Remember Sergei Magnitsky

The Post and Courier

Who’s really running Russia? The smart money has been on Vladimir Putin, and the case of Sergei Magnitsky appears to underscore that conclusion. How the Magnitsky case is resolved will reveal the extent of Mr. Putin’s reach, even though Dmitry Medvedev serves as president.

Mr. Magnitsky was arrested by Russia’s Interior Ministry in 2008 shortly after he declared that he had evidence of police corruption and embezzlement at the ministry. The complaint said he had helped a client, American-owned investment firm Hermitage Capital, evade taxes. He died after 11 months in prison.

Now Russia has indicted two doctors for his death in a case that exudes the smell of a cover-up. It has strained U.S.-Russian relations and tested the relative powers of President Medvedev, an advocate of the rule of law, and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

In July, President Medvedev’s Human Rights Commission presented him with the results of an independent investigation alleging that Mr. Magnitsky had been severely beaten by eight guards shortly before his death.

The report found that he had been denied medical treatment and that the investigative team in charge of interrogating him included individuals he had accused of corruption. The Russian president promptly made the report public.

But the Interior Ministry, which reports to Prime Minister Putin, said there was “no reason” for Russia to investigate the Magnitsky death. Shortly afterward, however, the two doctors were arrested and charged with negligence.

One doctor had given testimony to the Human Rights Commission’s investigators saying she had requested additional medical care for the lawyer because he was vomiting frequently and had shown other signs of distress.

No prison guards or interrogators have been arrested.

In view of the evidence that a large number of Russian officials had a hand in Mr. Magnitsky’s mistreatment and demise, the U.S. State Department last month announced 60 of them will be denied visas to visit the United States.

Meanwhile, Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., and 20 other senators have submitted the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act, to invoke a travel ban against serious human rights violators, freeze their assets and publish their names. The proposal would serve as “a powerful deterrent for those craving respectability and legitimacy in the West,” Sen. Cardin says.

Now, in tit-for-tat fashion, Russia is preparing its own list of unwelcome American officials.

The Washington Times reports that the Foreign Ministry seeks a visa ban for American officials connected to the apprehension of two Russians who may have been working for Russian intelligence, a Putin power base.

Russia has labeled as kidnappings the arrests of Russian arms merchant and air transport magnate Victor Bout and pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko, caught in separate international sting operations.

Mr. Bout awaits trial in Thailand on charges that he planned to ship anti-aircraft missiles to the FARC, a narco-terrorist group in Colombia. Mr. Yaroshenko has been convicted in federal court of conspiring to transport Colombian cocaine to the United States.

The fact that the Foreign Ministry is willing to intervene of behalf of a drug smuggler and an international arms dealer is another sign that Mr. Putin, who served the economically dysfunctional, brutally repressive Soviet Union as head of its KGB intelligence service, remains in control in Russia. срочный займ на карту онлайн онлайн займы https://zp-pdl.com/fast-and-easy-payday-loans-online.php https://zp-pdl.com микрозайм онлайн