A Russian tax lawyer died in custody in November after a year spent in some of Russia’s toughest prisons. His client believes he was set up. DAVID ROBINSON reports.
The Russian legal community has reacted with outrage to the death in custody of Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian tax lawyer, in November last year.Magnitsky was arrested in November 2008 for allegedly assisting his firm’s client Hermitage Capital (a London-based investment fund) to avoid taxes. But Hermitage alleges he was targeted by powerful government figures for revealing a wide-reaching fraud.
Magnitsky worked for Firestone Duncan, a small, American-run law firm in Moscow. Firestone Duncan’s star client is William Browder, the American-born British investor who manages Hermitage. Browder was once the largest foreign investor in Russia. But he removed all Hermitage’s assets from Russia after he was prevented by security services from re-entering the country in 2005.
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