Translated material
Balance of Blame
The tax evasion case, in which Hermitage Capital investment fund manager William Browder is accused, may be dismissed, Kommersant writes. Let us recall that lawyer Sergei Magnitsky collaborated with the fund, and according to some sources, he uncovered the theft of more than five billion rubles from the budget by employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Magnitsky was suspected of organizing an illegal scheme for a foreign fund to purchase shares of Gazprom, he was arrested, pressure was put on him in places of detention, he was denied medical care, and then, under completely unclear and extremely suspicious circumstances, he died in Matrosskaya Tishina.
Now the materials on the Browder case have been transferred to the investigative authorities of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Central Federal District - as the newspaper writes, citing sources in the central office of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, to assess the prospects for further investigation, although neither the head of the department's press service nor representatives of the investigative team of the Investigative Committee at The Ministry of Internal Affairs, from whom the case was taken away, does not know the reasons. Browder was to be charged on June 28, but simultaneously with the transfer of the case to the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, his name was removed from the wanted list.
Kommersant's sources connect the transfer of the case with President Dmitry Medvedev's order to sort out the affairs surrounding Magnitsky.
Meanwhile, Hermitage Capital lawyers appealed to the Investigative Committee with a statement to initiate a criminal case against Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika. They want to prosecute the Prosecutor General for illegally releasing representatives of two Moscow tax inspectorates from criminal liability for systematic theft of budget funds.
The lawyers’ statement says that for three and a half years the fund “reported to the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation about the discovery of systematic large-scale theft of money from the budget of the Russian Federation by a criminal group, which includes employees of tax and law enforcement agencies, and in particular, the heads of the Federal Tax Service No. 25 and 28 Moscow Khimina E.I. and Stepanova O.G.” “In response to none of these statements, the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation took the prosecutorial response measures provided for by law,” the authors of the statement claim. “Moreover,” it continues, “the Russian Prosecutor’s Office not only did not take independent measures to suppress the criminal activities of tax and law enforcement officials, but also prevented other departments from investigating these crimes.”
According to lawyers, the foundation’s statements about illegal and illegal actions of officials, sent to Chaika, were either sent for consideration directly to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, “that is, to the very body whose inaction or illegal actions were indicated in the complaints,” or were not received motivated and justified answers, or were left without consideration. In particular, a criminal case on the illegal re-registration of fund companies and the fabrication of court decisions against them, on the basis of which, according to lawyers, a fraudulent tax refund was carried out, “by order of the Deputy Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation in September 2010, in violation of the law on jurisdiction was seized and transferred for further investigation to the Investigative Committee under the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, where it was later illegally combined with another criminal case... and closed.”
Thus, according to the legal representatives of the fund, with the connivance of officials of the Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation, the Investigative Committee under the Ministry of Internal Affairs recognized both Moscow tax inspectorates No. 25 and No. 28 as “victims” from the illegal tax refund approved by them.
Hermitage Capital lawyers ask to “organize a review of the above facts of violations of the law committed by employees of the General Prosecutor’s Office” and give their actions a legal assessment.
As for the transfer of the Browder case to the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, representatives of Hermitage Capital issued the following statement on this matter: “If those who deprived Sergei Magnitsky of his freedom and life expect that by closing a fabricated criminal case against the fund’s employees they will be able to avoid criminal liability, then they are mistaken. Hermitage and Sergei Magnitsky's colleagues will continue to fight to bring corrupt officials to justice until that happens. There can be no talk of any half measures in this matter. As for the attempt to give the appearance of an “objective character” to the investigation of a fabricated criminal case by transferring this case to the division of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the Central Federal District, it should be noted that it was with the participation of the investigators of this division that in 2008, after the revelations of Sergei Magnitsky, documents were fabricated with the purpose of hiding Ministry of Internal Affairs officials from responsibility for the theft of Hermitage fund companies and 5.4 billion rubles in taxes paid by them.”