Russia’s acquittal of the only man charged over the death of Sergei Magnitsky will harm its international reputation, the EU has said.
Magnitsky, an accountant who in 2007 exposed the fact that Russian officials and the mafia were stealing hundreds of millions of euros of tax money, later died in jail after being refused medical treatment for pancreatitis and after being beaten by his guards.
His case became a cause celebre when the US last year passed a law in his name that will see up to 60 Russian officials banned from getting American visas.
But in what amounts to an extraordinary u-turn for the Russian legal system, a Moscow judge on 28 December said there is no evidence that Dmitry Kratov – the former medical chief at the Butyrka jail, where Magnitsky died – helped caused his death by negligence.
A few days earlier the prosecutor himself called for the acquittal despite previously building a case against Kratov.
The sudden change came after Russian leader Vladimir Putin claimed on TV that Magnitsky died of natural causes.
For Magnitsky’s former employer, the UK-based investment fund, Hermitage Capital, the developments show that his killers enjoy protection at the highest level of the Russian state.
Andrew Rettman