By Andrei Skvarsky.
Sergei Magnitsky’s mother has been summoned for an interrogation as part of the tax evasion case reopened against the Hermitage Capital lawyer in July, 20 months after his death in a Moscow jail.
Natalia Magnitskaya will be questioned as a witness by police officers whom Hermitage accuses of torturing the anti-corruption lawyer to death, the British fund said in a statement.
Magnitskaya’s planned interrogation on September 8 is “a cynical and cruel action designed to suppress his family’s efforts in seeking justice”, Hermitage said.
“The officers who tortured Magnitsky in custody, now, almost two years after his death, are trying to pressure his relatives into withdrawing their public call for justice.”
Magnitsky was arrested for alleged tax evasion after accusing senior officials of stealing $230m from the state through a tax scam. A gravely sick man, he died in a remand prison of lack of essential medical care.
This summer the Investigative Committee issued a conclusion blaming prison officials for Magnitsky’s death, but almost immediately the Prosecutor General’s Office resumed tax evasion proceedings against the lawyer.
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