Kirill Kleimenov

Here is another story that literally shocked the world - the death of Sergei Magnitsky. This story recently turned ten years old.

If you remember, a lot of things started with her. Magnitsky law. Sanctions against our fellow citizens, according to some American senators involved in the death of Magnitsky. This was the beginning of our new relationship with the West. The same relationships we are used to now. All this did not start with Crimea. Not from the events in Donbass and not from the Olympics in Sochi, but much earlier. From this very Magnitsky case. Exactly ten years ago it all started. And that's how it ended. Unless, of course, it's over.

And here's what's interesting. This whole system of sanctions and expulsions of diplomats, highly likely and daily scandals, this whole new cold war lies on two cornerstones - on the fact of the death of Sergei Magnitsky, death in a pre-trial detention center, but an unintentional and largely accidental, and absolutely monstrous lie. The malicious lies of first Browder, Magnitsky’s boss, and then of all his clients in the American and European establishment.

Everyone had their own significant motive: Browder had a financial one, and politicians, by the way, perhaps too. But they all lied. Frankly and thoughtfully. And guess what? Nobody will answer for this. And nothing can be done retroactively. How you can’t remove Colin Powell’s lie with a test tube from life. And most importantly, the further war in Iraq, the destruction of a huge region, and the creation of shadow criminal states cannot be removed from history. And most importantly, no one will bring hundreds of thousands of murdered people back to life.

The consequences of our new relations with the West, the assessment of these consequences is a matter of history. But the reason, or rather the first step, is the work of a specific scumbag, William Browder. Only.

They are trying to serve businessman William Browder with a subpoena. American. He wants to close the door, but he doesn’t come out. The only way out is to run. But they just wanted to question him as a witness in a case of money laundering in Russia. $230 million was stolen from the budget. In words he is “Putin’s enemy number one,” but in reality he is a man with multiple memory lapses who knows almost nothing.

Browder is the founder of the investment fund Hermitage Capital. In Russia, he boasted, he brought investors a crazy one and a half thousand percent. MMM was more modest. The financier was sentenced in absentia in our country to nine years for tax evasion and deliberate bankruptcy. For many years he has been traveling around the world, saying that his companies were stolen by corrupt employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the man who exposed the criminal plan was killed in prison. We are talking about Sergei Magnitsky, whom Browder persistently calls a lawyer

Auditor Magnitsky did die in the pre-trial detention center, but he was not killed, much less beaten to death, as Browder claimed. In 2008, contrary to Browder’s claims, Magnitsky did not go to the police to report a crime. He was invited to testify.

Journalists from the German magazine Spiegel in the article “A History Without a Hero” found out that the “independent lawyer,” as he is often called, was involved in a foul-smelling story with disabled people whom the investment fund allegedly registered for work in order to pay even less taxes. This is confirmed by documents from 2006.

From Spiegel: “According to the investigators’ protocol, Magnitsky was interviewed about one of the dubious fly-by-night companies that entered into employment contracts with disabled people. From his testimony it follows that Browder's people asked him to "act as manager there for some time." Other documents clearly indicate that Magnitsky was already involved in such companies in 2002.”

In 2013, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe overwhelmingly approved the report of Swiss parliamentarian Andreas Gross on the “Magnitsky case” with recommendations to introduce targeted sanctions against Russian officials.

The document under the heading “Indisputable Facts” says: On October 7, 2008, Magnitsky announced the participation of Ministry of Internal Affairs officers Kuznetsov and Karpov in the illegal re-registration of companies owned by Hermitage Capital. Documentary maker Andrei Nekrasov met with Gross and showed him photocopies of Magnitsky’s testimony. There are simply no accusations against Karpov and Kuznetsov either in the testimony for June 5 or in the testimony for October 7.

“The documents we received... We always had to use translations from Browder's office. Because I myself can’t read Russian and don’t know it,” Gross said.

Journalists from the Wall Street Journal cannot read Russian either. On the publication’s server you can find the report of the public monitoring commission on Magnitsky’s death. The problem is that the Russian original and the English translation are different. In English, a fragment with accusations was simply added. Where does this edited version come from?

The same translation with an extra fragment was uploaded to the Internet by a user under the name russianuntouchables. This is the name of the site created by Browder's company. He supplied information to journalists and politicians. In 2012, the financier spoke in the Canadian Parliament. He suggested looking for evidence of his words about the conspiracy on the same site: “There is a library of documents on this site. And you can access the report."

We are talking about the same report, the text of which was distorted during translation. And that's not it. In 2014, an investigator from the US Department of Homeland Security was questioned, who was involved in tracking dirty money and possible connections with the Magnitsky case. He received all the documents, including copies of bank transactions, from Browder's company. I didn't double-check the data.

“So everything is based on copies that were not certified, on records that were incomplete, on accounting assumptions,” Todd Human is asked.

"Yes, that's right," said US Department of Homeland Security investigator Todd Human.

This came up five years ago, but nothing has changed. Vicious circle. Everyone believes Browder because they used to believe Browder. After all, if Browder is not believed, what will happen to all sorts of Magnitsky acts, the Magnitsky law? What will happen then to the reputation of the politicians who played and still play an active role in this story?

November 16, 2009

Memory of Sergei Magnitsky

In works of art

19.11.2018

Magnitsky Sergei Leonidovich

Russian Auditor

News & Events

Sergei Magnitsky died in a pre-trial detention center from a heart attack

Russian economist Sergei Magnitsky died on November 16, 2009 in the Butyrsky detention center as a result of failure to provide assistance for a heart attack. His death led to a loud international scandal and became the reason for the adoption in the United States and later in Canada of the “Magnitsky Act,” which introduced personal sanctions against those responsible for human rights violations. Initially, the law was directed against persons who were involved in the death of the economist. Magnitsky was arrested in 2008 on charges of aiding and abetting tax evasion. While working for the consulting company Firestone Duncan, he announced the existence of schemes for large-scale theft of budget funds through illegal tax refunds, organized by Russian officials and security forces. As a preventive measure, Magnitsky was taken into custody and placed in a pre-trial detention center, where he was diagnosed with “pancreatitis.” Subsequently, he died of a heart attack. The Investigative Committee of Russia opened criminal cases against doctors under articles of “failure to provide assistance to a patient” and “negligence.”

Russian auditor who worked for the consulting company Firestone Duncan.
Consultant of the investment fund Hermitage Capital Management.

Sergei Magnitsky was born on April 8, 1972 in Odessa, Ukraine. The boy grew up in the family of Leonid Maksimovich and Natalya Nikolaevna Magnitsky. As a child, he moved to Moscow with his parents. He was a citizen of the Russian Federation. In 1993 he graduated from the Plekhanov University of Economics with a degree in finance and credit.

Since 1995, he worked as an auditor in the consulting company Firestone Duncan, JSC Firestone Duncan, which was founded two years earlier by American lawyers Jameson Firestone and Terry Duncan and was engaged in tax consulting and auditing.

In 2007, searches began in Hermitage and the Firestone Duncan that served it, prompted by suspicions of creating a tax evasion scheme using an extensive network of subsidiaries. During the searches, documents, computer data and seals of three Russian organizations of the Browder Foundation were seized. Immediately after this, the fund sold all its Russian assets. According to investigators, the fund's subsidiaries illegally purchased shares of strategic Russian enterprises, including Gazprom, Surgutneftegaz and Rosneft.

Then representatives of Hermitage announced that the Ministry of Internal Affairs carried out a raider seizure of three of its subsidiaries, using seals and documentation seized during the search. Immediately after the searches in 2007, Magnitsky began an independent investigation to protect the interests of the investment fund and found that 5.4 billion rubles in taxes paid by the seized subsidiaries of the investment fund in 2006 were seized from the Russian treasury by criminals as “overpaid.”

Magnitsky also testified that law enforcement officers illegally took possession of Hermitage’s movable property. However, in 2008, Browder and the manager of the Russian branch of the investment fund, Ivan Cherkasov, were charged in absentia with tax evasion and put on the international wanted list, since Cherkasov left Russia in the summer of 2007, and Browder has been banned from entering the country since 2005.

Sergei Leonidovich was arrested on November 27, 2008 in connection with the Hermitage case. He was charged with assisting an organization in evading taxes on an especially large scale: according to investigative authorities, in 2000 he participated in the creation of a scheme for the illegal purchase of two percent of Gazprom shares.

To do this, Magnitsky arrived in Kalmykia in 1999, where he agreed with the head of the local Afghanistan War Veterans Foundation to employ several disabled people as financial analysts in Dalnyaya Step LLC and Saturn Investments LLC, founded by Browder, thanks to which the companies received tax benefit and carried out the purchase and then sale of Gazprom shares to Hermitage, while paying income tax at a rate of 5.5 percent instead of 35 percent. In total, as a result of these actions, according to investigators, the budget lost 522 million rubles.

Magnitsky was taken into custody as a preventive measure. As stated in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, this measure was chosen because investigators feared that the accused might go abroad: according to the investigation, shortly before this he applied for a visa to the British Embassy. Meanwhile, Magnitsky’s file contained a letter from the embassy stating that he was not issued a visa.

The suspect was placed in pre-trial detention center No. 5, where over the course of five months he was transferred several times from one cell to another. In April 2009, he was transferred to the Matrosskaya Tishina detention center. In July of the same year, he had health problems and was diagnosed with calculous cholecystitis; later doctors discovered stones in the accused’s gall bladder. At the end of July, Magnitsky was transferred to the Butyrsky detention center, where his health condition worsened further, in particular, due to the lack of a hospital at the detention center.

There, a surgeon diagnosed him with pancreatitis, but then the doctors, citing Magnitsky’s inappropriate behavior, called psychiatrists, who chained the lawyer to a chair. Magnitsky did not undergo urgent surgery, and has already November 16, 2009 at 21:50, doctors certified death from a rupture of the pancreas as a result of pancreatic necrosis, but then the investigation stated that Magnitsky died of a heart attack.

The death of the lawyer led to a loud international scandal. On November 24, 2009, at a meeting with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Ella Pamfilova, Chairman of the Council for Promoting the Development of Civil Society Institutions and Human Rights, asked to look into the circumstances of the lawyer’s death.

After this, the Investigative Committee under the Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation initiated criminal cases under Articles 124, “failure to provide assistance to a patient” and 293, “negligence.” Based on the results of an internal investigation, the head of the Federal Penitentiary Service, Alexander Reimer, dismissed on December 11, 2009 the head of the Moscow department of the FSIN, Vladimir Davydov, and the head of the Butyrsky detention center, Vadim Magomedov.

In 2010, a re-examination of the causes of Magnitsky’s death was completed, which confirmed that he died from acute heart failure. At the same time, the examination showed that in the pre-trial detention center he received insufficient and inadequate medical care.

The Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Central Federal District separated the case of Magnitsky and Browder into separate proceedings, because, according to the investigation, the crime was committed “in complicity with other persons.”

In April 2010, the US Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, headed by Senator Benjamin Cardin, sent a letter to the US State Department requesting that 60 Russian judges and security officials involved in the death of Magnitsky be banned from entering the country. In May 2010, the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee supported Cardin's initiative and approved the proposal of the Commission he headed.

In the same month, the European Parliament's subcommittee on human rights also called for bringing to justice the Russian judges and investigators involved in Magnitsky's death. In September 2010, a bill was introduced into the US Congress that would have prohibited all individuals on the Magnitsky List from entering the United States and conducting financial transactions in this country.

In December of the same year, the European Parliament approved a resolution recommending that European governments impose visa and financial sanctions against Russian officials mentioned in the list. In July 2012, the resolution was adopted by the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly.

Magnitsky was posthumously awarded the Transparency International Prize for his outstanding contribution to the fight against corruption.

Married. He left behind two small children.

Memory of Sergei Magnitsky

The anniversary of Magnitsky's death on November 16, 2010 was marked by the Russian and world community:

The BBC Russian service gave a detailed report on the progress of the investigation into the Hermitage Capital case.

A documentary about the Magnitsky case was shown in the parliaments of the European Union, Great Britain, the USA, Canada, Estonia and Germany.

In works of art

A year after his death, a documentary film “Justice for Sergei” was shot about Sergei Magnitsky. Directors: Hans Hermanns and Martin Maat. Studio: ICU Documentaries, Netherlands. The film was shown on March 30, 2012 in St. Petersburg at the Open Your Eyes! film festival.

In 2016, at the request of the German-French TV channel Arte, director Andrei Nekrasov shot a documentary film “The Magnitsky Act”. William Browder harshly criticized the film and opposed its screening in the European Parliament.

A documentary play “Hour Eighteen” was written about Magnitsky; its author, Elena Gremina, used Magnitsky’s diaries and letters to create the play. Director Mikhail Ugarov based the play on a performance about the last minutes of Magnitsky's life; The premiere took place in November 2010 in Moscow.

The Magnitsky list is mentioned in the musical composition of the Leningrad group.

Sergei Leonidovich Magnitsky is a Russian lawyer and auditor. He was posthumously awarded the Honor and Dignity Award by Transparency International, an international anti-corruption non-governmental organization.

Basic biographical information

S. Magnitsky was born in Odessa on April 8, 1972. He was a citizen of Russia and lived in Moscow. He was married and raised two children.

1995 – Becomes auditor for Firestone Duncan. This company was engaged in auditing and tax consulting. Magnitsky became one of the managing partners of the said company, as well as the head of the tax consulting division.

2008 – testified in the case of theft of funds from the state budget by government officials. On November 24, he was arrested and charged with facilitating tax evasion by the Hermitage Capital investment fund.

"Magnitsky case"

In 2007, the investment fund Hermitage Capital was suspected of tax evasion. All persons who provided legal and auditing services to the fund, including S. Magnitsky, revealed facts that confirmed the re-registration of these companies and the theft of state property. In October 2008, when giving evidence, Magnitsky indicated that the seized documents of a number of Hermitage companies were used to re-register the latter with new owners and illegally refund taxes, the amount of which amounted to 5.4 billion. According to Novaya Gazeta journalists, the beneficiary of this budget theft was A. Serdyukov, who during 2004-2007. headed the Federal Tax Service.

The case against Magnitsky in 2008 was initiated by police lieutenant colonel A. Kuznetsov. The investigation was carried out by Major P. Karpov. According to documents provided by the Firestone Duncan company, the family of Lieutenant Colonel Kuznetsov spent $3 million over 3 years, and the Karpov family spent more than $1 million.

S. Magnitsky was interrogated about 5 times. No other investigative actions were carried out with him. Nevertheless, Magnitsky more than once called himself a hostage. On July 14, 2009, Magnitsky was diagnosed with “calculous cholecystitis” (gallbladder disease) and treatment was prescribed. A week later he was transferred to Butyrka prison. On August 26, Magnitsky’s lawyers filed a petition in which they asked the investigator to facilitate an ultrasound examination of the abdominal cavity for the defendant. Investigator O. Silchenko refused to satisfy the request.

Circumstances of death

Sergei Magnitsky ended his life in a pre-trial detention center hospital. At first, the pre-trial detention center administration named pancreatic necrosis as the cause of death. The death certificate stated that Magnitsky died of acute heart failure and toxic shock. In the “diagnosis” column, closed head injury and acute pancreatitis are mentioned. According to the lawyers, the death of the defendant was the result of the refusal of the administration of the pre-trial detention center to provide Magnitsky with the necessary medical care. A repeat forensic medical examination was refused.

According to further investigation, the death of the defendant was preceded by the escort of Magnitsky to a separate cell. This measure was explained by his constant complaints about poor maintenance, lack of medical care and threat to life. In 2012, the international organization Physicians for Human Rights accused the investigation of deliberately shielding people involved in the death of Magnitsky. The head of the international program of forensic medical examinations, S. Schmit, noted that in the Magnitsky case, more and more evidence of intentional medical negligence and the use of torture is being discovered.

Reaction to death

November 2009 - D. A. Medvedev instructed Prosecutor General Yu. Chaika and Minister of Justice A. Konovalov to understand the circumstances of Magnitsky’s death. On November 26, a hearing was held on the causes of his death. Deputy Director of the Federal Penitentiary Service A. Smirnov partially admitted his department’s guilt in the events that happened.

June 2010 - The Investigative Committee operating under the Russian Prosecutor's Office refused to prosecute those employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs who were involved in the case of S. L. Magnitsky.

December 2010 – The European Parliament adopted a resolution calling for a ban on entry into the European Union for Russian officials who have any connection to the Magnitsky case. State Duma deputies opposed this resolution.

December 2012 - the so-called “Magnitsky law” came into force in the United States, which introduced sanctions against Russian citizens involved in the death of S. Magnitsky: restrictions on entry into the United States and sanctions regarding their financial assets located in American banks.

January 2013 - The British business newspaper Financial Times called for the Magnitsky Act to be extended to EU countries.

Ten years ago, the death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky became one of the main events of the year. It is from this moment that many begin to count down a new round of confrontation between Russia and the United States, which continues to this day. The exchange of sanctions lists, the “Dima Yakovlev law”, popularly called the “law of scoundrels”, the largest international scandal - no one could have predicted how significant the consequences would be.

In the summer of 2007, searches were carried out in the building of the British investment fund Hermitage Capital. The fund and its structures were accused of non-payment of more than 4 billion rubles in taxes. Later the founder of the foundation William Browder put on the wanted list. All property and documents of the company were at the disposal of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. After this, according to Browder, a raider attack began on the fund.

Journalist at Novaya Gazeta Roman Anin was investigating the Magnitsky case, he says:

“There were subsidiaries of the Hermitage Foundation that were fraudulently re-registered under the names of previously convicted people, using documents that were seized from the foundation during searches. That is, the police officers were clearly involved in this crime, otherwise who would have handed over the company documents to the criminals ?"

Documents for the companies of the Hermitage Capital fund, and therefore the companies themselves, ended up in the hands of criminals after searches. And they went to court, claiming that these companies, contrary to their promise, did not sell them shares. The courts, despite all the oddities of this case, make a decision totaling more than 20 billion rubles. This is how fictitious obligations of the Hermitage Capital fund arose, which allowed criminals to commit a large theft of funds from the Russian budget - almost 5.5 billion rubles.

"And these fictitious obligations, they nullify the profit. That is, if I earned a million dollars last year, and now the court says that I owe a million dollars, that means I have to pay it back, and my profit disappears. And if the profit disappears, that means ", I don’t have to pay tax, and I get the right to reimburse the tax. Actually, the criminals, having received this decision from the courts, went to the tax inspectorates, where they had well-fed tax officers, they re-registered these companies in advance and reimbursed a record amount of 5.4 billion rubles," – explains Roman Anin.

This theft amounting to almost $220 million at the exchange rate of that time was discovered Sergei Magnitsky, an attorney for Firestone Duncan, which worked with Browder. After this, Magnitsky was arrested and accused of helping Browder evade taxes.

Magnitsky was kept mainly in the Butyrka pre-trial detention center. He entered there, according to him and his doctors, as a healthy man. A year later, in serious condition, he was taken by ambulance to the prison hospital in Matrosskaya Tishina, where he died.

What happened to him this year?

“The cameras were so terrible that after our investigation they were destroyed. And the new head of the pre-trial detention center, Telyatnikov, showed me with pride that these cameras no longer exist,” says the human rights activist Valery Borshchev, who then headed the Moscow Public Monitoring Commission.

Here are quotes from Sergei Magnitsky's letters:

“By evening, the entire floor of cell No. 35 was flooded with several centimeters of sewer water. It was no longer possible to walk on the floor, so we moved around the cell, climbing on the beds like monkeys...

Cell No. 61 didn't even have window frames. On 09/11/09 I submitted an application in which I asked to install frames with glass. Because of the cold in the cell, I had to sleep in my clothes, covered with a blanket and jacket, but the frames were not installed. On 18/09/09 we filed a complaint that due to the lack of window frames and the resulting cold, we all caught a cold...".

Few people knew about Magnitsky back then. His defenders were in no hurry to make a fuss. Then it still seemed that maybe it would be possible to reach an agreement. But Magnitsky had no intention of reaching an agreement with anyone.

Deputy editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta Sergey Sokolov says:

“They wanted to get the necessary testimony from him, but he didn’t give it. And what’s more, he accused the investigation and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of some kind of fraud that pursued the interests of those who stole the money. And a lot of money was stolen. But this man considered it necessary not to hide the facts frauds that he discovered. For which he paid."

Magnitsky was demanded to slander William Browder, but he did not agree to this. Not only the investigators tried to negotiate, but, apparently, also the doctors, whose help the lawyer so needed. By August, when Sergei Magnitsky could no longer even lie down from pain, he was taken to the hospital.

Human rights activist Valery Borshchev believes that violent methods were used against Magnitsky, which led to his death. "That is, they killed him. Did they want to kill him? I don’t know, I’m not sure. Maybe there was another attempt to break him, to get him to give up this fight, this confrontation - they didn’t calculate it, they went too far. I don’t know. Yes there is a suspicion that he was already beaten in the ambulance - he arrived already beaten. And that is why they did not show us and hid the video recordings of his arrival at Matrosskaya Tishina.

Sergei Magnitsky was seen by a doctor at the hospital Alexandra Gauss. She did not bear any responsibility for his death, although human rights activists call her one of the main culprits. What she talked about with Sergei before his death is unknown.

Human rights activist Valery Borshchev says:

"Suddenly she decides to call eight guards and handcuff him. Why? And he picked up the couch and started swinging it."

According to Gauss, Magnitsky, who could hardly move, picked up a metal couch (by the way, it is always screwed to the floor) and began to swing it from side to side. Therefore, they allegedly had to handcuff him and beat him with a rubber truncheon.

“She called an ambulance according to the situation, and they arrived 15 minutes later, but they were not allowed in. And they were allowed in only when he had already died. They came and saw: there was a puddle of urine under him, handcuffs were lying nearby. And they called an ambulance register the time of death, the place of death. All this was recorded,” says Valery Borshchev.

The report from the Federal Penitentiary Service indicated that Magnitsky died in the ward and was receiving assistance. But there was also a report from an ambulance officer and a whole series of other evidence that cast doubt on all the documents of the FSIN. Valery Borshchev, who then headed the Moscow POC, came to the pre-trial detention center with an inspection, but he received little information from the colony staff.

"I won't answer you anymore!" - "Why?" - "I'm afraid they'll kill me!" This statement by the head of the pre-trial detention center (Dmitry Konov) under General Davydov, the head of the FSIN Main Directorate, struck me,” recalls Borshchev.

Magnitsky died of heart failure. At Butyrka, they also found stones in his gall bladder and diagnosed him with calculous cholecystitis. He was never helped. The performers are not punished, nor are the customers.

Roman Anin, who has materials from the Magnitsky case, says:

“There are clear traces in the materials that lead to the final beneficiary, who I believe is Dmitry Klyuev, whom the lawyers of the Hermitage Foundation named in the first thefts. But the investigation, as soon as it got to the beneficiary, immediately closed the case and punished the switchman.”

Dmitry Klyuev- a businessman, is considered the owner of Benefit Bank, although he denies this. According to Anin, Klyuev specializes in tax refunds, and the stolen 5.4 billion rubles went to what was once his Universal Savings Bank.

“And he is a very influential person,” adds Anin. “If you look at the people with whom he flies and rides on trains, these are all tax officials who participated in the refunds, these are police officers, investigators who conducted the case against Magnitsky. There can be no two opinions about who is at the center of these reparations."

Among those with whose help the thefts became possible, journalists name Artem Kuznetsova, who led the search, the investigator Pavel Karpova, who was responsible for the documents, as well as FSB officers.

Money stolen from Russia is being sought all over the world. Criminal cases have been initiated in France, Switzerland, and the Czech Republic.

“I’m afraid that even if the money is found and accumulated somewhere, Russia will not accept it, because then it will have to admit that the whole scheme that Magnitsky uncovered, that Browder spoke about, that the lawyers talked about, is real,” notes Sergei Sokolov.

The case of Magnitsky's death was closed a year ago. Major theft from the Russian budget throughout its history also remained unsolved. No one has ever announced the connection between these two cases at the official level.