Hermitage Capital offer businessman Lebedev to cooperate in exposing those behind Magnitsky's death (Part 2)
http://www.interfax.com/newsinf.asp?id=222345
MOSCOW. Feb 14 (Interfax) - William Browder, Chief Executive Officer of Hermitage Capital Management, has offered Russian businessman Alexander Lebedev, head of National Reserve Corporation, to team up in exposing bureaucrats who, he says, might be involved in the death in prison of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.
"I am attaching a list of Russian officials who were the key players in the fraud against us and in the false arrest and torture of Sergei Magnitsky Please feel free to get in touch when you have a moment to discuss what legal steps could be made to bring this criminal group to justice," Browder writes in a letter to Lebedev, the text of which has been posted on Lebedev's blog.
Browder says that he became aware of the "raids" on Lebedev's bank late last year.
"After reading about this story, I found several familiar names among those law enforcement officers who were involved. In fact on the surface, it looks like they may be part of the same organized criminal group who organized the fraud uncovered by Sergei Magnitsky in which he was effectively killed him to stop him from exposing their role in the crime," the letter says.
The author asks Lebedev to be "especially vigilant" as he fears that the Russian businessman and his employees might suffer the same fate as Magnitsky.
"Since our story became public, we have been approached by dozens of people who also became victims of the same organized criminal group," Browder writes.
Lebedev, for his part, has told Interfax that he is not ready yet to say how he will react to Browder's letter.
"My reaction to it will follow the analysis of all facts, both those mentioned in the letter and those that we have," Lebedev said.
He said that it was too earlier to speak about "Lebedev's list".
Asked how much time he needed to make a decision, he answered: "Several days".
Criminal prosecution of Hermitage employees in Russia started in June 2007, when Moscow police searched the Moscow offices of Hermitage capital and Firestone Duncan.
Magnitsky, a lawyer for the investment foundation Hermitage Capital, died in the Matrosskaya Tishina detention facility on November 16, 2009 at the age of 37, he was charged with tax evasion.
Magnitsky's death drew a broad public response. The Investigations Committee opened a criminal case on charges of failure to provide assistance to a patient and negligence.
According to two forensic evaluations, Magnitsky died of acute heart insufficiency. The experts confirmed that Magnitsky was suffering from the illnesses he was diagnosed with earlier, but said those illnesses were not at an acute stage.
Despite the dismissals in the Federal Service for the Enforcement of Punishments, human rights activists believe no real investigation into the causes of Magnitsky's death was conducted.
The prosecution of Hermitage Capital officials in Russia began in June 2007. Moscow police then searched the offices of Hermitage Capital and the law firm Firestone Duncan.
Magnitsky said the criminal case against him was retaliation for his testimony alleging the possibility of law enforcement officials' involvement in the embezzlement of budget funds.
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(Our editorial staff can be reached at eng.editors@interfax.ru)
Mikhail Khodorkovsky judge 'given orders'
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/8324041/Mikhail-Khodorkovsky-judge-given-orders.html
The harsh jail sentence recently handed down to Mikhail Khodorkovsky was not the trial judge's and was rewritten after interference, a court assistant has claimed.
By Andrew Osborn, Moscow 7:31PM GMT 14 Feb 2011
The comments, made in a newspaper interview, made a mockery of the Kremlin's claims that the fallen oligarch's second trial, which wound up in December, was not politically-motivated. Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, is at the moment on his first official visit to the UK and is expected during the trip to assuage concerns about the trial.
A Moscow court added six years to the eight-year sentence Mr Khodorkovsky is already serving. That means he will stay in jail until 2017. It said the oligarch, who spectacularly fell out with Vladimir Putin in 2003, was guilty of embezzling oil from the company Yukos, which is now defunct.
Many Western politicians raised concerns about the fairness of the trial but the Kremlin told the West to mind its own business and insisted Mr Khodorkovsky was a criminal.
But Natalya Vasilyeva, an assistant at the court, said the judge, Viktor Danilkin, was merely doing what he was told by others.
"Danilkin started to write the verdict. I suspect that what was in that verdict did not please ... And so he received a different verdict which he had to read out," she told a news web site and a TV station.
Miss Vasilyeva said she had decided to speak out after becoming disenchanted with what she had witnessed. "I wanted to be a judge. [But] when I saw ... how it works, the fairy tale that judges are subordinate only to law and nobody else disappeared," she said.
Mr Khodorkovsky's lawyers have appealed against the verdict and his parents have called on William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, to raise the issue with Mr Lavrov during his visit to the UK.
Fear dominated the making of Khodorkovsky film, director says
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/europe/news/article_1619306.php/Fear-dominated-the-making-of-Khodorkovsky-film-director-says
Feb 14, 2011, 21:27 GMT
Berlin - The director of a documentary about Russian billionaire Mikhail Khodorkovsky said at its premiere Monday at the Berlin film festival that the film-making process was 'governed by fear.'
'Nobody wanted to talk about Khodorkovsky. They all thought they would lose business connections. There was a big mistrust,' said German director Cyril Tuschi. He said the attitude was symptomatic of Moscow as a whole.
'All the rich people fear that they will lose their money, all the powerful fear they will lose their power,' Tuschi said. 'I don't want to be governed by fear.'
The 111-minute film features interviews with former business associates of Khodorkovsky, political figures and his immediate family, depicting a young socialist who rose to embody Russia's burgeoning post-Soviet capitalist system until he was imprisoned in 2003 for tax evasion.
At the premiere, the subject also turned to revelations by a Moscow court assistant earlier on Monday that a judge who sentenced the former oil tycoon in a second trial last December was ordered from above to impose a lengthy prison term.
'The woman who made the statement today is a hero,' said Irina Yasina, an economist who worked on the board of Open Russia, a civil society organization founded by Khodorkovsky.
Khodorkovsky, who was nearing the end his previous term, was sentenced in December to 13 and a half years for stealing oil and laundering the proceeds.
Critics have alleged that the trial was politically motivated and an attempt to sideline the former head of the now-defunct Yukos oil giant prior to presidential elections due in 2012.
In a society dominated by fear, Yasina said the courage of Khodorkovsky's resistance paved the way for others.
'The example of Mikhail (Khodorkovsky) is what our country needs,' she said.
Khodorkovsky's former wife Elena said it was difficult to know what the future held for the former oil tycoon, after the outcome of his second trial was worse than they had expected.
'Like all families we would like to hope for positive things,' Elena Khodorkovskaya said. However, she expected little to change before next year's presidential election.
'After that, we hope something will change,' she added.
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