NEWSLINK: Sergei Magnitsky: The enemy within: A saga that has been a parable of the self-mutilating way Russia is governed

Memorial Flowers and Photo of Sergei Magnitsky

[Sergei Magnitsky:  The enemy within: A saga that has been a parable of the self-mutilating way Russia is governed – The Economist – Editorial – March 9, 2013 – http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21573119-saga-has-been-parable-self-mutilating-way-russia-governed-enemy-within]

The Economist issues an editorial on the Magnitsky saga and its aftermath, and what it shows about brutal, deadly elitism in Russia:

Martyred human rights activists; fatally brave journalists: Russia, alas, has plenty of other cases of violent death that are as deserving of outrage as Sergei Magnitsky’s. …. Yet there is something grimly instructive about Magnitsky’s story. In a stark, almost cartoonish way, it has demonstrated that Russia is run for the benefit of a ruling clique, rather than in the interests of its people. As this gruesome affair has degenerated from brutal tragedy to bleak farce, those interests have been relentlessly disregarded by officials, politicians and the courts.

The Economist casts Hermitage Fund head Bill Browder as someone who had been an ardent supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin, prior to Browder efforts to filter corruption out of Russian companies Hermitage was connected to:

To recap: Magnitsky worked for Hermitage Capital Management, once the biggest portfolio investor in Russia. Bill Browder, its boss, was a long-term and zealous fan of Vladimir Putin, even as the vices of Mr Putin’s rule became unignorable. That devotion did not help Mr Browder when, in 2005, one of his campaigns against corporate malfeasance in big Russian companies apparently irked someone important. Mr Browder was ejected, and his fund went with him. The broader benefit Hermitage brought to the Russian economy evidently mattered less than the threat his activism posed …

According to The Economist, Russian government officials, courts and police joined in fraudulent  activity in the aftermath, resulting in Magnitsky being jailed in retaliation for blowing the whistle:

The ensuing attack on Hermitage eventually involved a huge fraud, by officials and police officers with the connivance of the courts, which used the wreckage of the firm to purloin a tax refund of $230m from the Russian exchequer. Magnitsky blew the whistle on this scam. He was arrested, jailed for a year in dreadful conditions, and in 2009 died of neglect and abuse. No one has been convicted as a result of his death; some of those allegedly involved in the fraud have been awarded medals.

The message could not be clearer: notwithstanding a recent, selective push against corruption, in Mr Putin’s system stealing from the Russian people is often forgivable. Exposing such theft, on the other hand, can be suicidal.

Next came the U.S. Magnitsky Act, banning visas and freezing assets of perpetrators connected with the Magnitsky matter, followed by Russia’s “vindictive” response to ban all U.S. adoptions of Russian orphans.

The Economist calls the latter an act of vengeance against the Russian government’s own people, carried out against orphans.  Now comes what the editorial calls the “ghoulish climax of the saga,” the effort to prosecute Magnitsky long after he is dead, for a supposed tax offense committed a decade ago.  Browder also is being tried in absentia.

The editorial suggests the posthumous trial is actually being carried out by Putin “henchmen” in  response to the U.S. legislation, in a “clumsy” effort to undermine the Magnitsky Act.

The Economist suggests that there should no longer be even a fragment of faith in the Russian legal system, and that the Magnitskty posthumous trial should redouble international criticism of the Putin regime.  It also suggests that the Putin regime should be regarded as being willing to undermine Russian economic and political well-being for the sake of its own members and their friends in the Russian elite.

Click here for full editorial: http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21573119-saga-has-been-parable-self-mutilating-way-russia-governed-enemy-within

Comment