The Russian justice still Magnitsky, died in prison in 2009
The Russian justice maintained Thursday its intention to assess post-mortem lawyer Sergueï Magnitski, postponing the hearing to January due to the refusal of the Attorney for the family to participate in the trial of a man dead in prison in 2009, hit and left without care according to his family.
“The trial has been postponed to January 28, the lawyers of the accused are not presented at the hearings Thursday,” said the press service of the Tverskoy court examining the case.
The death in November of 2009, after 11 months in custody in a prison in Moscow of Sergei Magnitsky, a tax lawyer who advised the Western investment fund Hermitage Capital, is at the center of a standoff between the Russia and the United States. A U.S. law punishing Russian officials involved in the case has elicited a response of “asymmetric” of Russian parliamentarians, who voted for the ban on adoptions of Russian children by Americans.
Sergei Magnitsky was arrested for tax evasion in 2008 after denouncing a vast financial scheme of 5.4 billion rubles (about 170 million $) hatched, according to him, by officials of the police and the tax authorities at the expense of his employer as well as of the Russian State.
Sergei Magnitsky had been charged with tax evasion by the same officials that he complained, according to Hermitage. William Browder, the CEO. of Hermitage Capital, is charged in the same folder.
“I have no reason to participate in unconstitutional activities”, said the lawyer of the family of Mr. Magnitski, Nikolai Gorokhov, which is not made at the hearing.
“The Russian Constitutional Court has said that the resumption of an investigation into a deceased person was possible only in the objective of its rehabilitation. The family of alleged had not requested to restart the investigation. This was done at the initiative of the deputy general prosecutor Viktor Grin, who participated in the charge”, he said.
The President and CEO. of Hermitage Capital William Browder and his lawyers also boycotted the hearings.
“The survey was conducted with gross violations of the criminal procedure and the rights and freedoms of man,” noted counsel for Hermitage Capital.