Medvedev orders investigation into death in prison of lawyer

RUSSIAN PRESIDENT Dmitry Medvedev has ordered an investigation into the death in police custody of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.

Mr Magnitsky (37) died last week from what officials called heart failure, but friends, relatives and colleagues blamed his death on the refusal of prison authorities to give him the medical treatment that he had repeatedly requested.

The lawyer worked with Bill Browder, a prominent US banker who ran Hermitage Capital Management, once the largest investment fund in Russia.

Mr Magnitsky and Mr Browder were accused of involvement in multi-million-dollar tax fraud.

Mr Browder was barred from re- entering Russia on security grounds, in what he called retribution from Russian officials who resented his criticism of their alleged corruption and theft of state funds and his demands for stronger shareholder rights in state-dominated firms.

“He was their hostage and they killed their hostage by denying him medical attention,” Mr Browder said this week. “They basically said to him ‘if you sign the following false confessions then we’ll give you medical treatment – otherwise we won’t’.”

Mr Browder now lives in London and describes Russia under Mr Medvedev and prime minister Vladimir Putin as “a criminal state”.

Russian authorities initially showed no inclination to investigate Mr Magnitsky’s death, despite appeals from rights campaigners and some coverage in the mostly pro-Kremlin Russian media.

Mr Medvedev unexpectedly intervened yesterday, by ordering Russia’s prosecutor general and justice minister to investigate the lawyer’s death.

In recent weeks, the president has pledged to help Russia’s beleaguered civil society and has scolded members of the pro-Kremlin ruling party for manipulating elections.

Critics say however he has taken few concrete steps towards his professed goal of ending “legal nihilism” in Russia, where corruption and crime are rampant and few people have faith in the police or law courts.