Stop the Untouchables. Justice for Sergei Magnitsky.

Russia to Try Browder With Dead Hermitage Lawyer for Tax Evasion

Bloomberg

Russia plans to try William Browder, head of London-based Hermitage Capital Management Ltd., for tax evasion, along with Sergei Magnitsky, the fund’s lawyer who died in custody in 2009, RIA Novosti said.

“Magnitsky and Browder are both accused of severe crimes, which deprived the state of several hundred million rubles,” Alexander Yagodin, a senior Interior Ministry official, said in an interview with RIA Novosti, published today on the state- controlled news service’s website. Calls by Bloomberg to the ministry’s investigative branch weren’t answered today.

Yagodin denied that Magnitsky, who President Dmitry Medvedev’s human rights commission said was facing fabricated charges when he was beaten to death, had uncovered corruption by Interior Ministry officials. The Hermitage lawyer said he was abused and denied medical care in an effort to force him to drop fraud allegations against officials before his death in November 2009 after almost a year in pre-trial detention.