A lawyer who exposed large-scale official corruption in Russia was today convicted of tax evasion by a Moscow court — even though he died in custody four years ago.
Sergei Magnitsky was found guilty along with London-based William Browder, the head of the Hermitage Capital investment fund, who was tried in absentia.
The case had been widely denounced as both farcical and proof that corruption within Russian authorities extends to using the judicial system to produce verdicts which contradict evidence. Hermitage Capital said in a statement: “This show trial confirms that (President) Vladimir Putin is ready to sacrifice his international credibility to protect corrupt officials who murdered an innocent lawyer and stole $230 million from the Russian state.”
The judge at the Tverskoy district court is expected to announce a jail sentence for Mr Browder.
Mr Magnitsky died aged 37 of untreated pancreatitis in 2009, after accusing interior ministry officials of organising a $235 million tax scam. He was then charged with the crime he claimed to have uncovered.
Mr Browder claims that Mr Magnitsky was tortured and refused proper medical care and has vowed to have those he alleges were behind the plot be brought to justice. The Kremlin’s human rights council agreed there was evidence the lawyer was beaten to death.
Mr Browder was formerly a supporter of Mr Putin and headed a fund that was one of the biggest foreign investors in Russia. Now he is a vocal critic and successfully lobbied for the “Magnitsky Act” in the US which bans officials implicated in the death and corruption case from visiting and freezes their assets. Moscow retaliated by refusing to allow Russian children to be adopted in the US.
