The FSIN must be held accountable for the death of a prisoner in a remand prison
The Deputy Director of the Federal Penitentiary Service, Alexander Smirnov, confirmed that his agency was involved in the death of Hermitage Capital investment fund lawyer Sergey Magnitsky in the hospital at the Matrosskaya Tishina pre-trial detention centre.
As RIA Novosti reports, Smirnov made this statement at hearings in the Public Chamber dedicated to the case of the lawyer Magnitsky, who died in a Moscow remand prison.
According to the Deputy Head of the FSIN, violations were identified in the second pre-trial detention centre, to which the lawyer was transferred.
At the same time, as Smirnov claims, a survey of the inmates who communicated with Magnitsky showed that medical assistance had been provided to him. Smirnov also suggested refraining from premature conclusions and waiting for the completion of an internal investigation. (Although it is completely obvious that the agency should not be investigating itself here, but rather prosecutors should be conducting a full-fledged investigation—editor's note, HRO.org)
The Chairman of the Public Chamber Commission on Control over Law Enforcement Agencies and Reforming the Judicial and Legal System, Anatoly Kucherena, appealed to Prosecutor General Yuriy Chaika with a request to check whether Magnitsky was provided with timely medical assistance and to inform the mother of the deceased about the results of the check.
According to Kucherena, the Public Chamber will send a number of inquiries in the coming days regarding the situation related to pre-trial restrictions in the country as a whole—write 'Grani'.
As RIA Novosti reports, the Public Chamber is interested in how many people are in custody even before a verdict is delivered. After this, they will invite representatives of the judiciary to the Public Chamber to clarify the situation, noted Kucherena.
The lawyer believes that responsibility for Magnitsky's death lies, in particular, with the investigator who filed the petition for his arrest. 'As for the investigator—I am talking primarily about the fact that there is a human aspect to this issue, and if he sees that a person is ill, believe me, a lot depends on the investigator,' said Kucherena.
Lawyer Henry Reznik stated during the hearings in the Public Chamber that the main culprits for the lawyer's death are the courts, which should not have sent a 'sick person accused of an economic crime not involving violence' to custody.
Magnitsky was arrested in November 2008. He spent the last five months of his arrest in the Butyrka detention centre. On 7 October, Magnitsky was transferred to a cell in the therapeutic ward of the medical unit 'to undergo an examination'. It follows from his letters that after this, his condition worsened every week. On 16 November, Magnitsky died. Prison doctors indicated heart failure as the official cause of death. Magnitsky's lawyer, Dmitry Kharitonov, stated that his client had been given a preliminary diagnosis of 'toxic shock and pancreatic necrosis', and repeated requests to conduct a medical examination to determine whether the lawyer could be in the conditions of a pre-trial detention centre due to his state of health remained unanswered.
'Novaya Gazeta' published excerpts from Magnitsky's letters and diaries, in which he complained about the denial of medical care in the remand prison. 'I complained that I was not being provided with medical care and that the appointed medical examination was not being carried out. I was told that in Butyrka, a medical examination is not carried out, that there is no equipment,' Magnitsky wrote in a complaint to the Prosecutor General's Office and the Investigative Committee. According to him, the head of the detention centre's medical unit stated that the planned surgical treatment, the necessity of which had been confirmed by doctors before Magnitsky's admission to Butyrka, 'is for when you are released; here, no one is obliged to provide that to you'.
On 24 November, after persistent requests from human rights activists who are members of the Presidential Council, President Dmitry Medvedev gave an instruction to Prosecutor General Yuriy Chaika and Minister of Justice Alexander Konovalov to investigate the circumstances of the Hermitage Capital lawyer's death. After this, investigative bodies initiated a criminal case on the facts under the articles 'failure to provide assistance to a patient' and 'negligence'.