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Lithuania freezes bank accounts related to Magnitsky case

RAPSI

The Lithuanian authorities have frozen several bank accounts as part of the case of embezzled budget funds, exposed by Hermitage Capital lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who died in the Matrosskaya Tishina prison in 2009.

Prior to his death in a Moscow pre-trial detention center, the Hermitage Capital lawyer claimed that Russian tax officials had stolen $230 million from the company and laundered the funds through various European banks. Russia has refuted the accusations on numerous occasions.

Last summer, Hermitage Capital sent requests to the prosecutor’s offices of six countries to freeze accounts held at banks which are thought to have transferred the embezzled funds in 2008. Hermitage Capital believes that banks in Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Austria, Finland and Cyprus were involved. The Lithuanian Prosecutor General’s Office launched a pretrial investigation the day after receiving Hermitage Capital’s emailed request.

“We have frozen the accounts of all the offshore companies which made transactions through Ukio Bankas. This was done on September 28, when the case was transferred to us from the Prosecutor General’s Office, as the bank is headquartered on our city. The point at issue is a relatively small sum of up to $100,000,” Kaunas Prosecutor Donatas Puzinas told RIA Novosti on Tuesday. He said there are no suspects in the case and that all accounts were managed from Russia and Ukraine, where they were opened at local branches of Ukio Bankas. So far, no Lithuanian nationals are involved in the case.