 Source: HRO.org (info) Natalya Magnitskaya, mother of Sergei Magnitsky, has demanded that the Ministry of Internal Affairs close the case against her son. “Sergei Magnitsky’s mother sent a demand to the Ministry of Internal Affairs requesting the closure of the second posthumous case against her son, who is accused of the theft, which he actually disclosed, of 5,4 bn roubles, for the purpose of “legalising stolen money”, - the press service of the Hermitage Capital, the investment fund that employed Sergei Magnitsky, announced in a statement citing Rosbalt. “The case in question is based on a non-existent crime, and as such it should be closed. An investigation should be started into the deliberate falsification of the alleged crime and the illegal prosecution (the second already) of my son, and a criminal case should be opened against the officials responsible”, Hermitage said, according to Interfax. A criminal case was opened under Article 174, Section 4, of the Russian Criminal Code (the ‘laundering’ of criminal income). According to the investigation, Sergei Magnitsky as well as the businessmen and previous convicts Markelov, Khlebnikov, Kurochkin, Korobeynikov and Gasanov were involved in a criminal conspiracy from September to December 2007. They are said to have organised an illegal return to tax payers (the companies “Relend”, “Parfenion” and Makhaon”) of an alleged surplus payment of taxes on profits of 5,4 bn roubles. The said sum was transferred to the firms from the budgets of the Russian Federation and the city of Moscow. From December 2007 until the end of 2008, the criminals transferred the sum of 5,4 bn roubles into accounts of fake firms, and then disposed of the money at their own discretion. In November 2009 Sergei Magnitsky died in detention in the Matrosskaya Tishina pre-trial detention centre. He had been brought there from the Butyrka prison after his health had deteriorated. According to the official version, he died of cardiovascular failure. In the opinion of his lawyer and the relatives of Magnitsky, he had not received medical aid in good time and died of pancreatitis. Magnitsky, a legal expert with the Hermitage Capital Fund, was also accused of refusing to pay taxes. His death had public resonance. Directors of the Fund confirmed that Magnitsky died because he uncovered the theft of a sum of several billion roubles from the state budget. Law enforcement agencies believe that the Hermitage Capital Fund violated Russia's tax laws. Translated by Eva Cukier |
HRO.org in English >
