Heartless sufficiency

While the case of Sergei Magnitsky turned into an international scandal, another businessman died in a pre-trial detention center. Apparently not the last

40-year-old businessman Andrey Gorbunov is awaiting his verdict on charges of drug trafficking in the Izhevsk pre-trial detention center. Three years ago, due to serious problems with one of the heart valves, he was recognized as a disabled person of the second group and was already being prepared for an operation when they came for him. In prison, both the diagnosis and disability were confirmed, and that it was impossible to perform an operation in a pre-trial detention center. But Gorbunov was left behind bars anyway, and now he is probably just next in line for the next world. Or they will condemn him and let him go home to die when he is already dying, says Rustem Valiullin from the Kama Human Rights Center.

Seriously ill people continue to die in pre-trial detention because they do not change the measure of restraint and refuse to provide assistance. In the last issue of Newsweek, we ended an article about how investigators and judges ignore the new soft rules for treating accused businessmen with the case of the seriously ill businesswoman Vera Trifonova. She was still alive. Now she is gone. And American congressmen and officials are already seeking sanctions against everyone who is to blame for the death of 37-year-old lawyer Sergei Magnitsky - from whom it is customary to conduct a new countdown of victims of violence, torture and indifference on the part of investigators and judges.

Senator Benjamin Cardin, head of the so-called US Helsinki Commission - on security and cooperation in Europe - has a good chance of getting 60 people involved, in his opinion, in the embezzlement of 5.4 billion rubles from the budget and the death of Magnitsky, who opened this scheme, they could no longer enter the States. Cardin and his associates believe that this is an internal affair of the United States - who is allowed to cross its border and who is not. But if the State Department listens, this will be the first precedent of such massive repressions against Russian officials at the level of the head of the Investigative Committee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Alexei Anichin or Deputy Prosecutor General Viktor Grin.

Hermitage CEO William Browder, who provided Congressmen with the "list of 60," told Newsweek that he not only wants to see them shut down from entry into the US and foreign accounts, but also encourages other countries to do the same. In essence, Browder argues, the Cardin Commission did what Russian law enforcement stubbornly refuses to do: it collected evidence from independent sources and objectively assessed it. The Investigative Committee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs is silent. In an off-the-record conversation, one of the people on the list said that “personally, he [this list] doesn’t care, but he doesn’t need to go to America.” But Browder is sure that all of them will eventually become international pariahs.

Dmitry Medvedev reacted quickly to Magnitsky's death. But for other prisoners, by and large, little has changed. “Until the Magnitsky case is fully investigated and the perpetrators are not punished, people in the pre-trial detention center will continue to die,” says human rights activist Valery Borshchev. He headed the Public Monitoring Commission to investigate the circumstances of the death of a lawyer. "There are no suspects or defendants in the case of Magnitsky's death," says lawyer Yelena Oreshnikova, who previously represented his interests and now represents his relatives. Even the exact cause of his death is still unknown, a re-examination is now being carried out.

So the death of 52-year-old Vera Trifonova, who was buried last week in Khimki near Moscow, hardly surprised anyone. This is an even more egregious case, says Oreshnikov's lawyer. Sergei did not have such severe diseases, moreover, documented ones, she says. And investigator Sergei Pysin knew about Trifonova's severe form of diabetes mellitus, diabetic nephropathy, and chronic renal failure on December 18, when he went to court with a petition for her arrest. “We ourselves asked twice to release her,” says Maria Kannabikh from the public council of the Federal Penitentiary Service.

Trifonova, the owner of KitElitNedvizhimost, was accused of trying to help the head of MFT-Bank, Pavel Razumov, get a seat in the Federation Council for $1.5 million. At Pysin's request, Judge Olga Makarova arrested her for two months and sent her to Matrosskaya Tishina ". There she was almost blind and lost one kidney, her body began to swell, and she had to undergo hemodialysis three times a week. Since March, Trifonova has been in a wheelchair. “On April 9, apparently anticipating an imminent death, Vera told me that she had no strength to endure and she would not survive here,” says her lawyer Vladimir Zherebenkov.

Extending the arrest once again, the judge recalled that the investigator had the right to change her measure of restraint himself. According to the lawyer, Trifonova told Pysin everything she knew, but did not go free. In mid-April, the head of Matrosskaya Tishina, Fikret Tagiyev, signed the conclusion of prison doctors that Trifonova had improved and she could take part in investigative actions. The judge once again extended the arrest and sent her to the Mozhaisk colony. From there she was returned to Moscow. On April 25, she underwent hemodialysis at the 20th city hospital, and five days later she died.

Investigator Sergei Pysin was accused of negligence, although lawyer Zherebenkov believes that this is at least an abuse of power. Two bosses of Pysin were fired, the head of the Moscow Region Investigative Committee, Andrei Markov, received "incomplete official compliance." The very criminal case of attempted fraud, in which Trifonova was accused, was taken over by the Main Investigation Department of the Investigative Committee. And its head Alexander Bastrykin threatened his subordinates with criminal cases if they continue to ignore the statements of citizens and lawyers. The actions of judge Olga Makarova are being checked by the commission of the Moscow Regional Court and the Public Chamber.

After Trifonova's death, the Ministry of Justice compiled a list of those who could suffer the same fate in the near future. “These are either very elderly or seriously ill people who need special treatment, which we do not have,” says a source in the Ministry of Justice. The Federal Penitentiary Service has asked for them more than once, but they are still in jail.

There are many such people. Yelena Latysheva, 60, a neighbor of Trifonova in the prison hospital, has spinal tuberculosis and destruction of bone tissue. Due to her grave condition during the 7.5 months of her arrest, she has never been to court or during the investigation, but her arrest is regularly extended, her lawyer Vitaly Sukhomlinov claims. Defenders of the well-known prisoner Antonina Babosiuk, co-owner of the Altyn jewelry holding, claim that she has serious heart problems, and if she is kept in prison, she will either die or remain severely disabled. A few years ago, Israeli doctors diagnosed Anatoly Zak, owner of the infamous Lame Horse nightclub, with a life-threatening diagnosis. Zach has sudden respiratory arrest syndrome, he can fall asleep and never wake up. “We know these filkin's letters,” the investigators laugh.

The judges are not far behind. 62-year-old citizen of Latvia Grigorijs Spektors became blind after a stroke, and due to diabetes, he had a threat of gangrene in his leg. Doctors wrote that he had 1.5–2 months left. Judge of the Ostankino District Court Sergei Kostyuchenko, having read the documents, agreed with their conclusions. “I consider the conclusions of specialists to be logical, because by nature a person is mortal,” he wrote in his ruling and again left Spectors behind bars.

Valery Borshchev says that long before the death of Sergei Magnitsky, another list was compiled - diseases with which suspects should not be kept in jail at all: “We submitted it to the presidential administration several times, maybe they will at least notice it now?”