Stop the Untouchables. Justice for Sergei Magnitsky.

MEP who joined Magnitsky group hopes EU draws Russian “black list”

Lithuanian Tribune

MEP Leonidas Donskis has joined an interparliamentary group, members of which maintain they seek justice for lawyer Sergey Magnitsky who died in a Russian prison in 2009 after revealing a financial fraud scheme of Russian authorities.

Donskis, the first Lithuanian representative in the group, told BNS he expected the European Union (EU) to have enough courage to respond to the case to follow the example set by the United States’ to draw a “black list” of Russian officials.

“The Magnitsky case has bared a sensitive problem one cannot remain indifferent to. We’re talking about a lawyer who chose to stand up to corruption, unveiled horrific facts of corruption and sacrificed his life, which is already obvious,” Donskis told BNS on Wednesday.

He said his joining the group was a demonstration of the position of the European Parliament (EP) and Lithuania.

Set up in Canada in December, the group now includes 16 politicians from 12 countries: Canada, Estonia, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain and Sweden.

Magnitsky died in a Moscow prison in November of 2009. Russian authorities had charged him with tax evasion, however, his colleagues maintain that the case was developed in revenge for his testimony, which said that employees of law-enforcement institutions could be connected with the embezzlement scheme he had exposed.