Stop the Untouchables. Justice for Sergei Magnitsky.

Bar Russian Murder Suspects, says Cotler

The Epoch Times

Tax attorneys make unlikely heroes, but Sergei Magnitsky died a horrible death at the age of 37, refusing to recant his assertion of a massive fraud in Russia.

Magnitsky spent his final days at the same prison that once held Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish hero credited with rescuing as many as 100,000 Jews from the Nazis only to be imprisoned by the Soviets on suspicion of espionage.

Like Wallenberg, Magnitsky is being remembered as a man of principle who stood by his sense of right and wrong at great personal cost.

Several years ago, Bill Browder, CEO of Hermitage Capital Management, and his associates discovered that Russian companies they had invested in had bilked the Russian government for $230 million in taxes paid by Hermitage.

Exposing the fraud got Browder barred from Russia, but his lawyer, Magnitsky, paid a higher price. He was jailed, mistreated, and killed in November 2009. He was denied medical treatment for a severe pancreatic condition he developed while held in the infamous Butyrka prison.

Like Wallenberg, Magnitsky is being remembered as a man of principle who stood by his sense of right and wrong at great personal risk.

Browder said the fact that the Russian government would attack people for exposing tax fraud shows that corruption had reached the highest levels of the government.