// Press Releases (in English)

US Appeals Court to Hear Emergency Motion on Disqualification of Lawyer John Moscow in the Magnitsky Case in New York

January 18, 2016

US Appeals Court to Hear Emer­gency Motion on Dis­qual­i­fi­ca­tion of Lawyer John Moscow in the Mag­nit­sky Case in New York

18 Jan­u­ary 2016 – The Unit­ed States Court of Appeals for the Sec­ond Cir­cuit has agreed to an emer­gency hear­ing to be held at 10 am on Fri­day, 22 Jan­u­ary 2016, on an appli­ca­tion from Her­mitage Cap­i­tal Man­age­ment seek­ing to sus­pend the case of US vs Pre­ve­zon, to hear an appeal which will deter­mine whether lawyers with a seri­ous con­flict of inter­est should be allowed to remain on the case.

Hermitage’s appli­ca­tion aris­es out of U.S. law firm Bak­er Hostetler and its part­ner, John Moscow, switch­ing sides in the Russ­ian mon­ey laun­der­ing case from rep­re­sent­ing the vic­tim – Her­mitage, to rep­re­sent­ing the ben­e­fi­cia­ry of the crime – Pre­ve­zon Holdings.

Her­mitage said in sup­port of its motion for stay in the legal proceeding:

“A stay pend­ing appeal is in the pub­lic inter­est. A lawyer’s oblig­a­tion to pre­serveclient con­fi­dences “touch­es upon vital con­cerns of the legal pro­fes­sion and the public’s inter­estin the scrupu­lous admin­is­tra­tion of justice.”

Hermitage’s motion is sup­port­ed by the US Depart­ment of Jus­tice, who said to the Appeals Court that the con­duct of Bak­er Hostetler rep­re­sents an “unheard of”, “extreme­ly rare” and “egre­gious” case of con­flict of inter­est giv­en that the law firm not only switched sides but went fur­ther by accus­ing Her­mitage, its for­mer client, of the crime of which Her­mitage has been the victim.

“The egre­gious sit­u­a­tion seen here, where an attor­ney for a vic­tim attempts to switch sides to rep­re­sent a ben­e­fi­cia­ry of the offense, is extreme­ly rare, and it is unheard of that such attor­ney would go fur­ther and accuse his for­mer client, the vic­tim, of com­mit­ting the offense. Accord­ing­ly, courts have sel­dom been called upon to rule on such an extreme con­flict, often because it is sim­ply not done,” said the US Depart­ment of Jus­tice in their affir­ma­tion of Hermitage’s motion.

On 18 Decem­ber 2015, the dis­trict court judge Thomas Griesa in the South­ern Dis­trict of New York grant­ed Hermitage’s motion to dis­qual­i­fy Bak­er Hostetler and John Moscow, find­ing it would be improp­er for Bak­er Hostetler to con­tin­ue to rep­re­sent defen­dants Pre­ve­zon Hold­ings because of Bak­er Hostetler’s pri­or rep­re­sen­ta­tion of Her­mitage. How­ev­er, on 8 Jan­u­ary 2016, Judge Griesa reversed his deci­sion rul­ing that Prevezon’s right to the choice of lawyers was more impor­tant than Hermitage’s right to not be betrayed by for­mer counsel.

Pre­ve­zon Hold­ings is owned by the son of a senior Russ­ian gov­ern­ment offi­cial and, accord­ing to the U.S. Depart­ment of Justice’s law­suit, has been involved in laun­der­ing pro­ceeds from the US$230 mil­lion fraud uncov­ered by Hermitage’s late lawyer Sergei Mag­nit­sky. The US Depart­ment of Jus­tice, hav­ing traced pro­ceeds stolen in Rus­sia to Prevezon’s real estate prop­er­ties in Man­hat­tan, filed a civ­il law­suit seek­ing mon­ey laun­der­ing fines and for­fei­ture of US$14 mil­lion in Prevezon’s US assets. After the assets were frozen, Pre­ve­zon sought the ser­vices of John Moscow and Bak­er Hostetler. In spite of the obvi­ous con­flict of inter­est, John Moscow and Bak­er Hostetler agreed to rep­re­sent alleged ben­e­fi­cia­ries of the US$230 mil­lion crime – ignor­ing the fact that they had been pre­vi­ous­ly hired by Her­mitage to iden­ti­fy and bring to jus­tice per­pe­tra­tors and ben­e­fi­cia­ries of this crime.

On 13 Jan­u­ary 2016, Her­mitage filed an emer­gency motion to sus­pend the pro­ceed­ings in the asset for­fei­ture case against Pre­ve­zon until the issue of John Moscow and Bak­er Hostetler’s dis­qual­i­fi­ca­tion is resolved.

In sup­port­ing the Hermitage’s motion, the US Depart­ment of Jus­tice stated:

“After tak­ing almost $200,000 of Hermitage’s mon­ey to attempt to pre­vent Her­mitage from being accused of com­mit­ting the fraud, [Bak­er Hostetler’s part­ner] Moscow is now tak­ing the mon­ey of an alleged ben­e­fi­cia­ry of the very same fraud to him­self accuse Her­mitage of com­mit­ting the fraud.”

“Allow­ing the tri­al to take place in this fash­ion, and to expose Her­mitage to such irrepara­ble injury at the hands of its for­mer coun­sel, would be a mis­car­riage of jus­tice set­ting a prece­dent that would severe­ly harm crime vic­tims’ inter­ests and could chill the coop­er­a­tion of vic­tims with law enforce­ment,” said the US Jus­tice Depart­ment in its filing.

The US$230 fraud and mon­ey laun­der­ing case was uncov­ered by Hermitage’s Russ­ian lawyer, Sergei Mag­nit­sky, who was tor­tured and killed in Russ­ian police cus­tody after he had giv­en tes­ti­mo­ny impli­cat­ing Russ­ian gov­ern­ment offi­cials in the scheme. To per­pe­trate the US$230 mil­lion fraud, the Russ­ian crim­i­nal organ­i­sa­tion stole three Russ­ian com­pa­nies belong­ing to the Her­mitage Fund and then sought an ille­gal refund of US$230 mil­lion of tax­es pre­vi­ous­ly paid by those companies.

When Hermitage’s Russ­ian lawyers report­ed the offi­cials involved, the lawyers them­selves became sub­ject of retal­i­a­tion from Russ­ian author­i­ties. In 2008, Her­mitage hired Bak­er Hostetler’s part­ner John Moscow to pro­tect Her­mitage and its lawyers and exec­u­tives from the retal­i­a­tion. Mr. Moscow had pre­vi­ous­ly been a spe­cial­ist in com­bat­ing Russ­ian organ­ised crime and cor­rup­tion in the New York Dis­trict Attorney’s office. He assist­ed Her­mitage with the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of the ben­e­fi­cia­ries of the US$230 mil­lion fraud and liais­ing with the US law enforce­ment in bring­ing those ben­e­fi­cia­ries to jus­tice. Sev­er­al years lat­er the US Depart­ment of Jus­tice traced some of the US$230 mil­lion pro­ceeds to Man­hat­tan prop­er­ties owned by Pre­ve­zon and filed a law­suit in which John Moscow and Bak­er Hostetler appeared for Prevezon.

The hear­ing will take place in New York in the Thur­good Mar­shall U.S. Cour­t­house, 17^th floor, Room 1703 lat­er this week, on 22 Jan­u­ary 2016.

For more infor­ma­tion, please contact: 

Jus­tice for Sergei Mag­nit­sky Campaign

+44 207 440 1777

e‑mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org

www.lawandorderinrussia.org

Twit­ter: @KatieFisher__

www.facebook.com/russianuntouchables

Sergei Magnitsky’s Mother Demands Answers from Russia’s General Prosecutor Chaika About False Statements Against Her Son

December 22, 2015

Sergei Mag­nit­sky’s Moth­er Demands Answers from Rus­si­a’s Gen­er­al Pros­e­cu­tor Chai­ka About False State­ments Against Her Son

Yuri Chai­ka

22 Decem­ber 2015  – Sergei Mag­nit­sky’s moth­er has demand­ed answers from Russ­ian Gen­er­al pros­e­cu­tor Chai­ka over his hys­ter­i­cal let­ter con­tain­ing false infor­ma­tion about Sergei Mag­nit­sky pub­lished last week in Russ­ian news­pa­per Kom­m­er­sant. Chaika’s let­ter was a response to Russ­ian blog­ger Alex­ei Naval­ny’s explo­sive video about the cor­rup­tion and abuse of office involv­ing Chaika’s two sons and senior pros­e­cu­tors in the country.

In Chaika’s14 Decem­ber 2015 let­ter to Kom­m­er­sant, he claimed that Sergei Mag­nit­sky had nev­er inves­ti­gat­ed the $230 mil­lion theft from the Russ­ian budget.

In Sergei Mag­nit­sky’s moth­er’s appli­ca­tion to the Gen­er­al Pros­e­cu­tor’s office which was filed at the end of last week, she refut­ed Chaika’s false state­ments and placed the respon­si­bil­i­ty on Chai­ka him­self for the cov­er up of the $230 mil­lion theft and its per­pe­tra­tors impli­cat­ed by Sergei Mag­nit­sky in sworn testimony.

“The infor­ma­tion you have dis­sem­i­nat­ed inflicts pain on a moth­er who lost her son, it is not based on facts, it has not been cor­rob­o­rat­ed by courts, and it is refut­ed by doc­u­ments, includ­ing the crim­i­nal case files about Mag­nit­sky’s death,” said Ms. Mag­nit­skaya to Pros­e­cu­tor Chaika.

“Thanks to Sergei Mag­nit­sky’s inves­ti­ga­tion which he con­duct­ed on instruc­tion from his client — the Her­mitage Fund — the theft of 5.4 bil­lion rubles [$230 mil­lion] was uncov­ered, and report­ed to you on 25 July 2008 in an appli­ca­tion seek­ing to inves­ti­gate the fraud and pros­e­cute its per­pe­tra­tors. In response your senior aid Bumazhkin replied that the inves­ti­ga­tion had been ter­mi­nat­ed …due to the lack of crime. Your aid also report­ed that the out­comes of this inves­ti­ga­tion were under con­trol of the Gen­er­al Pros­e­cu­tor’s Office,” said the appli­ca­tion from Ms. Magnitskaya.

“It fol­lows that under the con­trol and with knowl­edge of the Russ­ian Gen­er­al Pros­e­cu­tor’s Office head­ed by you, per­pe­tra­tors who com­mit­ted a grandiose theft of 5.4 bil­lion rubles from the bud­get, remained for a long time free, had oppor­tu­ni­ty to destroy evi­dence of their crime and con­tin­ue it unhin­dered through laun­der­ing the pro­ceeds stolen from the Russ­ian peo­ple via bank wire trans­fers,” said Ms. Mag­nit­skaya’s application.

Sergei Mag­nit­sky’s moth­er’s appli­ca­tion asks Chai­ka whether the infor­ma­tion he had dis­sem­i­nat­ed was his per­son­al opin­ion, or his offi­cial con­clu­sion as Gen­er­al pros­e­cu­tor of Rus­sia tasked by Russ­ian pres­i­dent to per­son­al­ly over­see all cas­es con­nect­ed to Sergei Mag­nit­sky. The reply from Pros­e­cu­tor Chai­ka to Mag­nit­sky’s moth­er appli­ca­tion is yet not known.

For more infor­ma­tion please contact: 

Jus­tice for Sergei Magnitsky

+44 207 440 1777

e‑mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org

www.lawandorderinrussia.org

Twit­ter: @KatieFisher__

www.facebook.com/russianuntouchables

www.billbrowder.com

New York Federal Court Disqualifies Lawyer John Moscow and BakerHostetler in Magnitsky Money Laundering Case

December 21, 2015

New York Fed­er­al Court Dis­qual­i­fies Lawyer John Moscow and Bak­er­Hostetler in Mag­nit­sky Mon­ey Laun­der­ing Case

21 Decem­ber 2015 – The fed­er­al court in New York has dis­qual­i­fied lawyer John Moscow and his firm, Bak­er­Hostetler, who rep­re­sent­ed the alleged Russ­ian recip­i­ents of mon­ey laun­der­ing pro­ceeds from the US$230 mil­lion Russ­ian fraud that Sergei Mag­nit­sky uncov­ered, in a civ­il for­fei­ture case brought by the US Depart­ment of Jus­tice. The case alleges mon­ey laun­der­ing of pro­ceeds of Russ­ian fraud into mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar Man­hat­tan real estate by Pre­ve­zon, a com­pa­ny owned by a son of for­mer Vice-pre­mier of the Moscow Region and the cur­rent Vice-pres­i­dent of Russ­ian Rail­ways Pyotr Katsyv.

John Moscow and Bak­er­Hostetler had orig­i­nal­ly worked for Her­mitage in 2008 to defend Her­mitage against unfound­ed accu­sa­tions relat­ing to the fraud, includ­ing (among oth­er projects) by track­ing the stolen US$230 mil­lion and its recip­i­ents, and bring­ing the evi­dence of this com­plex Russ­ian fraud which vic­timised Her­mitage, to the US Depart­ment of Jus­tice. On Her­mitage’s behalf, John Moscow per­son­al­ly pre­sent­ed the find­ings from the Her­mitage’s and Sergei Mag­nit­sky’s inves­ti­ga­tions of the $230 mil­lion fraud to the U.S. Attor­ney’s Office.

On 25 Novem­ber 2008, one day after Sergei Mag­nit­sky’s arrest by cor­rupt Russ­ian offi­cials on false charges, John Moscow also became involved in Her­mitage’s legal actions to free Sergei Mag­nit­sky from Russ­ian deten­tion. Pri­or to his arrest, Sergei Mag­nit­sky gave tes­ti­mo­ny to Russ­ian author­i­ties impli­cat­ing Russ­ian offi­cials in the theft of Her­mitage’s Russ­ian com­pa­nies and of US$230 mil­lion the Her­mitage’s com­pa­nies had paid to the Russ­ian government.

One year lat­er, on 16 Novem­ber 2009, Sergei Mag­nit­sky was killed in Russ­ian police cus­tody before he could tes­ti­fy in an open trial.

In 2013, John Moscow and Bak­er­Hostetler switched sides, and went from rep­re­sent­ing Her­mitage to rep­re­sent­ing Russ­ian-owned Pre­ve­zon, an alleged ben­e­fi­cia­ry of the US$230 mil­lion fraud, that Sergei Mag­nit­sky’s inves­ti­ga­tion had led to after his death. The US Depart­ment of Jus­tice has traced to Pre­ve­zon near­ly US$2 mil­lion of the US$230 mil­lion fraud pro­ceeds and more funds in false and ques­tion­able trans­ac­tions.  The US court has frozen about US$14 mil­lion in Pre­ve­zon’s assets, includ­ing bank accounts and sev­er­al Man­hat­tan properties.

In Novem­ber 2015, John Moscow and Bak­er­Hostetler made fil­ings on Pre­ve­zon’s behalf in which they explic­it­ly accused Her­mitage of com­mit­ting the US$230 mil­lion fraud that they orig­i­nal­ly have been hired to defend against.

On 15 Decem­ber 2015, Her­mitage filed a motion to dis­qual­i­fy Bak­er­Hostetler and John Moscow.

In Judge Griesa’s opin­ion, issued on 18 Decem­ber 2015, the U.S. Court for South­ern Dis­trict of New York ordered:

“The court is now con­vinced that it would be improp­er for Bak­er­Hostetler and Moscow to con­tin­ue as coun­sel to defen­dants. …Her­mitage’s motion to dis­qual­i­fy Bak­er­Hostetler and Moscow as coun­sel to defen­dants is granted.”

Her­mitage Cap­i­tal’s rep­re­sen­ta­tive said of the dis­qual­i­fi­ca­tion of John Moscow and Bak­er­Hostetler:

“This dis­qual­i­fi­ca­tion is a stark reminder that lawyers can’t switch sides just because there is mon­ey being offered to them.”

Under Rule 1.9 of the New York Rule of Pro­fes­sion­al Con­duct, lawyers are not allowed to betray their for­mer clients. In par­tic­u­lar, the rule says:

“A lawyer who has for­mer­ly rep­re­sent­ed a client in a mat­ter shall not there­after rep­re­sent anoth­er per­son in the same or a sub­stan­tial­ly relat­ed mat­ter in which that person’s inter­ests are mate­ri­al­ly adverse to the inter­ests of the for­mer client unless the for­mer client gives informed con­sent, con­firmed in writing.”

Her­mitage became the vic­tim of the US$230 mil­lion fraud in 2007 when a Russ­ian crim­i­nal organ­i­sa­tion, com­pris­ing FSB, Inte­ri­or Min­istry and tax offi­cials and head­ed by a con­vict­ed fraud­ster Dmit­ry Klyuev, raid­ed offices of Her­mitage and its law firm in Moscow, unlaw­ful­ly seized statu­to­ry and finan­cial doc­u­ments for its cor­po­rate Russ­ian sub­sidiaries. Using those doc­u­ments, the Russ­ian crime group forged con­tracts and pow­ers of attor­ney, fraud­u­lent­ly re-reg­is­tered the stolen Her­mitage com­pa­nies to felons pre­vi­ous­ly con­vict­ed for vio­lent crimes, and through sham court pro­ceed­ings obtained about US$1 bil­lion judg­ments against the stolen Her­mitage com­pa­nies, in order to claim US$230 mil­lion in pur­port­ed­ly “over­paid” taxes.

The fraud­u­lent US$230 mil­lion tax refund was grant­ed by Russ­ian tax offi­cials, who were mem­bers of the crime group, in one day, and paid out two days lat­er to two small Russ­ian banks, where fraud­sters had opened bank accounts, and then laun­dered through Russ­ian banks and around the world.

Through efforts of Her­mitage and law enforce­ment author­i­ties around the world, about US$40 mil­lion con­nect­ed to the US$230 mil­lion fraud uncov­ered by Sergei Mag­nit­sky have been iden­ti­fied and frozen.

Bak­er­Hostetler is an “Am Law 100 law firm” with more than 900 attor­neys and 14 offices. John Moscow is a for­mer New York pros­e­cu­tor and a part­ner at Bak­er Hostetler.

For more infor­ma­tion please contact: 

Jus­tice for Sergei Magnitsky

+44 207 440 1777

e‑mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org

www.lawandorderinrussia.org

Twit­ter: @KatieFisher__

www.facebook.com/russianuntouchables

www.billbrowder.com

U.S. Senate Unanimously Passes the Global Magnitsky Act

December 18, 2015

U.S. Sen­ate Unan­i­mous­ly Pass­es the Glob­al Mag­nit­sky Act

18 Decem­ber 2015 –  In a ground-break­ing move, Unit­ed States Sen­ate unan­i­mous­ly passed the Glob­al Mag­nit­sky bill. The bill offi­cial­ly called, “S.284 – Glob­al Mag­nit­sky Human Rights Account­abil­i­ty Act”, directs the Pres­i­dent to sanc­tion human rights vio­la­tors from any­where around the world. The spe­cif­ic sanc­tions are visa bans, asset freezes, and pub­lic place­ment on the US Trea­sury’s OFAC registry.

“This is the new tech­nol­o­gy for fight­ing human rights abuse and an impor­tant lega­cy for Sergei Mag­nit­sky who gave up his life fight­ing for the truth in Rus­sia,” said Bill Brow­der, author of “Red Notice”, a book ded­i­cat­ed to Sergei Magnitsky.

In Decem­ber 2012, the US Con­gress adopt­ed the Sergei Mag­nit­sky Rule of Law Account­abil­i­ty Act, which impos­es visa and finan­cial sanc­tions on vio­la­tors of rights of human rights defend­ers in Russia.

The bill is named after Sergei Mag­nit­sky, a Russ­ian lawyer, who uncov­ered the largest pub­licly-known cor­rup­tion case in Rus­sia involv­ing the theft of $230 mil­lion. Sergei Mag­nit­sky tes­ti­fied about it nam­ing com­plic­it Russ­ian offi­cials. He was arrest­ed by some of the impli­cat­ed offi­cials, held in pre-tri­al deten­tion for 358 days, and killed in Russ­ian police cus­tody on 16 Novem­ber 2009.  After Sergei Magnitsky’s death, the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment pro­mot­ed and hon­oured offi­cials involved in his deten­tion and death.

The Glob­al Mag­nit­sky bill was spon­sored in the Sen­ate by U.S. Sen­a­tor Ben Cardin, and had 10 co-spon­sors:

Sen Blu­men­thal, Richard [CT] — 1/28/2015

Sen Coons, Christo­pher A. [DE] — 7/23/2015

Sen Cruz, Ted [TX] — 2/25/2015

Sen Durbin, Richard [IL] — 1/28/2015

Sen Kirk, Mark Steven [IL] — 1/28/2015

Sen Markey, Edward J. [MA] — 1/28/2015

Sen McCain, John [AZ] — 1/28/2015

Sen Rubio, Mar­co [FL] — 1/28/2015

Sen Sha­heen, Jeanne [NH] — 1/28/2015

Sen Wick­er, Roger F. [MS] — 1/28/2015

The next step is for the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives to con­sid­er the bill.

For more infor­ma­tion please contact: 

Jus­tice for Sergei Magnitsky

+44 207 440 1777

e‑mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org

www.lawandorderinrussia.org

Twit­ter: @KatieFisher__

www.facebook.com/russianuntouchables

www.billbrowder.com

Prosecutor Chaika’s Role in Magnitsky Case Explains His Unhinged Attack on Bill Browder in Response to Corruption Expose Produced by Navalny

December 18, 2015

Pros­e­cu­tor Chaika’s Role in Mag­nit­sky Case Explains His Unhinged Attack on Bill Brow­der in Response to Cor­rup­tion Expose Pro­duced by Navalny

Yuri Chai­ka

18 Decem­ber 2015 – Russ­ian Gen­er­al Pros­e­cu­tor Yuri Chai­ka played a sig­nif­i­cant  role in the ill-treat­ment and death in cus­tody of Sergei Mag­nit­sky and the sub­se­quent cov­er up in his case. Chaika’s recent emo­tion­al attack on Bill Brow­der, the head of Mag­nit­sky Jus­tice Cam­paign, can be explained by his com­plic­i­ty in the Mag­nit­sky case and the pres­sure it has put on him internationally.

“It is no coin­ci­dence that in response to alle­ga­tions of brazen abuse by his sons and senior pros­e­cu­tors made in Alex­ei Naval­ny’s video ear­li­er this month, Gen­er­al Pros­e­cu­tor Chai­ka decid­ed to unleash his frus­tra­tion on Mag­nit­sky jus­tice cam­paign­ers. This is because of Chaika’s per­son­al role in the Mag­nit­sky case and its sub­se­quent cov­er up,” said Bill Brow­der, head of the Mag­nit­sky Jus­tice Cam­paign, and author of ‘Red Notice’.

The chronol­o­gy of Chaika’s role in the Mag­nit­sky case is sum­ma­rized below:

1) On Decem­ber 3^rd 2007, the Her­mitage Fund wrote a crim­i­nal com­plaint to Pros­e­cu­tor Chai­kabased on Sergei Mag­nit­sky’s inves­ti­ga­tion about the theft of Her­mitage Fund’s com­pa­nies and the cre­ation of $1 bil­lion of fake lia­bil­i­ties which were exe­cut­ed with doc­u­ments seized by the police. This was three weeks before $230 mil­lion were stolen from the Russ­ian bud­get. Chai­ka assigned the crime report to his deputy Vic­tor Grin, who took no action. Had Chai­ka and Grin act­ed, they would have pre­vent­ed the theft of $230 mil­lion from the Russ­ian people.

2) On July 23^rd 2008, the Her­mitage Fund filed a sec­ond crim­i­nal com­plaintto Pros­e­cu­tor Chai­ka pre­pared based on Sergei Mag­nit­sky’s inves­ti­ga­tion describ­ing the dis­cov­ery that the theft of the Her­mitage Fund’s com­pa­nies was per­pe­trat­ed in order to steal $230 mil­lion of tax­es paid by Her­mitage Fund’s com­pa­nies to the Russ­ian Gov­ern­ment. Pros­e­cu­tor Chai­ka became per­son­al­ly involved in over­see­ing the inves­ti­ga­tion, with his senior aid pros­e­cu­tor Bumazhkin respond­ing on 18 August 2008 that the inves­ti­ga­tion was under the con­trol of the Gen­er­al Pros­e­cu­tor’s Office and had exon­er­at­ed the low-lev­el per­pe­tra­tors for the lack of crime in their actions. Chaika’s office lat­er also exon­er­at­ed all tax offi­cials who approved the largest tax refund in Russ­ian his­to­ry in one day say­ing they were ‘tricked and deceived.’

3) On Novem­ber 24^th 2008, Her­mitage’s lawyer Sergei Mag­nit­sky was arrest­ed by the same police offi­cials who were impli­cat­ed in his tes­ti­mo­ny and the crime report Her­mitage sub­mit­ted to Chai­ka that sum­mer. He was sub­se­quent­ly tor­tured in prison to get him to retract his testimony.

4) On June 8^th 2009, the Inter­na­tion­al Bar Asso­ci­a­tion wrote to Pros­e­cu­tor Chai­ka seek­ing his inter­ven­tion in the case of unlaw­ful arrest of Sergei Mag­nit­sky. A sim­i­lar let­ter of inter­ven­tion was addressed to Chai­ka on 24 July 2009 by the Eng­lish Law Soci­ety. In Sep­tem­ber 2009, Chaika’s office respond­ed that there were “no vio­la­tions in Sergei Mag­nit­sky’s case and no rea­sons to intervene.”

5) On August 17^th 2009, Sergei Mag­nit­sky filed a com­plaint against Pros­e­cu­tor Chai­kaand held him per­son­al­ly respon­si­ble for the vio­la­tion of his human rights in deten­tion by Chaika’s sub­or­di­nates (pros­e­cu­tors Burov and Peche­gin) who by law were man­dat­ed to intervene.

6) On Sep­tem­ber 11^th 2009, Sergei Mag­nit­sky’s lawyers wrote to Pros­e­cu­tor Chai­ka about the pres­sure being applied to Sergei Mag­nit­sky to force him to give false tes­ti­mo­ny and the with­hold­ing of med­ical care. Chaika’s office replied in Octo­ber 2009 stat­ing that ‘no phys­i­cal or psy­cho­log­i­cal pres­sure was exert­ed on defen­dant  S.L.Magnitsky…There are no grounds to take mea­sures of pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al response.”

7) On Novem­ber 16^th 2009, after suf­fer­ing from months of tor­ture and neglect, Sergei Mag­nit­sky died after a beat­ing with rub­ber batons by guards.

8) In July 2010, Pros­e­cu­tor Chai­ka com­ment­ed on Mag­nit­sky case not find­ing any respon­si­bil­i­ty of the Gen­er­al Pros­e­cu­tor’s office, only of prison per­son­nel.

9) In May 2011, Chaika’s senior sub­or­di­nate issued con­clu­sions exon­er­at­ing Inte­ri­or Min­istry offi­cers from respon­si­bil­i­ty for the false arrest and tor­ture in deten­tion of Sergei Magnitsky.

10) On 31 May 2011, Pres­i­dent Medvedev ordered Chai­kato exer­cise per­son­al con­trol over the Mag­nit­sky death inves­ti­ga­tion and the inves­ti­ga­tion into the $230 mil­lion fraud.

11) On 1 June 2011, Pros­e­cu­tor Chai­ka announced that he would bring creme de la creme of pros­e­cu­tors to over­see the Mag­nit­sky case. The offi­cial Gen­er­al Pros­e­cu­tor’s Office state­ment said: “Due to the pub­lic res­o­nance on instruc­tion from the Pres­i­dent of Rus­sia, the Gen­er­al Pros­e­cu­tor’s Office has cre­at­ed a group of pros­e­cu­tors com­pris­ing employ­ees of dif­fer­ent spe­cialised depart­ments in order to strength­en and ensure qual­i­fied over­sight over the process and results of the inves­ti­ga­tion of crim­i­nal cas­es by the Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee of Rus­sia and the Inves­tiga­tive Depart­ment of the Inte­ri­or Min­istry of Russia.”

12) On Jan­u­ary 23^d 2012, Pros­e­cu­tor Chai­ka per­son­al­ly blocked the pro­pos­al from the Pres­i­den­t’s Human Rights Coun­cil to com­bine the inves­ti­ga­tions of Sergei Mag­nit­sky’s death and the $230 mil­lion fraud he had uncov­ered, hav­ing con­cealed in his report to the Pres­i­dent that the con­clu­sions drawn by his senior sub­or­di­nates had exon­er­at­ed Inte­ri­or Min­istry offi­cials in the Mag­nit­sky case.

13) In March 2013, the inves­ti­ga­tion into Mag­nit­sky’s death was closed, find­ing no crime occurred, the con­clu­sion that was approved by Chaika’s sub­or­di­nate pros­e­cu­tor Bochkaryev.

14) In 2013, Chaika’s Pros­e­cu­tor’s Office advanced the posthu­mous tri­al over Sergei Mag­nit­sky, the first in Russ­ian legal his­to­ry, with posthu­mous indict­ment of Sergei Mag­nisky sanc­tioned by Chaika’s deputy Vic­tor Grin.

“Pros­e­cu­tor Chai­ka was one of the key Russ­ian offi­cials respon­si­ble for the human rights vio­la­tions of Sergei Mag­nit­sky when he was still alive and the cov­er-up of offi­cial respon­si­bil­i­ty of Sergei Mag­nit­sky’s mur­der after he died. It’s clear that he wants to silence the peo­ple who are call­ing him out,” said  Bill Browder.

For more infor­ma­tion please contact: 

Jus­tice for Sergei Magnitsky

+44 207 440 1777

e‑mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org

www.lawandorderinrussia.org

Twit­ter: @KatieFisher__

www.facebook.com/russianuntouchables

www.billbrowder.com

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