Russian president orders probe into lawyer's mysterious death in prison
By: DAVID NOWAK
Associated Press
11/24/09 10:23 AM PST
MOSCOW — Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Tuesday ordered a high-level probe into the recent prison death of a lawyer who fought for greater transparency in Russian business.
Sergei Magnitsky, who died last week in a Moscow pretrial detention center, was arrested in November 2008 on tax-evasion accusations linked to his work with Hermitage Capital Management, once the largest investment fund in Russia.
William Browder, the CEO of the London-based investment fund, has accused authorities of allowing pancreatitis that Magnitsky developed in jail to go untreated.
A Kremlin statement released Tuesday said Medvedev has ordered a probe into the death of Magnitsky, who was 37, and also into detention conditions for suspects of financial crimes.
Magnitsky's death is likely to deepen Western concerns about the risks faced by anyone who challenges the authorities in Russia.
Mikhail Khodorkovsky — once Russia's richest man as the chief of oil major Yukos — is serving an eight-year prison sentence on tax evasion charges that critics call punishment for harboring political ambitions in then-President Vladimir Putin's Russia.
Khodorkovsky is currently fighting new charges that could keep him behind bars for decades while most of Yukos' assets were stripped and sold off to state concern Rosneft in auctions tainted by accusations of fraud. The jailed tycoon has issued a statement condemning Magnitsky's treatment.
The Prosecutor General's Investigative Committee said in a statement Tuesday that it was investigating the allegations that Magnitsky was denied medical assistance.
Hermitage fell from grace in Russia four years ago when Browder, a British citizen raised in the U.S., was barred from the country by authorities citing vague national security concerns.
Observers have said Browder and Magnitsky may have made enemies in one of their campaigns for greater transparency and efficiency at some of Russia's biggest conglomerates, most of which have close ties to the state.
Browder said Magnitsky had been involved in defending Hermitage and its partner HSBC against a multimillion-dollar fraud and forgery scheme involving Interior Ministry officers. Browder said the scheme involved illegally taking over assets and using them to fraudulently reclaim $230 million in taxes from the state.
The independent-leaning Novaya Gazeta on Monday published what it said were letters Magnitsky wrote from jail to a colleague complaining of insufferable chest pains and lack of medical care.
The Kremlin statement said Medvedev had taken on board concerns from a presidential council on human rights before ordering the chief prosecutor and the justice minister to look into the case.
