Russian authorities terminate investigation into Magnitsky’s death in custody

The fam­ily of Sergei Mag­nit­sky has rejected the claims of the Russ­ian inves­tiga­tive author­i­ties that there were no signs of crime in his death in cus­tody at the age of 37.

“This [the deci­sion by Russ­ian author­i­ties to close the case into the death of Sergei Mag­nit­sky] was expected. I don’t believe that it is pos­si­ble to obtain jus­tice in Rus­sia today because there are peo­ple in power inter­ested in con­ceal­ing it and some­one is direct­ing this process, ” said the mother of Sergei Magnitsky.

“They have con­cealed from us the details of the death of my hus­band. How­ever, even what is already known shows that his death was no acci­dent, ” said Mr Magnitsky’s widow.

“Today’s deci­sion by the Russ­ian inves­tiga­tive author­i­ties is a clear indi­ca­tion that they have decided to ignore the con­clu­sions of two inde­pen­dent domes­tic com­mis­sions on the case. It is a sign of an over­whelm­ing gov­ern­ment cover up, and the extent the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment is ready to go to pro­tect those exposed by Mr Mag­nit­sky for com­mit­ting enor­mous crimes against the state, ” said Her­mitage Cap­i­tal representative.

There is a wealth of infor­ma­tion that was pre­vi­ously released on Sergei Magnitsky’s tor­ture and death in cus­tody as well as evi­dence of his beat­ing just before he was found dead on the floor of an iso­la­tion cell (http://russian-untouchables.com/rus/docs/P01E.pdf). None of this evi­dence has been prop­erly inves­ti­gated, and no offi­cials have been pros­e­cuted for the $230 m theft uncov­ered by Mr Mag­nit­sky which led to his arrest after tes­ti­fy­ing against those officials.

In Octo­ber last year, Natalia Mag­nit­skaya, the mother of Sergei Mag­nit­sky, filed a claim with the Euro­pean Court of Human Rights. The com­plaint asks the ECHR to pros­e­cute the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion for vio­lat­ing five arti­cles of the Euro­pean Con­ven­tion of Human Rights: Arti­cle 2 (denial of right to life); Arti­cle 3 (tor­ture); Arti­cle 5 (unlaw­ful deten­tion); Arti­cle 10 (retal­i­a­tion against whistle-blowers); and Arti­cle 13 (fail­ure to pro­vide an effec­tive rem­edy) (http://opensocietyfoundations.org/litigation/magnitsky-v-russia)

The Russ­ian Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee announced today that they have closed the inves­ti­ga­tion of the death of Sergei Mag­n­tit­sky due to “no event of crime” hav­ing been iden­ti­fied (http://sledcom.ru/actual/287357/).
“The peo­ple who killed Sergei Mag­nit­sky may be able to avoid jus­tice in Rus­sia but they won’t be able to out­side of Rus­sia, ” said a Her­mitage Cap­i­tal spokesperson.