Russian activist slams investigators’ latest statements on Hermitage fund

Ekho Moskvy

15 November: The Russian Interior Ministry’s statement that lawyer Sergey Magnitskiy, who died in 2009 in a pre-trial detention centre, participated directly in the embezzlement of budget money to the tune of R5.4bn [around 174.6m dollars] is “the height of cynicism”, Zoya Svetova, a member of the public oversight commission for Moscow’s places of compulsory detention, has said on air on Ekho Moskvy radio station.

She said she viewed the accusation as “a response to the campaign which is currently being conducted by the investment fund Hermitage Capital”, where Magnitskiy worked. “Its aim is to expose Interior Ministry personnel involved in the theft of an enormous sum of money – R5.4bn – from the Russian budget,” Svetova said, adding that this embezzlement had been investigated by none other than Magnitskiy.

“In the Russian law-enforcement system, it often happens that a victim suddenly becomes the accused,” she said.

The public oversight commission carried out its own investigation following Magnitskiy’s death, Svetova said. “We spoke to staff at the prison and with doctors, and I continue to assert that he was indeed reduced to death there – it was done intentionally,” she said

“Tomorrow it will be a year since the day Magnitskiy died, and in all European parliaments and the US Congress a film about his case will be shown,” she said. “It tells why Magnitskiy died, the conditions in which he was held in the Russian pre-trial detention centre, because his death still has not been investigated, and there are very great suspicions that he died from a lack of medical assistance, or was perhaps even murdered,” she added. срочный займ на карту unshaven girl female wrestling www.zp-pdl.com https://zp-pdl.com займ онлайн на карту без отказа