mon­ey through elite cred­it cards on a per­son­al concierge ser­vice, and make pay­ments to archi­tects and prop­er­ty agents.

 

  • US$295,622 was spent on Glam­our Cred­it Card, pro­mot­ed as “strict­ly by invi­ta­tion only,” “cater­ing to the wealth­i­est ladies world­wide,” offer­ing “access to a priv­i­leged and lux­u­ri­ous ser­vice the likes of which have nev­er before exist­ed,” with “no spend­ing limit.”

 

  • Over US$175,000 was paid to hire pri­vate jets.

 

  • US$240,000 was spent on a yacht.

 

  • Near­ly US$200,000 was paid to an exclu­sive home and yacht inte­ri­or design­er in Chelsea.

 

  • US$259,532 was sent to a lady con­nect­ed to an expen­sive prop­er­ty in Surrey.

 

  • Over US$40,000 was paid to a cou­ture wed­ding dress design­er in Lon­don, Philli­pa Lepley.

 

  • About US$20,000 was spent on pay­ment to a Lon­don fash­ion bou­tique “La Petite S.”

 

  • US$100,000 went to an award-win­ning lux­u­ry archi­tect and inte­ri­or design company.

 

  • £115,315 was wired to Har­rods Estate, a lux­u­ry prop­er­ty agent.

 

  • £2,500 was spent on Quin­tes­sen­tial­ly, a pre­mier per­son­al concierge service.

 

  • £19,500 was wired for prop­er­ty rental to a Lon­don real estate agent.

 

  • £18,470 was spent on fash­ion items from a fash­ion label.

 

This is the first time that mon­ey from the crime uncov­ered by Sergei Mag­nit­sky have been shown to reach recip­i­ents in the UK.

 

The Klyuev mon­ey laun­der­ing net­work used near­ly every major UK bank.

 

Sev­er­al UK cit­i­zens pro­vid­ed their ser­vices as direc­tors for shell com­pa­nies used in the Klyuev mon­ey laun­der­ing net­work. Some of the com­pa­nies used in the Klyuev mon­ey laun­der­ing net­work were also reg­is­tered in the UK, but held accounts with banks in the Baltics to con­ceal their illic­it activity.

 

John Wort­ley Hunt was direc­tor of Altem Invest Ltd, owned by Dmit­ry Klyuev, which received pro­ceeds from the US$230 mil­lion fraud and then sent funds to the UK. John Hunt was also list­ed as a direc­tor of 256 BVI com­pa­nies, 364 UK com­pa­nies, 29 Irish and 3 New Zealand com­pa­nies, accord­ing to pre­vi­ous reports.

 

Andrew Moray Stu­art was a direc­tor for a com­pa­ny owned by Vladlen Stepanov, the hus­band of Russ­ian Tax Offi­cial Olga Stepano­va, who approved a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of the ille­gal US$230 mil­lion tax refund. Andrew Moray Stu­art was also a direc­tor of For­res Lim­it­ed, which received and sent funds stolen from the Russ­ian trea­sury through a num­ber of shell com­pa­nies to the UK. Accord­ing to pre­vi­ous report­ing by inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ists, Andrew Moray Stu­art was list­ed as nom­i­nal direc­tor of 214 BVI com­pa­nies, 36 UK com­pa­nies, 43 Irish and 4 New Zealand companies.

 

Dami­an Calder­bank was direc­tor of Kar­eras Lim­it­ed, reg­is­tered in the UK, which siphoned stolen funds and rout­ed them through a series of shell com­pa­nies to the UK. He was reg­is­tered as direc­tor of 708 com­pa­nies, accord­ing to pre­vi­ous reports.

 

Past sub­mis­sions to the UK law enforce­ment author­i­ties from Her­mitage on the activ­i­ties of the Klyuev Organ­ised Crime Group in the UK were met with reluc­tance to investigate.

 

This is in con­trast to actions tak­en by author­i­ties in oth­er coun­tries, where over US$40 mil­lion in funds con­nect­ed to the crime exposed by Sergei Mag­nit­sky have been frozen:

 

  • The US court froze US$14 mil­lion in illic­it funds, traced by the U.S. Depart­ment of Jus­tice to Man­hat­tan real estate and bank accounts of Denis Kat­syv, the son of a senior Russ­ian gov­ern­ment official.

 

  • The Swiss Gen­er­al Pros­e­cu­tor froze about US$6 mil­lion in accounts belong­ing to the same Denis Kat­syv and his com­pa­nies and asso­ciates in Switzerland.

 

  • In addi­tion, the Swiss Gen­er­al Pros­e­cu­tor froze over US$10 mil­lion in bank accounts of Vladlen Stepanov, the hus­band of a Russ­ian tax offi­cial who approved part of the US$230 fraud­u­lent tax refund.

 

  • Last year, the French author­i­ties froze mil­lions of euros on accounts after launch­ing an inves­ti­ga­tion into the US$230 mil­lion fraud uncov­ered by Sergei Magnitsky.

 

We hope that with the new evi­dence of sub­stan­tial spend­ing in the UK, UK author­i­ties will now take a robust approach to inves­ti­gat­ing and pros­e­cut­ing those in the UK involved in the mon­ey laun­der­ing net­work uncov­ered by Sergei Mag­nit­sky,” said a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the ‘Jus­tice for Sergei Mag­nit­sky’ campaign.

 

The UK Parliament’s Home Affairs Committee’s inquiry is cur­rent­ly look­ing at the effec­tive­ness of mea­sures intro­duced in the UK’s Pro­ceeds of Crime Act 2002, in depriv­ing crim­i­nals of any ben­e­fit from their crimes.

 

For more infor­ma­tion, please contact:

 

Jus­tice for Sergei Magnitsky

+44 207 440 1777

e‑mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org

www.lawandorderinrussia.org

www.facebook.com/russianuntouchables

Twit­ter: @Billbrowder



William Browder Will Testify at the British Parliament on Details of a Russian Luxury Spending Spree in London of Money Connected to Crime Uncovered by Sergei Magnitsky

May 3, 2016

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William Brow­der Will Tes­ti­fy at the British Par­lia­ment on Details of a Russ­ian Lux­u­ry Spend­ing Spree in Lon­don of Mon­ey Con­nect­ed to Crime Uncov­ered by Sergei Magnitsky

 

3 May 2016  – Today, at 3 pm, William Brow­der, leader of the glob­al “Jus­tice for Sergei Mag­nit­sky” cam­paign, will tes­ti­fy in front of the UK Parliament’s Home Affairs Com­mit­teeabout the Russ­ian mon­ey laun­der­ing in the UK and the imple­men­ta­tion of the Pro­ceeds of Crime Act.

 

Mr Brow­der will reveal results of a six-year long inves­ti­ga­tion into the mon­ey laun­der­ing and pro­ceeds of cor­rup­tion exposed by Sergei Mag­nit­sky, which led to Magnitsky’s arrest, tor­ture and mur­der in Russ­ian police cus­tody at the age of 37.

 

The infor­ma­tion will include detailed descrip­tions of lux­u­ry pur­chas­es in Lon­don and sur­round­ing coun­ties totalling US$30 mil­lion con­nect­ed to the mon­ey laun­der­ing net­work uncov­ered thanks to Sergei Magnitsky.

 

This inves­ti­ga­tion was assist­ed by Alexan­der Perepilich­nyy, a Russ­ian whistle­blow­er who came for­ward after Sergei Magnitsky’s death and pro­vid­ed bank state­ments lead­ing to more than US$15 mil­lion being frozen by Swiss Pros­e­cu­tor Gen­er­al in a sep­a­rate Swiss mon­ey laun­der­ing inves­ti­ga­tion. Perepilich­nyy died in Novem­ber 2012 in sus­pi­cious cir­cum­stances in front of his home in Wey­bridge, Sur­rey at the age of 44.

 

The inves­ti­ga­tion into the Mag­nit­sky case has recent­ly revealed a con­nec­tion of the pro­ceeds from the crime Sergei Mag­nit­sky uncov­ered to the ‘Pana­ma Papers,’ and specif­i­cal­ly to Sergei Roldug­in, Pres­i­dent Putin’s long-time friend and cellist.

 

For more infor­ma­tion, please contact:

 

Jus­tice for Sergei Magnitsky

+44 207 440 1777

e‑mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org

www.lawandorderinrussia.org

Twit­ter: @Billbrowder

 

 



Leaders of the European Parliament Call on Mogherini To Impose EU-Wide Magnitsky Sanctions in the Wake of the Anti-Magnitsky Event held in Brussels last week

May 2, 2016

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Lead­ers of the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment Call on Mogheri­ni To Impose EU-Wide Mag­nit­sky Sanc­tions in the Wake of the Anti-Mag­nit­sky Event held in Brus­sels last week

 

2 May 2016  – Fol­low­ing the anti-Mag­nit­sky event held at the Euro­pean par­lia­ment last Wednes­day, and attend­ed by Rus­sians includ­ed on Euro­pean Parliament’s sanc­tions list, today lead­ing mem­bers of the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment have called on Fed­er­i­ca Mogheri­ni, EU’s for­eign affairs chief, to imple­ment Mag­nit­sky sanc­tions in Europe.

 

The call on Fed­er­i­ca Mogheri­ni, in charge of EU’s for­eign pol­i­cy, is signed by Elmar Brok, Chair­man of the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment Com­mit­tee on For­eign Affairs,  Rebec­ca Harms, pres­i­dent of The Greens – Euro­pean Free Alliance group, Guy Ver­hof­s­tadt, chair of the Alde Group, and oth­er mem­bers of the Euro­pean par­lia­ment from EPP, ECR, S&D, Alde, and Greens/EFA polit­i­cal groups.

 

Two years ago, on 2 April 2014,  the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment adopt­ed a res­o­lu­tion call­ing on the EU Coun­cil of Min­is­ters to sanc­tion 32 Russ­ian indi­vid­u­als, con­nect­ed to the case of Sergei Mag­nit­sky and his killing in Russ­ian police cus­tody after expos­ing the US$230 mil­lion fraud.  Since then, no action was tak­en by Euro­pean Exter­nal Action Ser­vice. In Jan­u­ary 2015, Ms Mogheri­ni advised the Euro­pean par­lia­men­tar­i­ans she did not think it was a good policy.

 

Last week, on 27 April 2016, a del­e­ga­tion of Rus­sians, includ­ing Pavel Kar­pov and Andrei Pavlov who are No 7 and No 15 on the Euro­pean Parliament’s Mag­nit­sky Sanc­tions Res­o­lu­tion list, attend­ed an anti-Mag­nit­sky event at the Euro­pean par­lia­ment in Brus­sels, which was wide­ly cov­ered by Russ­ian media. The event was orga­nized by Hei­di Hau­ta­la, MEP from Fin­land, to screen a defam­a­to­ry film about Sergei Mag­nit­sky pro­duced by her Russ­ian boyfriend, Andrei Nekrasov. The film false­ly claims that Sergei Mag­nit­sky had not been beat­en in cus­tody and had not named police offi­cers in his tes­ti­monies for their role in the fraud to steal US$230 mil­lion from the Russ­ian bud­get. Ms Hau­ta­la invit­ed Andrei Pavlov and Pavel Kar­pov, two peo­ple on the 32-peo­ple sanc­tions list approved by the par­lia­ment, to attend the event.

 

The pres­ence in the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment of two of these indi­vid­u­als, tar­get­ed by inter­na­tion­al sanc­tions, shows clear­ly the need for con­cert­ed  EU action, and that HRVP Mogheri­ni must final­ly bring the Mag­nit­sky sanc­tions to the Coun­cil for adop­tion,” said the state­ment by lead­ers of the Euro­pean Parliament.

 

We, mem­bers of the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment, strong­ly protest against the fact that two indi­vid­u­als named on a Euro­pean Par­lia­men­t’s sanc­tions list received access to and par­tic­i­pat­ed in an event in the EP held on 27 April this year … which appears to be used as part of a broad­er cam­paign to dis­cred­it crit­ics of the Russ­ian lead­er­ship, both inside and out­side the coun­try, and to den­i­grate Sergey Mag­nit­sky’s per­son­al­i­ty and his trag­ic death in a Russ­ian prison cell,” said lead­ers of the Euro­pean Parliament.

Pavel Kar­pov and Andrei Pavlov are No 7 and No 15 on the Euro­pean Parliament’s Mag­nit­sky list, which rec­om­mends the EU Coun­cil of Min­is­ters to impose visa sanc­tions and asset freezes on those who were involved in the crimes against Sergei Magnitsky.

#7: KARPOV, Pavel, born 27 August 1977;

#15: PAVLOV, Andrey (a.k.a. Pavlov, Andrei), born 7 August 1977;

P and H

Andrei Pavlov greet­ing Hei­di Hau­ta­la, MEP, 27 April 2016

 

 

For more infor­ma­tion, please contact:

 

Jus­tice for Sergei Magnitsky

+44 207 440 1777

e‑mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org

www.lawandorderinrussia.org

www.facebook.com/russianuntouchables

Twit­ter: @Billbrowder

 

 



Two Russians Included in the European Parliament’s Magnitsky List Welcomed at the European Parliament for Anti-Magnitsky Event

April 29, 2016

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Two Rus­sians Includ­ed in the Euro­pean Parliament’s Mag­nit­sky List Wel­comed at the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment for Anti-Mag­nit­sky Event

 

29 April 2016  – Two Rus­sians on the Euro­pean Parliament’s Mag­nit­sky Sanc­tions List were wel­comed at the Euro­pean par­lia­ment for the pre­miere of a film by a Russ­ian film­mak­er Andrei Nekrasov, defam­ing the mem­o­ry of Sergei Magnitsky.

 

Among those present in the audi­ence in Brus­sels on April 27th were ex police offi­cer Pavel Kar­pov, named in Sergei Magnitsky’s tes­ti­mo­ny for his role in the cus­tody of doc­u­ments and files, used in the fraud to steal $230 mil­lion from the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment, and Andrei Pavlov, the lawyer who took part in sham court pro­ceed­ings, described in Sergei Magnitsky’s tes­ti­mo­ny as part of that same crime.

 

Pavel Kar­pov and Andrei Pavlov are No 7 and No 15 on the Euro­pean Parliament’s Mag­nit­sky list, which rec­om­mends the Euro­pean Coun­cil to impose visa sanc­tions and asset freezes on those who were involved in the crimes against Sergei Magnitsky.

#7: KARPOV, Pavel, born 27 August 1977;

#15: PAVLOV, Andrey (a.k.a. Pavlov, Andrei), born 7 August 1977;

 

In his tes­ti­mo­ny on the fraud, Sergei Mag­nit­sky described the roles of both Pavel Kar­pov and Andrei Pavlov. In par­tic­u­lar, Sergei Mag­nit­sky said in his 5 June 2008 testimony:

 

Many times the lawyer of Fire­stone Dun­can (CIS) Lim­it­ed and the company’s rep­re­sen­ta­tives request­ed Inves­ti­ga­tor P.A. Kar­pov to return the seized doc­u­ments that were not relat­ed to the case inves­ti­gat­ed by P.A. Kar­pov, but the inves­ti­ga­tor kept delay­ing the return of the doc­u­ments say­ing that there were many doc­u­ments and it took him much time to fin­ish exam­in­ing them.”

 

I can con­firm that the seized fold­ers, which I also used in my work, con­tained the orig­i­nals of the lat­est edi­tions of the Arti­cles of Asso­ci­a­tion of LLC Kameya, LLC Par­fe­nion, LLC Rilend and LLC Makhaon, the orig­i­nal cer­tifi­cates of the tax reg­is­tra­tion, the orig­i­nal cer­tifi­cates of the legal enti­ty state reg­is­tra­tion, the orig­i­nal Min­utes of meet­ings and res­o­lu­tions of the sole par­tic­i­pants of the com­pa­nies, the orig­i­nal legal­ized cer­tifi­cates con­firm­ing the res­i­den­cy of the com­pa­nies’ par­tic­i­pants and some oth­er doc­u­ments,” tes­ti­fied Sergei Magnitsky.

 

In his tes­ti­mo­ny Sergei Mag­nit­sky described fic­ti­tious claims filed against Hermitage’s com­pa­nies in Rus­sia and the appear­ance of Pavlov in those sham court proceedings:

 

Almost at once it became clear that the fil­ing and con­sid­er­a­tion of the said claims were asso­ci­at­ed with fraud­u­lent actions because as it fol­lowed from the deci­sions of the Arbi­tra­tion Court of Saint-Peters­burg and the Leningrad Region dat­ed 3 and 7 Sep­tem­ber 2007, the court hear­ings had been attend­ed by the LLC Makhaon rep­re­sen­ta­tive Yu.M. Maioro­va and the LLC Rilend rep­re­sen­ta­tive A.A. Pavlov, who pre­sent­ed Pow­ers of Attor­ney said to be issued by those com­pa­nies and dat­ed 24 August 2007. It means the Pow­ers of Attor­ney were forged ones because the com­pa­nies’ seals had been seized and were kept at the Main Inves­tiga­tive Depart­ment of the Main Inter­nal Affairs Depart­ment of Moscow.

 

Four months lat­er, on 7 Octo­ber 2008, Sergei Mag­nit­sky con­firmed his 5 June 2008 tes­ti­mo­ny and added in his tes­ti­mo­ny the dis­cov­ery of “the embez­zle­ment of bud­get funds that took place in excess of Five Bil­lion rubles, which was obvi­ous­ly com­mit­ted by the same group of per­sons that used ille­gal re-reg­is­tra­tion of Par­fe­nion LLC, Makhaon LLC, and Rilend LLC and fil­ing claims against those com­pa­nies as a tool for embez­zling mon­ey from the state trea­sury.

 

At the event held in the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment sev­en and half years lat­er, on 27 April 2016,  Pavel Kar­pov was giv­ing inter­views to Russ­ian TV sta­tions, and Andrei Pavlov was able to approach Hei­di Hau­ta­la, MEP from Fin­land, who host­ed the event.

 

Andrei Pavlov greet­ing Hei­di Hau­ta­la, MEP, 27 April 2016

 

Lithuan­ian MEP Petras Aus­tre­vi­cius inter­rupt­ed pro­ceed­ings in the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment the fol­low­ing day, on 28 April 2016, to draw atten­tion to the fact that two Russ­ian cit­i­zens whose names were placed on the Euro­pean Parliament’s Mag­nit­sky list, had been allowed access to the par­lia­ment the pre­vi­ous day.

 

Mr Aus­tre­vi­cius, MEP, said:

 

I deplore this hap­pen­ing with­in the walls of the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment,” it was, he went on, “an issue of the integri­ty of our own decisions.”

 

For more infor­ma­tion, please contact:

 

Jus­tice for Sergei Magnitsky

+44 207 440 1777

e‑mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org

www.lawandorderinrussia.org

www.facebook.com/russianuntouchables

Twit­ter: @Billbrowder

 

Let­ter from the Mag­nit­sky Fam­i­ly about the film of Andrei Nekrasov defam­ing mem­o­ry of Sergei Magnitsky

http://russian-untouchables.com/docs/Letter%20from%20the%20Family%20of%20Sergei%20Magnitsky%20on%20Nekrasov%20movie.pdf

 

 



Magnitsky Family Blasts the Green Party in the European Parliament for Hosting Premiere of a False and Offensive Film about Sergei Magnitsky by Andrei Nekrasov

April 27, 2016

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Mag­nit­sky Fam­i­ly Blasts the Green Par­ty in the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment for Host­ing Pre­miere of a False and Offen­sive Film about Sergei Mag­nit­sky by Andrei Nekrasov

 

27 April 2016 – The wid­ow and moth­er of Sergei Mag­nit­sky have writ­ten to the Green/EFA fac­tion in the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment (see their let­ter) protest­ing the pre­miere of a new false, offen­sive and defam­a­to­ry film by Russ­ian film­mak­er Andrei Nekrasov about their mur­dered hus­band and son. The pre­miere will take place this after­noon at 5:30 pm at the Euro­pean Parliament.

 

The pre­miere is spon­sored at the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment by the Greens/EFA Group, and host­ed by Hei­di Hau­ta­la, Finnish MEP, Vice Pres­i­dent of the Green/EFA Group, who was report­ed in the Finnish press to be film­mak­er Andrei Nekrasov’s girl­friend.

 

The Mag­nit­sky fam­i­ly expressed their indig­na­tion in the let­ter about this new attempt to black­en Sergei Magnitsky’s name. They view this film as pro­mot­ing the inter­ests of those who Sergei Mag­nit­sky exposed and who are afraid of the truth he had uncovered.

 

This film has been made in the inter­est of those who are scared of the truth uncov­ered by Sergei Mag­nit­sky, - said Sergei Magnitsky’s moth­er and wid­ow. - “By this let­ter the fam­i­ly of Sergei Mag­nit­sky state their high­ly neg­a­tive reac­tion to this film and protest against uncon­scionable attempts to black­en Sergei Magnitsky’s name. We are cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly against pub­lic view­ing of the Andrei Nekrasov’s film, against its dis­tri­b­u­tion in any form.”

 

The let­ter from the Mag­nit­sky fam­i­ly states that the film con­tains false infor­ma­tion and lies about Sergei Mag­nit­sky. They are cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly against any show­ing or dis­tri­b­u­tion of this film, includ­ing and espe­cial­ly at the Euro­pean Parliament.

 

We believe that the film by Andrei Nekrasov, based on his inven­tions, and not on doc­u­ments and facts, is degrad­ing to the dig­ni­ty of Sergei Mag­nit­sky, degrad­ing to the deceased, who can­not defend him­self,” says the let­ter from the Mag­nit­sky family.

 

The film by Andrei Nekrasov and pro­duc­er Torstein Grude of Piraya Films (Nor­way) is designed to per­pet­u­ate a Russ­ian gov­ern­ment dis­in­for­ma­tion cam­paign about the Mag­nit­sky case for a West­ern audi­ence. The film claims that Sergei Mag­nit­sky was not beat­en in cus­tody, was not a lawyer, did not tes­ti­fy against Russ­ian offi­cials, did not inves­ti­gate the US$230 mil­lion fraud, but instead com­mit­ted it himself.
These false claims are con­tra­dict­ed by numer­ous doc­u­ments. In par­tic­u­lar, the claim that he was­n’t beat­en is refut­ed by the pho­tos of his injuries from the state autop­sy; his death cer­tifi­cate stat­ing he had a sus­pect­ed cere­br­i­al cra­nial injury; cer­tifi­cates from the deten­tion cen­ter where he died record­ing the appli­ca­tion of rub­ber batons; the Russ­ian state foren­sic opin­ion find­ing that Sergei Magnitsky’s injuries were con­sis­tent with blunt force trauma.
Magnitsky’s pro­fes­sion as a lawyer is demon­strat­ed by his role in rep­re­sent­ing his mul­ti­ple clients in court, pro­vid­ing them legal advice, and his own tes­ti­mo­ny iden­ti­fy­ing him­self as a lawyer.

 

The fact that Sergei Magnitsky’s tes­ti­fied against police offi­cers is proven by his tes­ti­mo­ny from 5 June 2008 in which he described the theft of Hermitage’s com­pa­nies and fraud­u­lent claims against them, men­tion­ing police offi­cer Kuznetsov 14 times and police offi­cer Kar­pov 13 times, his 7 Octo­ber 2008 tes­ti­mo­ny in which he con­firmed his 5 June 2008 tes­ti­mo­ny and tes­ti­fied that the same group who stole Hermitage’s com­pa­nies stole US$230 mln from the Russ­ian budget.

 

The claim that Sergei Mag­nit­sky stole US$230 mln is refut­ed by the dis­cov­ery of the illic­it pro­ceeds from the fraud on accounts con­nect­ed to the Russ­ian offi­cials and mem­bers of their fam­i­lies; the joint trav­el of the crim­i­nals and Russ­ian gov­ern­ment offi­cials involved in the fraud; the fact that Mag­nit­sky helped Her­mitage report the crime three weeks before the crim­i­nals applied for the fraud­u­lent tax refund, and the fact that the same crim­i­nal organ­i­sa­tion did sim­i­lar crimes before and after.

 

The false and defam­a­to­ry alle­ga­tions about Sergei Mag­nit­sky that Nekrasov tries to make have been refut­ed in the past by inde­pen­dent inter­na­tion­al insti­tu­tions includ­ing the Coun­cil of Europe, the EU Par­lia­ment, the US State Depart­ment and many oth­ers who have stud­ied the case in detail. Fur­ther­more, the alle­ga­tions in the film are also con­tra­dict­ed by the Russ­ian government’s own evi­dence, court records, and expert conclusions.

 

In Sergei Magnitsky’s own hand-writ­ten state­ment, 4 days before his death, on 12 Novem­ber 2009, he wrote:

 

By now it has been a year that I am being held hostage in prison in the inter­ests of the per­sons, who are inter­est­ed to ensure that those actu­al­ly guilty in the theft of 5.4 bil­lion rubles [US$230 mil­lion] from the bud­get will nev­er be brought to jus­tice. … Inves­ti­ga­tor Silchenko does not want to iden­ti­fy the oth­er per­sons, who made this fraud pos­si­ble. He wants the lawyers of the Her­mitage Fund, who pur­sued and con­tin­ue to pur­sue attempts for this case be inves­ti­gat­ed, be forced to emi­grate from their coun­try, in which crim­i­nal cas­es were fab­ri­cat­ed against them on pho­ny grounds, or like me be detained in custody.

 

My deten­tion in cus­tody has absolute­ly noth­ing in com­mon with the pur­pose of crim­i­nal jus­tice, which I referred to ear­li­er. It has noth­ing in com­mon with the legal pur­pose of restraint list­ed in Arti­cle 97 of the Russ­ian Crim­i­nal Pro­ce­dur­al Code, but this is a pun­ish­ment to which I have been sub­ject­ed for mere­ly defend­ing the inter­ests of my client and, ulti­mate­ly, the inter­ests of the Gov­ern­ment, because should my client’s inter­ests be real­ized, should the law enforce­ment agen­cies stop obstruct­ing the inter­ests of my client and instead assist­ed them, then the theft of 5.4 bil­lion rubles from the state would not be pos­si­ble. The actu­al pur­pose of my crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion and my deten­tion in cus­tody are in con­flict with the law.”

 

The moth­er of Sergei Mag­nit­sky has pre­vi­ous­ly writ­ten to the pro­duc­er of the film, but received no reply.

 

Let­ter from Sergei Mag­nit­sky Fam­i­ly: http://russian-untouchables.com/docs/Letter%20from%20family%20%20on%20Nekrasov%20movie.pdf

 

For more infor­ma­tion please contact:

 

Jus­tice for Sergei Magnitsky

 

+44 207 440 1777

e‑mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org

www.lawandorderinrussia.org

www.facebook.com/russianuntouchables

Twit­ter: @Billbrowder

 

 

 



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