Sergei Magnitsky was a
lawyer who investigated the agencies of the Russian government that looted the
British firm Hermitage Capital Management. On June 4, 2007, police from the Ministry of the Interior
raided the offices, taking all the records and the corporate seal. They then turned over all the assets to
various criminal gangs. Hermitage
hired Sergei Magnitsky from the law firm of Firestone Duncan to
investigate. Magnitsky was
arrested and held in prison without charges until he died in 2009, after 359
days, one day short of the legal maximum that you can be held without being
charged in Russia. Now, although
dead, Magnitsky is being tried for embezzlement.
 |
| Sergei Magnitsky 8 April 1972 - 16 November 2009 |
The Magnitsky Affair is
why Russia canceled adoptions by Americans. The Magnitsky Affair is why Russia condemned large lots of
US beef as “unfit for sale.” The
Magnitsky Affair is the reason for the U.S. Senate bill called the “Sergei
Magnitsky Rule of Law Bill” which was eventually made an amendment to H.R. 6156
normalizing trade with Russia, which President Obama signed into law on
December 14, 2012.
Unlike the Cold War, the
present hostility between Russia and the United States is not in the minds of
most Americans. It should be. We
knew then that Communism was inhumane. Islamic terrorism has our attention now,
but in the past ten years, Russia has changed very little. The fall of the
Berlin Wall and the collapse of Communism hardly affected the deeper culture of
Russia that made Communism possible there in the first place. Karl Marx expected the workers in
Germany, the United Kingdom, or France (and perhaps America) to rise up
first. But Marx misunderstood
history and it was in Russia which hardly knew any democratic institutions or
dynamic pluralism that made Communism possible. Today, the President of Russia is Vladimir Putin. Born in 1952, he joined the KGB in 1975
at the age of 23 and rose to lieutenant colonel. In 1991, after the collapse of Communism, he entered
politics. In eight years he rose to Prime Minister of Russia (1999-2000 and President
(2000-2008). He held these posts
again by manipulating the constitution to rule without interruption today.
The doctor who refused to
treat him in prison was found not guilty of killing him. (The Independent UK here.)
Russia puts dead lawyer
Sergei Magnitsky on trial. (Perth Now here.)
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