10 years after Magnitsky’s death, Russia was found guilty of violating his rights

The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg ruled that Russia violated the rights of Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer for the British investment fund Hermitage Capital, who died in 2009 in the Matrosskaya Tishina pre-trial detention center. According to the decision of the ECHR, Russia must pay the applicants 34 thousand euros (a little more than $37).

Sergey Magnitsky. A photo: VOA, Wikipedia / public domain

The first complaint to the ECHR was filed by Magnitsky himself a few months before his death, and then the proceedings were continued by his wife and mother, writes Air force.

The court found that Magnitsky died due to inadequate medical care in a pre-trial detention center. The ECHR has found a violation of several articles of the Convention on Human Rights.

The Strasbourg court decided that in relation to Magnitsky were violated:

• 3 article of the European Convention on Human Rights (prohibition of torture) in relation to the conditions of his detention
• paragraph 3 of article 5 of the Convention (right to liberty and security of person)
• Article 3 of the Convention in connection with the ill-treatment of prison guards and the lack of an effective investigation into them
• Article 2 of the Convention (the right to life) in connection with the authorities' inability to protect Magnitsky’s right to life and to ensure an effective investigation into the circumstances of his death
• paragraphs 1 and 2 of article 6 of the Convention (right to a fair trial).

At the same time, the court declared the applicants ’complaints inadmissible regarding the conditions of Magnitsky’s detention and the length of his arrest.

The Russian Ministry of Justice drew attention to the fact that the ECHR did not see violations of the Convention on the Protection of Human Rights in the detention and arrest of Magnitsky.

“The ECHR stated that there was no violation by the Russian authorities of paragraph 1 of Art. 5 of the Convention in connection with the detention and detention of Magnitsky. The European Court recognized the obvious groundlessness of the complaint about the arbitrary nature of Magnitsky’s deprivation of liberty,” the ministry said in a statement.

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In addition, the Justice Ministry noted that the ECtHR decision does not contain a requirement for the Russian authorities to review a court decision in respect of Magnitsky.

The head of the investment fund Hermitage Capital, William Browder, welcomed the decision of the Strasbourg court. “The ECtHR decision also completely destroys the lies and propaganda about Sergei Magnitsky that the Russian government and its paid slanderers in the West have tried to spread for years,” he wrote on Twitter.

Magnitsky’s widow’s lawyer, Dmitry Kharitonov, told Interfax that he was generally satisfied with the ECHR’s decision, “although he does not entirely agree with it.” He insists that Magnitsky's detention was unjustified.

The death of Magnitsky

Sergei Magnitsky ended up in a pre-trial detention center in 2008. He was arrested on suspicion of helping Browder evade taxes. Magnitsky, however, claimed that he had discovered frauds that allowed the top officials of the Ministry of Internal Affairs to fictitiously return VAT from the treasury and withdraw funds from the Russian budget abroad. According to his estimates, 5,4 billion rubles could have been stolen in this way.

In November 2009, Magnitsky died in jail. The examination prescribed by the Investigative Committee concluded that the cause of death was a combination of diseases that were not diagnosed in a timely manner and failure to provide medical care.

At the same time, a public commission led by human rights activist Valery Borshchev, as well as the Human Rights Council under the President of Russia, came to the conclusion that the cause of the lawyer’s death was “torturous” conditions of detention and denial of medical care.

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In July 2011, the Investigative Committee of Russia brought charges under the article “negligence resulting in the death of a person through negligence” against the deputy head of the Butyrka pre-trial detention center, Dmitry Kratov. However, in December 2012 he was acquitted.

Larisa Litvinova, a laboratory assistant at the Butyrka pre-trial detention center, was also charged under the article “causing death by negligence,” but in April 2012 it became known that the criminal prosecution had been discontinued for years.

In 2013, Magnitsky, who died in a pre-trial detention center, was found guilty of tax evasion, and the case of his death was closed.

As ForumDaily wrote earlier:

• After the death of a lawyer, a sanctions list of Russians was compiled in the United States, called the “Magnitsky List” - list of persons responsible for detention, ill-treatment and death of Sergei Magnitsky, other serious human rights violations in Russia, as well as a series of major embezzlement of funds disclosed by Magnitsky's team and himself.
• The list was proposed by US Senator Benjamin Cardin, who in April 2010 asked Hillary Clinton, then US Secretary of State, to impose personal sanctions against the names on the list. This is how the “Magnitsky Act” was adopted, introducing these sanctions. At first there were 60 names on the list, but later changes were made to it several times.
• In 2015, with the participation of a number of international organizations in the UK and European countries, as well as the USA and Canada, the Sergei Magnitsky Prize was established. The first presentation of the awards took place in London on the sixth anniversary of the death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in the Matrosskaya Tishina detention center. The winner was the Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov - posthumously.
• “The case of Sergei Magnitsky has long ceased to be a matter of only family, friends, colleagues and other close people,” said Sergei Magnitsky’s mother. “We hope that this award will support people around the world who do not accept human rights violations in any form, who want to live freely and with dignity without fear and tears.”
• One of Russia's most serious responses to the Magnitsky Act was ban on adoption of Russian children by US citizens, effective January 1, 2013 citizens. In the Russian Federation it is called a consequence of resonant “Dima Yakovlev’s Law“, which was adopted at the end of 2012 against the backdrop of worsening relations between the Russian Federation and the United States. It is named after a two-year-old boy, Dmitry Yakovlev, adopted by American citizens, who died due to being left in the heat in a closed car. In fact, the law was the Kremlin's response to sanctions imposed in connection with the Magnitsky case.
• Press Secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov stated in 2017 that “the initiative has fully justified itself.” The number of cases of adoption by foreigners of Russian orphans and children left without parental care, significantly reduced since 2012 year to this day.

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