Private Investigations Find America’s Magnitsky Act to Be Based on Frauds

Eric Zuesse

We are now getting closer and closer to what, quite possibly, could turn out to be a war between U.S. and Russia — a world-ending World War III — and, therefore, I, as an investigative historian, am trying to understand, as accurately as I can, the historical origins of this potentially world-ending conflict, the ‘new Cold War’. In this regard, I am examining the event, the 2012 Magnitsky Act, in the United States (and then copied in the EU), which imposed the first set of economic sanctions against Russia, and thus may reasonably be said to have sparked ‘the new Cold War’.

Gilbert Doctorow published on 18 June 2016 a terrific review of an independent documentary investigation into this matter, which film I first shall summarize here by excerpts from its transcript.

This Magnitsky documentary is titled “The Magnitsky Act Behind the Scenes”, and, to the extent that it is true (and my own individual investigation regarding its truthfulness and/or lack thereof, will follow after these excerpts from the film, to address this issue), it makes unequivocally clear that the U.S. and EU economic sanctions that are based on Magnitsky are fraudulently based. By the time you will reach the end here, you’ll know the truth about the event that actually sparked ‘the new Cold War’ — and you wll know it not only from this film.

Robert Parry has explained how the target of the film, William Browder, has succeeded in banning its being shown, both in the United States and in UK and EU. So, I arranged with the film’s Production Manager a private viewing of it. I also requested from him a copy of its script, so as to post that along with my review (to be presented here). He didn’t reply to my request for the transcript; so, my review here will instead consist of quotations of what I consider to be the key passages in the film’s script, so as to enable non-viewers of this banned-in-The-West historically crucial documentary, to know what’s being banned — what our ‘democracy’ is preventing us from seeing and hearing, about the start of ’the new Cold War’, which could end the world.

Furthermore, I have previously pointed out that the Magnitsky case was the core of the reason why the Trump campaign had been approached by a private Russian lawyer, Nataliya Veselnitskaya, who then met at Trump Tower on 9 June 2016 with Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort, which private meeting largely sparked the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russiagate-Trump investigation, and that the “dirt” which she had promised about Hillary Clinton turned out to have been merely a pretext for her to obtain this meeting and present her private client’s case that Trump, if he became President, should terminate the Magnitsky Act.

Furthermore, London’s Daily Mail had reported, on 2 April 2016 (even prior to this meeting), that a hired agent of Bill Browder, a certain woman who also was a “political commentator on several TV and radio channels, including the BBC, in which she has oppposed the current Russian government,” was also the mistress of a former Russian Prime Minister who was planning to run against Vladimir Putin in the 2018 Russian Presidential elections; and, so, Browder’s passion for regime-change in Russia could match this Russian politician’s similar passion not only for that, but for Browder’s hired agent. So: this is juicy history not only about the Magnitsky Act, and about Russiagate, but also about Bill Browder’s obsession to bring down Vladimir Putin, who wants Browder to be prosecuted in Russia, for having stolen $230 million from Russia’s Treasury.

——

The Magnitsky Act Behind the Scenes

25 June 2016 Documentary, 120 minutes (2 hours), by Andrei Nekrasov

The first 22 minutes and 40 seconds didn’t contain anything I thought to be usable by a forensic investigator — no allegation that would meet a court’s admissibility requirements as constituting “evidence” — in any other way than to demonstrate that the filmmaker, Nekrasov, was strongly anti-Putin and pro Bill Browder, prior to his having done the research that he subsequently shows himself doing in this film. He starts out filming clearly as an admirer of Browder, and as thinking that this film will show the public how bad and corrupt a person Vladimir Putin must be, whose regime would perpetrate such alleged barbaric treatment of an alleged whistleblower (Magnitsky) as Browder has so tirelessly devoted himself to exposing in the Magnitsky matter. Nekrasov, as a documentary filmmaker, devotes actually the opening 32 minutes of this documentary to a re-enactment of the Magnitsky affair that’s based upon what Browder has presented regarding the matter, and, on the basis of which, the economic sanctions against Russia were enacted into law, both in the U.S. and in the EU. Nekrasov had created this re-enactment on his expectation that after showing this ‘historical’ re-enactment, he would then proceed to show the documentation, proving that these things actually did happen, just like the film’s hero Browder claimed they did.

22:40: Browder says of Magnitsky “he was a lawyer’s lawyer.” Crucially, Browder claims that Magnitsky was his “lawyer,” not his “accountant.”

23:20: Browder says that every one of the hundreds of communications from Magnitsky during his 11-month imprisonment ending in his death, was copied, and that “one went to his lawyer and a copy went to us.” So — Browder, according to his testimony here to Nekrasov, has the documents, but doesn’t supply any of them to the filmmaker Nekrasov, who is evidently so infatuated with Browder, and so incompetent as a documentarian, as not even to request Browder to show him any evidence at all. Seeing this, I was furious to be wasting my time with such a fool as Nekrasov, the filmmaker of what now seems obviously to be a mediocre supposed re-enactment, who isn’t even doing the most elementary things that a good documentarian would bedoing, such as questioning, and follow-up questions being asked, testing constantly the honesty of everyone he interviews on-camera. Instead, he’s just a patsy here.

31:15: Nekrasov says “He [Magnitsky] went into prison healthy.” Nekrasov is saying that the health-problems Magnitsky experienced during his 11-month pre-trial detention (ending in his death there) were due to his mistreatment there, not to any bad health. But, also, Nekrasov can’t credibly re-enact the crucial scene, which, according to Browder’s ‘research’, entailed 7 police officers beating to death Magnitsky, in a cell and situation that are so unrealistic that Nekrasov now has to rethink what it is that he’s filming — is his friend Browder maybe lying?

32: “We stopped the camera.” The re-enactment of Nekrasov’s friend Browder’s account is done — the documentarian no longer will accept, without deeper investigation, what Browder is telling him. These two until-now friends are, now and henceforth, very wary of each other. But it’s not yet clear just how wary.

36: Nekrasov has difficulties finishing his re-enactment of the scene of Magnitsky’s death as it had been recounted by Browder. Had he been paying actors to do a ‘re-enactment’ that’s actually false? Had he been wasting his money? Nekrasov is thus in crisis, recognizing that he had paid actors to re-enact a ‘historical’ account that was, at least to some extent, bogus. He had obviously wasted some money. From this moment on, Nekrasov starts to be concerned far more about how and why the Magnitsky Act came to be passed, than about Putin’s alleged perfidies. He’s no longer documenting Browder’s case against, basically, Putin, and Putin’s government. Amazingly, Nekrasov now starts to be an actual investigator, no longer a hero-worshipper (of Browder). Maybe it’s his anger at having been deceived by Browder, which caused this sudden turn, but a turn it clearly seems to be.

38: U.S. Senators Ben Cardin and John McCain are shown as having been instrumental in pushing through the Magnitsky Act, based on Browder’s presentations.

39: In December 2012 Obama signed the Magnitsky Act, which says that Russia’s “Human Rights Council announced the results of its independent investigation into the death of Sergei Magnitsky,” but Nekrasov finds that the Council had actually lifted wholesale into their report, evidence from the American Browder’s presentation. Instead of Nekrasov’s now proceedng to present the documents in the case, to his viewers, and getting right down to showing actual evidence, Nekrasov incongruously seeks first an interview with a non-witness, Magnistky’s mother, who tells him what she thinks the documents show. Nekrasov seems to take this hearsay as constituting evidence, which it isn’t — it’s merely hearsay. But her testimony is really just questions in her mind, perhaps entirely honestly intended answers to his stupid questions. Clearly, Nekrasov isn’t a good interviewer, and doesn’t yet even know what constitutes evidence and what doesn’t. (Later, at 1:09, he exhibits the realism to admit he’s “not a natural-born detective.” He certainly isn’t, but he seems, thus far in the presentation, at least, to be honest, and he clearly wants to understand what really happened, and this apparent integrity might, if it’s authentic, enable him to achieve marvelous things in this documentary, despite the enormous time-wastes to his viewers who are trying to get to it.)

Then the filmmaker asks Magnitsky’s mother whether mistreatment of Magnitsky was “intentional” — as if she’d even be in a position to answer that. She says she doesn’t know. She never even saw the interrogation. She wasn’t there. By now, I am expecting to see Nekrasov’s investigation to start, and to be incompetently done. His questioning thus far has been largely stupid. But I was mistaken! Nekrasov now suddenly seems to be turning into the ideal type of solicitor — investigating lawyer, as opposed to barristers, the latter of whom, in UK, present cases to juries; but, if Nekrasov possesses any competency, it’s as a solicitor (the presenting lawyer’s researcher). Suddenly, he’s what every barrister dreams of having — a terrific solicitor, a terrific investigator. Nekrasov appears now to be a great forensic analyst — but only of written evidence, the type that he’ll now be examining. (As an interviewer, interrogator, he’s obviously not even competent.) Perhaps it’s no wonder Browder has banned this film! But, luckily for Browder, Nekrasov, as the barrister in this documentary, is incompetent; much of this film, infuriatingly (such as this interview of Magnitsky’s mother), wastes the viewer’s time and should just have been cut out altogether. This could be an extremely important documentary for what it will prove, but certainly not for its being a well-done documentary, nor even one that’s enjoyable to watch — not in any way enjoyable! Watching it is, to the contrary, for me at least, a grueling chore. Many of the key passages go by far too fast for the viewer to absorb. Others are sheer waste and should have been eliminated. I needed frequently to go back a minute or so in order to see again a passage, in order to understand the full meaning of what had just-then whizzed by, before going on. Sometimes I had to re-view a passage several times. I spent around eight hours, simply to go through this two-hour documentary once; and, at the very least, it has a half-hour of sheer waste, and yet is too short by more than a half-hour on what should have been looked further into but was ignored. However, this film does have the advantage of interviewing many of the crucial people. It’s an amateurish documentary, but still an important one.

43: Nekrasov declares himself “perplexed,” because Magnitsky’s mother hasn’t confirmed Browder’s account. Nekrasov isn’t yet anti-Browder, but he now seems to fear that maybe he should have been; he doesn’t yet know whether anything will be salvageable from the re-enactment he has produced.

48: Nekrasov interviews Pavel Karpov, the alleged 8th police-officer who was involved in Magnitsky’s alleged murder but who wasn’t present on the actual occasion. Karpov had tried to sue Browder for libel in a London court, but wasn’t able to. Karpov offers Nekrasov documents that Browder’s case was built on but which are actually fundamentally different from the way Browder had described them. Nekrasov asks stupid follow-up questions (starting with “Why is Browder so bent on attacking you personally?”), rather than immediately to look at, and examine, the offered documents, and to discuss them with Karpov, to get his crucial feedback on key passages in it. (But Nekrasov will get around to talking about those documents after Karpov is gone. Nekrasov simply missed here his opportunity to discuss the documents with Karpov, and doesn’t seem even to care about having missed it.) Karpov, during his conversation with Nekrasov, answers this personal question from Nekrasov by saying he had pursued Browder in 2004 for tax-evasion, and that that’s his personal hypothesis as to why Browder smears Karpov. (51:32: Karpov says, “Having made billions here, Browder forgot to tell how he did it. So it suits him to pose as a victim. He is wanted here, but Interpol is not looking for him.”) Nekrasov then, after Karpov is gone, looks at the documents Karpov has handed him; Nekrasov sees that Browder’s account had been lies, if these documents from Karpov were authentic. The documentation which Nekrasov now had was very detailed. All of it was easily checkable. Nekrasov then starts checking, and he finds that the actual Russian-language documents, the originals that Karpov handed him copies of, present conflicts with the historical re-enactment that Nekrasov had been presenting for the first 32 minutes of this documentary. (54:45) “That impression didn’t fit the story I was filming, and I somehow ignored it.” But, now, “I looked up Magnitsky’s testimony again.” Here we get to the filmmaker’s area of investigative strength.

(What Nekrasov represents as being Browder’s English-language purported translations of the documents are shown here: http://russian-untouchables.com/eng/testimonies/ That’s Browder’s case. After writing this summary, I was shocked to see Russian-language originals there, no translations at all. More on that later.)

Nekrasov claims to be especially struck that the basis of Browder’s case — that Magnitsky had been killed by the police because he had accused two police officials, Karpov and Kuznetsov — is a lie because Magnitsky hadn’t accused anyone.

Nekrasov says that the originals do not comport with the translations from Browder, and do not even mention by name any of the officers that are named in the translations. (What translations? Even that’s not clear; but, supposedly, they are Browder’s case — and they don’t match the Russian-language originals.) “Why did Bill Browder insist Magnitsky had accused Karpov?” Nekrasov asks.

(55:40) “I tried to reach Bill, first on the mobile, …” Nothing was responded to.

Nekrasov then interviews the top EU Parliamentarian who had spearheaded Browder’s anti-Russian effort at the EU, and interviewed her with her Russian aide who was her source on everything (since that Parliamentarian couldn’t read Russian). She said that Magnitsky had been killed because he had accused his interrogators and the police officials.

1:00: Nekrasov: “The problem is, he [Magnitsky] made no accusations. In that testimony, its record contains no accusations. … Mr. Magnitsky did not actually testify against the two officers [Karpov and Kuznetsov].” The Parliamentarian responds “I can’t relate to this.” He then shows the Russian-language transcript to her aide. She reads it, and asks “Have you talked to Andi [Andreas] Gross?” Nekrasov says, “I’ve emailed him.” She replies, “He is the author of the PACE [Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe] report on Magnitsky. Have you read it?” “Yes.” “And how does he deal with this?” “That’s precisely the problem” because it contradicts the transcript, he responds.

1:03: Nekrasov then interviews Gross, who starts by saying that when the U.S. had passed the Magnitsky Act, there had been far less documentation than the EU had in the PACE report. Nekrasov presents the original Russian of the transcript.

1:04: Gross says: “We always have to trust the translation of the provider [presumably, Browder, but Nekrasov fails to make this clear].” Gross can’t read Russian. Nekrasov: “But they don’t accuse them.” “Gross: “They don’t accuse them?” “Nekrasov: “No.” Gross: “These kind of documents, they all come from Browder’s sources.” (Gross makes clear what Nekrasov didn’t and failed even to ask about: the EU action was based entirely upon Browder’s translations, pictures, ‘evidence’.) Gross now backs off Browder’s claim that Magnitsky was “murdered”: simply “They didn’t take care enough.” Now: It’s negligence; that’s Gross’s take on things now. Nekrasov fails to ask whether Gross regrets having presented Browder’s case which alleges that it was intentional homicide. Nekrasov misses more opportunities than he takes advantage of. He doesn’t recognize what’s important and what’s irrelevant. Even Gross has now admitted that the EU action was at least to some extent ungrounded.

1:07:27: Nekrasov is at the book-signing ceremony and reception in Moscow for the publication of Browder’s book about the Magnitsky matter. (At 1:35 is revealed that this event was filmed in London; it would have been on 3 February 2015, but this sloppy documentary fails to say anthing about the when and where of this event.) Nekrasov is on close affectionate terms with Browder’s friends there, who now no longer include Nekrasov himself. He’s now a highly disillusioned onlooker. Nekrasov asks attendees what Sergei Magnitsky had been like. They describe him as having been a cultured man, “brilliant,” but an accountant and no lawyer: “He wasn’t a lawyer. He was an accountant.” Browder evidently lies even about the type of professional service that Magnitsky had been providing to him.

1:10: Nekrasov now shows the film’s viewers the Russian-language documents, and Russian-language news-reports prior to Magnitsky’s having been brought in for questioning. There were news-reports about the discovery and reporting to police of the theft, “And Magnitsky doesn’t discover anything. That’s what I found. He’s supposed to discover this. But other people did. The press. Look at this: 7 October 2008. ‘Magnitsky was questioned on a $232 million fraud.’ And look here in this from the newspaper, on 23 September 2008, two weeks before Magnitsky’s police questioning, (1:12:14:) ’the theft of USD 232 million from the state treasury’, and the police probe into it.” The investigation had started “on April 9, 2008.” A certain (1:12:43) Rimma Mikhailovna Starova reported the theft to the police on that date. Then Nekrasov shows the viewer this document:

http://web.archive.org/web/20081016164839/http://www.hermitagefund.com:80/

it says:

September 16, 2008

BRITISH VIRGIN ISLANDS HIGH COURT ISSUES MULTI-JURISDICTIONAL RULING TO PROTECT HSBC AND THE HERMITAGE FUND FROM RUSSIAN FRAUD

HCML. The High Court of Justice of the British Virgins Islands (the “Court”) has issued a multi-jurisdictional injunction against Boily Systems Limited (“Boily”), a BVI company that acquired three Russian investment vehicles that had been stolen from HSBC and the Hermitage Fund and that were used by an organized criminal group to defraud the Russian Government of US$230 million. The ruling made in response to court filings by HSBC, acting as Trustee of the Hermitage Fund, on 11 July 2008, will be used in Russian arbitration hearings scheduled for later this week in Moscow regional court.

September 16, 2008

BRITISH VIRGIN ISLANDS HIGH COURT ISSUES MULTI-JURISDICTIONAL RULING TO PROTECT HSBC AND THE HERMITAGE FUND FROM RUSSIAN FRAUD

HCML. The High Court of Justice of the British Virgins Islands (the “Court”) has issued a multi-jurisdictional injunction against Boily Systems Limited (“Boily”), a BVI company that acquired three Russian investment vehicles that had been stolen from HSBC and the Hermitage Fund and that were used by an organized criminal group to defraud the Russian Government of US$230 million. The ruling made in response to court filings by HSBC, acting as Trustee of the Hermitage Fund, on 11 July 2008, will be used in Russian arbitration hearings scheduled for later this week in Moscow regional court.

April 07, 2008

Hijacking the Hermitage Fund

BusinessWeek. Hermitage Capital Management alleges that a massive fraud attempt in Russia, which even included the police, nearly made off with hundreds of millions.

So: on 7 April 2008, the accusations, including against “the police,” were already published, at Browder’s own website, and Magnitsky wasn’t brought in for questioning until 7 October 2008 — and he didn’t accuse anyone — and he hadn’t been the person who reported the matter to the police; it was Rimma Mikhailovna Starova who had already done that.

And he shows this press release:

http://web.archive.org/web/20090130125854/http://hermitagefund.com:80/index.pl/news/article.html?id=899

which says:

8 February 2008: The three stolen vehicles [“three Russian investment vehicles that had been stolen from HSBC and the Hermitage Fund and that were used by an organized criminal group to defraud the Russian Government of US$230 million”] are purchased by Boily from Pluton for US$750. Ms Rimma Starova, a 70 year-old resident of Novocherkassk, Russia, is appointed the General Director of each of the three stolen vehicles.

24 March 2008: Mr Smetanin issues a decision to liquidate the three stolen vehicles.

24 March 2008: Mr Smetanin, acting as Boily’s authorized representative, appoints the liquidator for the three stolen vehicles, Mr. Shcherbakov.

April 2008: Ms. Starova files a criminal complaint with the Russian Interior Ministry in Kazan falsely accusing representatives of HSBC’s companies of the theft of state funds.

July 2008: In response to HSBC filings, the Moscow regional court issues order prohibiting the liquidation of the three stolen vehicles.

30 July 2008: The liquidator Mr Shcherbakov files to initiate the bankruptcy of the three stolen vehicles with the Moscow Regional Court.

19 August 2008: Lawyers acting for Kroll, the Receiver of Boily, appealed to the Moscow Regional Court to stop the bankruptcy proceedings.

For further information, please contact:

Hermitage Capital Management

Phone: +44 207 440 1777

Email: [email protected]

So: Hermitage, Browder’s firm, had already made public on its website, that in “April 2008: Ms. Starova files a criminal complaint with the Russian Interior Ministry in Kazan falsely accusing representatives of HSBC’s companies of the theft of state funds.” Browder’s firm claimed Starova was “falsely accusing” people “of the theft of state funds” amounting to $232 million. Browder’s firm is saying that these charges against it (against those “HSBC’s companiess” — they are actually Browder’s own Hermitage) are “falsely accusing” Browder’s firm. The Hermitage propaganda was as vague as possible there, so as not to make clear to readers that Browder’s own company, Hermitage itself, was being accused of having stolen $230 million from the Russian Government.) Then, on 7 October 2008, Magnitsky was brought in for questioning, and he didn’t accuse anybody. And Magnitsky was Browder’s accountant — not (as Browder constantly claims) his “lawyer.”

1:13:32: “Mr. Browder’s companies were part of this financial empire HSBC [Nekrasov finally gets around to mentioning that], Europe’s biggest bank. … Rimma Starova became a figurehead director of Browder’s companies after they were used to return [to the Russian Government] $232 million in the tax-rebate fraud. … Starova broke the rules of the game for some reason and reported the scam to the police. She accused these people. This obscure agent reported the crime. … Hermitage at first kept the report of the tax-rebate fraud as a false accusation against them[selves].” (I had to replay that passage several times in order to understand fully and accurately what Nekrasov was saying.)

1:15: “In March 2009, Starova’s report disappeared from Hermitage’s website. … This is the same time that Magnitsky started to be treated as an analyst … who discovered the $232 million fraud. Thus the Magnitsky-the-whistleblower story was born, nine months after” the matter had been reported to the police. Nekrasov says that the Browder version is: “Yes, the crime [$232 million fraud against the public treasury but, according to Browder, actually against Browder’s firm] took place, but somebody else did it — the police did it.” Nekrasov adds: “And it is true that Mr. Karpov confiscated the [original incorporating documents] and he has those originals within his possession” to answer whether any police were involved. But Nekrasov still doesn’t ask Karpov to present those documents. Nekrasov is no interrogator, shockingly poor at doing that. He’s just a documents-investigator — and that’s an important and rare skill to have.

1:18-1:24: Somehow, somewhere, out of nowhere in the structure of this disjointed documentary’s storyline, Nekrasov interviews Browder yet again, who turns out to be now an insulting interviewee. He insists that Magnitsky had accused the police both in June and in October of 2008 and refuses to accept Nekrasov’s statement that Magnitsky did not accuse them. Browder says he doesn’t know who reported the crime first, and, “We’d have to go back through our records.” “It could have been Sergei Magnitsky, it could have been any of our other lawyers.” Nekrasov mentions Rimma Starova, and Browder says “she’s some kind of low-paid, some kind of pensioner,” so he doesn’t call her a “lawyer.” Browder now threatens Nekrasov: “Anybody who says that Sergei Magnitsky didn’t expose the crime before he was arrested is just trying to whitewash the Russian Government. … Are you trying to say that Pavel Karpov is innocent? I’d really be careful about your going out and saying that Magnitsky wasn’t a whistleblower. That’s not going to do well for your credibility … like ‘we don’t have any men in Crimea’.” Browder walks off in a huff.

1:26: Nekrasov now goes back to look more closely into documents he had not previously carefully examined. He finds: In 4 October 2004, Browder was formally accused in one case, of “forgery of a document issued by the minister of investment policies.” The document in Russian is shown. “I myself overdramatized the raid in my film,” Nekrasov admits on-camera. (Presumably, he’s angry against Browder now, for having deceived him so, but his comportment exhibits no anger, maybe because Nekrasov still actually remains fond of Browder.)

1:27:40: A photo of an alleged employee of Browder’s law firm, Firestone Duncan, who is shown in Browder’s publications as being named “Victor Poryugin” and as having facial wounds from allegedly having been beaten by police, turned out to be showing a person who never was with Browder’s firm, but instead to have been picturing “an American human rights campaigner beaten up during a street protest in 1961.” It was Jim Zwerg, civil-rights demonstrator, during the 1960s, in the American South.

For me, that point in the documentary (I hadn’t yet seen for myself all the evidence I’d need to see) practically ended the entire case, right there. To switch photos like that is unacceptable practice in any document from a person (such as Browder) who possesses power; acceptance of such practice in any but a blatant dictatorship (such as, maybe, Western governments are?), is unimaginable. Video was shown there, of “Jim Zwerg, Freedom Rider” and from the online video, “FR Project — Jim Zwerg in Hospital.” For me, that seemed to end the matter. Still, I had lots more investigation to do; so, I stuck with this incompetently-made documentary.

“But Browder’s biggest falsehood was the aim of the search. … And so we looked for information about the actual way Browder’s companies had changed owners. The investigators questioned Magnitsky because he was the accountant for Browder’s companies.” The way that ownership changed was “Powers of attorney. Something Browder never mentioned.” A document is shown: “Purchase agreement … Based on this power of attorney, Gasanov represents Glendora Holdings Ltd.”  Nekrasov: “Defending himself and the Browder team, Magnitsky claimed that Gasanov’s powers of attorney were not legitimate.” Then follows a long and complex discussion of the way that billions of dollars were ordinarily siphoned out of Russia after the fall of communism and start of capitalism there. (1:34) “Gasanov, the middleman who had the power of attorney connecting the new nominees to the real beneficiaries, could not be asked who was giving them orders, as he mysteriously died. … No one proved that it was murder, but if that death was a coincidence, it wasn’t the only one. A figurehead director of one of Browder’s companies … died within months. … From contracts, signed by Gasanov, I knew of another figurehead involved in the scam, who survived, perhaps because he was arrested. Having served a term, he went into hiding. His name was Viktor Markelov.” “[Markelov’s] Crimes: Imprisoned for manslaughter 2001. Arrested for extortion & kidnapping 2006. Convicted in a closed trial for the theft of $230 million taxes by Hermitage, 2009.”

1:35: “Questioned by the police, Markelov named Browder’s associates Khairetdinov and Kleiner as people involved in the company’s re-registration. I saw the gentlemen at Browder’s London book-launch party. … Magnitsky was questioned about his acquaintance with Gasanov. … Magnitsky refused to answer. … So there was evidence that Magnitsky and Browder’s other lieutenants were involved in his re-registration they later called theft.” Nekrasov is saying that Browder’s team had set things up to look as if outsiders — not Browder’s team — had transferred the assets.

1:36: “According to Browder, Magnitsky was a brilliant young lawyer, and he had been hired specifically in order to investigate this theft of his company — both not true as it turned out. Magnitsky was not a lawyer, and he had been an accountant for Browder’s company since the nineties.”

1:36:20: “The document [not clear which one] was signed by Browder’s real lawyer, E.M. Khareitdinov. I caught up with Mr. K. and wanted to interview him, but he declined.” (There’s no deposition from him on the matter? Really? Nekrasov doesnt’t probe to find out.) Then documents are shown signed by K. with altered dates. “But the complaint that K. had filed alleging that theft had occurred from Browder’s company made no mention of any $232 million theft but “an attempt to steal more than nine billion rubles!” ($400 million) “Yet Mr. Browder had told me those companies had no assets at the time.” (1:40) Filmclip of Browder telling him “At that time, we didn’t have any assets left in Russia.” Browder’s lawyers “forgot, by the way, to add the standard clause about admitting responsibility for false accusations here. Bill Browder’s words and his documents didn’t match.”

What follows till the film’s end include U.S. court depositions of Browder (15 April 2015), and of the case’s person who ‘investigated’ the matter (who, what matter, not clear), showing that Browder said he didn’t know anything even about crucial documents, and that the U.S. federal ‘investigator’ (presumably on the basis of which Congress has passed and Obama had signed the Magnitsky Act — but Nekrasov doesn’t say) admitted that his investigation had been merely pefunctory and that all of Browder’s presentation was accepted by the U.S. Government without question. More follows regarding the incoherence and sometimes impossibility of the allegations that U.S. investigators came up with about the matter. (1:53: 45): Nekrasov: “And at a closer look, the figures simply didn’t add up.”

 

——

 

Those are the highlights I was able to glean from this tedious, but, if entirely honest, then historically extremely important documentary.

 

After watching it, I sought to find online the false translations into English that Nekrasov claims Browder to have presented. Nekrasov conspicuously failed to provide any evidence backing up his key claim, that Browder’s case is based on fraudulent translations from the Russian evidence. So, I asked Nekrasov for this evidence. He replied:

 

Here’s a brief recap of my view on the issue.

Any unbiased scrutiny of the texts of the “testimonies” (police questioning transcripts) AND the summaries should, IMHO, lead to the conclusion that Browder twists the facts badly. 

The facts are that Magnitsky was questioned by police investigating frauds he appears to have known of, or had participated in. 

Browder told me (and many others) that Magnitsky had accused police officers (Karpov and Kuznetsov) of taking part in the fraud, on Oct 7 2008. And consequently, a month later, was arrested by the people he had accused.

After I questioned this version, and pointed out that there aren’t even officers names in the Oct 7 transcript, Browder started focusing on the fact that in the June 2008 transcript Magnitsky “names the officers”. 

That is disingenuous. “Naming” doesn’t mean a substantiated accusation. (He names all kinds of other people). And there is no mention of the theft of 230 million dollars in the June “testimony”. 

There is absolutely no evidence of Magnitsky having investigated the fraud, and possessing any proof of the police’s involvement. Even if he had some, Browder would have had to explain how in the totally lawless and corrupt country he says Russia is, the omnipotent police  was so afraid of one accountant as to bother organising such a protracted and elaborate persecution against him. But Magnitsky did not have any evidence, and revealed nothing that hadn’t been revealed and published by others, in much more detail, in the Russian media, inter alia.

 

In short: he didn’t reply — he diverted, he evaded.

 

As I had said, “(What Nekrasov represents as being Browder’s English-language purported translations of the documents are shown here: http://russian-untouchables.com/eng/testimonies/That’s Browder’s case. After writing this summary, I was shocked to see Russian-language originals there, no translations at all. More on that later.)” Now is that “later”: According to Nekrasov’s interview of Andreas (‘Andi’) Gross, who had prepared the PACE report, which report was the basis for the EU’s decision to pass into law its own Magnitsky sanctions against Russia, Gross had written this PACE report without having seen the Russian-language originals of Magnitsky’s depositions to the police. Gross made clear that he couldn’t read Russian. So, I decided to find out whether Gross had read false translations, done by Browder’s people, of these Magnitsky-depositions, into a language Gross knew, and, on that basis, had been deceived, by those false Browder translations, to write this report. In any event, here is the core section of the PACE report, Gross’s report — you might not want to read all of this section of it, but at least the presentation of it here gives you a chance to skim that core part of it:

 

On the Council of Europe’s website

, I found this “Appendix 1 – Update in light of new information received”:

 

——

 

Open Society Justice Initiative sent me copy of an addendum to the Forensic Report by “Physicians for Human Rights” with numerous attachments (excerpts, in translation, from witness testimony and other Russian documents from court proceedings), and I accessed documentation which became public following a court hearing on 24 July 2013 in London, concerning the libel suit by Mr Karpov against Mr Browder. In August 2013, I also received a file from Mr Karpov’s lawyers.

2. Evaluation of the additional information received

2.1. Information received from the Russian authorities

1. In view of the discussion at the committee meeting on 26 Juneand the letter I subsequently addressed to the Russian delegation specifying the additional information I required, I am rather disappointed with the information received, which does not include any new elements of proof or explanations beyond the material on the basis of which I produced the draft report.

2.1.1. The letters from the Prosecutor General’s Office and from the Investigative Committee

1. Regarding the need for providing additional elements to the committee, the letters from the Prosecutor General’s Office and from the Investigative Committee apparently contradict each other. The former claims that:

“Mr Gross himself has no knowledge of the documents of the criminal case at point and, despite the offer from the General Prosecutor’s Office of the Russian Federation, has no wish to familiarise himself with them”.

2. By contrast, the Investigative Committee refused to provide any further evidence as they

“believe that a satisfactory amount of necessary documentation and information on the findings of the investigation in this criminal case was submitted at working meetings with Andreas Gross. Given the stance of the PACE committee delegation in this matter, we do not think that it serves any purpose to submit any further documentary information”.

3. The Investigative Committee’s letter concludes by stating that

“the other questions mentioned by Mr Gross fall within the remit of the Investigations Department of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs”.

4. The Ministry of Internal Affairs, in turn, did not respond at all to the call for additional information. To sum up, the Prosecutor General’s Office does not wish to provide me with additional elements from the case file because I have not shown a real interest, whereas the Investigative Committee considers that my interest in additional elements of information goes too far because I already received everything they could give me.
5. On substance, the letter from the Prosecutor General’s Office insists that the posthumous trial  corresponds to the family’s request. This is rather surprising. I listened at length both to Mr Magnitsky’s widow and to his mother, who expressed their strong opposition to the posthumous trial against him, complained about harassment by the judicial authorities summoning them for questioning on Mr Magnitsky’s behalf and showed me copies of several applications sent to the Prosecutor General’s Office to this effect. Ironically, the same senior official who signed the letter to me of 31 July 2013 also signed the decision to reject the family’s appeal against the posthumous reopening of the trial. The argument used in the letter addressed to me that the family’s public affirmation of Mr Magnitsky’s innocence necessarily meant that they wanted the trial to take place is unacceptable as it violates both the presumption of innocence guaranteed also in the Russian Constitution and the right to freedom of speech. This argument is based on a misunderstanding of the judgment of the Russian Constitutional Court of 14 July 2011 to which the letter refers and whose meaning was expertly explained to me by the Constitutional Court’s former Vice-President.
6. Otherwise, the letter merely repeats the position of the Prosecutor General’s Office’s regarding the innocence of various officials and the purported guilt of Mr Magnitsky and Mr Browder, as recognised in part by the judgment of the Tverskoy District Court in Moscow of 11 July 2013. They were found guilty of tax evasion, in line with the accusations already analysed in detail in the draft report (“Kalmykia case”).
7. Regarding the US$230 million tax reimbursement fraud, initially denounced by Mr Magnitsky and Mr Browder and subsequently blamed on them,  the letter reads as follows:

“It is quite clear from the report that Mr Gross is expressing his contempt for the decisions of the Russian courts which have established in particular that it was the representatives of the Hermitage investment fund who had themselves voluntarily re-registered the “Makhaon”, “Parfenion” and “Rilend” companies in the name of other individuals, a fact that Mr Browder is seeking to conceal by shifting the blame, without any foundation, onto the law enforcement agencies of the Russian Federation.”

8. In the draft report, I have described in some detail why it is absurd that Messrs Magnitsky and Browder themselves committed the fraud they had denounced in their detailed criminal complaints made before the fraud actually happened. The judgments recognising the claims against the Hermitage companies effectively annulling the profits for which Hermitage had paid the equivalent of US$230 million in taxes were obtained by lawyers acting on behalf of the criminal conspiracy – on both sides of the court cases in question. They were shown to have travelled frequently with some of the officials accused of being involved in the conspiracy. The court ruling of 30 July 2007 in favour of the convicted criminal Mr Markelov, transferring to “Pluton” (a company owned by Mr Markelov) the three Hermitage companies mentioned in the above quote from the Prosecutor General’s Office, was based on false documents.  Upon the discovery of the fraud, the lawful owners of the Hermitage companies succeed in having the ruling of 30 July 2007 overturned, but then the criminal conspirators came up with another plot: they claimed, in their appeal, that Mr Markelov (“Pluton”) had acquired the Hermitage companies from a Mr Gasanov with whom he had purportedly signed an agreement on the companies’ sale on 31 July 2007. Mr Gasanov died on 1 October 2007 and could no longer be questioned. But why did Mr Markelov feel the need to buy the three companies on 31 July 2007 after he had obtained a court ruling recognising him as the owner the day before, on 30 July 2007? The court of first instance, which had looked into the merits of the case, had confirmed Hermitage as the lawful owners of the three companies in September 2009. The criminal conspirators appealed this decision via an application from Mr Markelov/”Pluton” – at the time when Mr Markelov was serving a five-year prison sentence for his role in the US$230 million fraud! The conspirators succeeded in having the stolen Hermitage companies (Makhaon, Parfenion and Rilend) liquidated by the time the appeal was heard. The appeal court then refused to recognise the rights of Hermitage over the three companies on the ground that they had been liquidated and that there was therefore no reason to consider the merits. This is, in short, the meaning of the court decisions, copies of which the Prosecutor General’s Office handed to me during my second visit to Moscow and which I referred to in the draft report.  They show how the conspirators have succeeded in misusing certain Russian courts for their purposes. It is really for the Prosecutor General’s Office to ask the rather obvious questions following from this state of affairs rather than criticising those who point out the inconsistencies.

2.1.2. The letter from the Ministry of Justice

1. The third and longest letter received on 31 July 2013 is that of the Ministry of Justice, which submits a fairly detailed summary of the stay of Mr Magnitsky in different pretrial detention centres and of the evolution of his state of health and the diagnostics and treatment carried out in detention. Despite its detailed character, the submission skips over a number of salient facts, which are well established in official documents, for example the frequent transfers of Mr Magnitsky between different cells in the same pretrial detention centre and the use of rubber batons against him shortly before his death. The testimony by the civilian emergency doctor, who found Mr Magnitsky dead after having been kept waiting for over an hour in front of the prison, was completely ignored.
2. Nevertheless, the Ministry of Justice deserves credit for accepting the fact that certain employees of the prison administration had not carried out their duties satisfactorily, including Ms Litvinova, a hygiene expert at Butyrska, and several other officials who, according to the letter, were demoted or otherwise sanctioned. This said, the fact remains that the one prison doctor the authorities have recognised as having been guilty of criminal wrongdoings – Ms Litvinova – could not be prosecuted successfully because of the statute of limitation, which obliged the authorities to terminate the proceedings after they had dragged their feet for many months. My impression is that Ms Litvinova, who was allegedly not even qualified to dispense medical treatment, is a convenient scapegoat, whilst others, including Dr Gaus, the Matrosskaya Tishina doctor in charge when Mr Magnitsky suffered a terrible crisis and died without any medical attention, have never been indicted. The letter also fails to explain the U-turn by the prosecution in the case against Mr Kratov, the other Butyrka prison doctor indicted for criminal negligence. Shortly after a public statement by President Putin effectively exonerating all involved officials, the prosecution suddenly reversed course and requested Mr Kratov’s acquittal, which was promptly granted by the court.
3. The letter indicates that a number of other officials were disciplined or demoted due to Mr Magnitsky’s death in detention, including Lieutenant Colonel Telyatnikov, Lieutenant Colonel Komnov and Major General Davydov. But according to my information, Mr Davydov simply retired from his position as the Head of the Federal Prison Administration for Moscow. Mr Telyatnikov, one of Mr Davydov’s collaborators, was made governor of Burtyrka prison, which is arguably a promotion. Only Mr Komnov, who was the governor of Butyrka prison during Mr Magnitsky’s stay, can be seen as having been demoted, as he was made deputy governor of another prison in Moscow.

2.2. Information received from other sources

2.2.1. Additional medical information

1. The lawyers assisting Mr Magnitsky’s mother, Ms Natalya Magnitskaya, with her application to the European Court of Human Rights, have made available a Forensic Report  and a significant volume of materials from the Russian court proceedings against the medical staff prosecuted for negligence (witness testimony, extracts from Mr Magnitsky’s medical file and other documents, including the results of the ultrasound examination, translated into English).
2. This additional information clearly confirms the assessment given in the draft report of the circumstances of the deterioration of Mr Magnitsky’s health while in detention and in particular of the gross mismanagement of the acute crisis just before his death.
3. The diagnosis of severe pancreatitis made following the ultrasound examination of the abdominal cavity organs on 1 July 2009 (in particular, length of the pancreatic gland of 31 cm, the normal length being 12-15 cm) and its cause – gallstones (cholelithiasis)  – is very specific:

“… the diagnosis is quite obvious and easy to make. Any practicing clinical physician would have been able to see this from the ultrasound examination and address the problem by surgically removing the gallbladder.”

4. The expert also stresses the dire consequences of this condition for Mr Magnitsky:

“Pancreatitis, whether acute or chronic, typically produces severe, to excruciating, unrelenting abdominal pain and frequent bouts of vomiting.”

5. Treatment would have been straightforward. In the words of the forensic expert:

“Given that the pancreatitis was most likely caused by the gallstones, it would have been a relatively simple surgical operation to remove the gallstones, which would have led to a swift recovery.”

6. But shortly before the scheduled treatment, at Matrosskaya Tishina, where the diagnosis was made, Mr Magnitsky was transferred to Butyrka prison, which was not equipped for surgery, and despite his numerous documented requests for medical assistance, he was not given any adequate treatment. In fact, one of the drugs he was prescribed at Butyrka – Diclofenac – is actually know to worsen or even cause pancreatitis.
7. In the words of the forensic expert, here is what happens when pancreatitis is left untreated:

“Left untreated, acute pancreatitis may continue to worsen or lead to chronic pancreatitis and can lead to infection, including peritonitis (an infection of the abdominal cavity), septic shock (hypotension, which can lead to cardiovascular collapse), and ultimately death.”

8. The following are the symptoms of septic shock, and the urgent treatment it necessitates:

“This medical condition is manifested by changes in behaviour and mental status including agitation, confusion, lethargy, coma and death. Psychiatrists are trained to differentiate between behavioural changes caused by mental illness and behavioural changes caused by an underlying medical condition … The correct treatment for septic shock arising from untreated pancreatitis and/or peritonitis requires immediate, aggressive resuscitation with fluids and electrolytes, especially calcium, antibiotics, if indicated, and intense supportive care, which necessitates treatment in an intensive care unit until the patient can be stabilised. Left untreated, a patient suffering from such symptoms will go into irreversible hypovolemic shock and die.”

9. These are precisely the symptoms Mr Magnitsky showed when he was admitted to Matrosskaya Tishina, where he was transported by ambulance on 16 November 2009 following a critical deterioration of his health at Butyrka. But instead of receiving the urgently needed treatment, Sergei Magnitsky was “tranquillised” by a beating with rubber batons, handcuffed and thrown into a holding cell, alone and without any medical attention. The civilian emergency medical team was kept waiting in front of the prison for over an hour and could only state that death had occurred at least fifteen minutes before they were finally allowed in.
10. The forensic expert’s assessment is very clear:

“Consequently, the decision by the authorities at Matrosskaya Tishina prison to physically restrain Mr Magnitsky, keep him in a cell for two hours, while denying standard medical treatment, resulted in his death.”

11. There is nothing I could add to this except to recall that none of the “authorities” present at Matrosskaya Tishina when Mr Magnitsky died in excruciating pain because he was denied standard medical treatment has even been indicted.

2.2.2. Documents made public in the libel proceedings in London

1. As mentioned in the report, one of the policemen accused of wrongdoings in the context of the Magnitsky case, Mr Pavel Karpov, has launched libel proceedings against, inter alia, Mr Browder, before the High Court in London. During a preliminary hearing this summer, a set of pleadings by Mr Karpov and a batch of documents filed in their support have entered into the public domain. In August, Mr Karpov’s lawyers handed me in Bern a file on the libel case against Mr Browder. Mr Karpov’s pleadings concern inter aliathe source of his and his family’s wealth, and the basis for his luxurious lifestyle which appear to be quite out of proportion with his official salary. According to Mr Karpov’s own submission, his salary in 2011 (the last year before his early retirement) was the equivalent of about €17 000 – per year. Mr Karpov explained that he had supplemented his policeman’s salary by occasional work as an interior decorator in his mother’s business and that the property acquisitions by himself and by his mother were financed by the proceeds of the profitable resale of properties acquired earlier. I received similar explanations from the prosecutorial authorities in Moscow. But the amounts do not add up at all, and I am also not convinced that the difference can be explained by “gifts” from rich friends and ex-girlfriends, as Mr Karpov added. I would just like to highlight two points resulting from the documents submitted by Mr Karpov in London:
2. Firstly, according to the “conclusions of the internal inquiry on the application of D.R. Firestone”  by Interior Ministry Police Colonel E.S. Sibilev of 17 September 2010,

“Karpov has no other sources of income except his salary”. 

3. As we have just seen, Mr Karpov explained in his own pleadings before the court in London how he supplemented his police salary. He must have deviated from the truth either in the course of the internal inquiry of law enforcement authorities in Moscow or in his pleadings in the libel case in London.
4. Secondly, in a memorandum dated 18 November 2010, Police Colonel E.S. Sibilev, the author of the above-mentioned “conclusions of the internal inquiry”, reported on a visit he had made on the same day to the Interior Ministry’s Investigations Committee. Mr Sibilev indicates that

“Karpov refused to give additional explanations, saying that earlier during the probe he had given detailed explanations. … According to Karpov’s words, his mother, N.F. Karpova, has refused to appear at DSB of Interior Ministry of Russia to give explanations on the subject matter of the probe, as well as to submit any statements on the subject matter of the application from Firestone”.

5. In other words, both Mr Karpov and his mother refused to co-operate with the officer tasked with carrying out the internal inquiry, and the inquirer just left it at that, for reasons of competence, as stated in the above-mentioned “conclusions of the internal inquiry”: 

“Bearing in mind that close relatives of Karpov are not the serving officers of police, ascertaining the state of their income and acquired valuable property is not within the remit of the Department of the Internal Security of the Ministry of Interior of Russia.”

6. This confirms my doubts as to the seriousness of the affirmation made by the representatives of the authorities in Moscow that the allegations of suspicious wealth of Mr Karpov and other officials had been fully investigated and that the assets in question had been acquired lawfully. 
7. Conclusions
8. The information received following the committee’s invitation does not put into question the findings of the report, to the contrary. The additional medical details received through the OSJI lawyers provide an impressive illustration of Mr Magnitsky’s horrible suffering at the end of his life and the callous behaviour of those directly responsible, none of whom has yet been held to account. The material publi

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