Film "Magnitsky Law. Behind the scenes"

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

For 6 years after his death in custody, Sergei Magnitsky personified the brutality in Russia of President Vladimir Putin. And then there was a documentary that caused a furor and attempts to prevent its demonstrations, in which the victim is depicted as an accomplice in crime.

Mockery of memory

Demonstration of the film Magnitsky's Law. Behind the Scenes in Europe was canceled after libel warnings were issued from financier William Browder. He fell out of favor with the Russian government and hired auditor-lawyer Sergei Magnitsky to investigate a massive tax refund fraud scheme following the embezzlement of three of his funds.

Andrey Nekrasov “The Magnitsky Law. Behind the Scenes” was going to be demonstrated at the private news industry museum Newseum. Lawyers for Mr. Browder and Magnitsky's mother, Natalya Nikolaevna, sent a written demand there to cancel the event. After holding a press conference, Newseum management refused to do so.

"We support freedom of speech and expression," said museum director Scott Williams. - Wewe can't stop them from showing the movie." According to him, the museum is not a sponsor of the film screening, but rents out a cinema. “We often rent rooms for events that many would not want to see,” he said in response.

Magnitsky Law

Mr. Browder accused Andrei Nekrasov of discrediting him and mocking the memory of the deceased. According to the film Magnitsky's Law. Behind the Scenes,” the well-known version of the lawyer’s death is incorrect: the police did not beat him before he died, he did not testify that government employees conspired to steal $230 million in fraudulently obtained tax credits. In fact, Nekrasov claims that the fraud was orchestrated by Mr. Browder.

The legacy of Sergei, who was 37 at the time of his death, is complicated by the fact that he has become such a powerful symbol. In 2012, Congress passed the Magnitsky Act, the essence of which is to create a list of Russian officials involved in human rights violations. Those on the list are prohibited from entering the United States and using the country's banking system. The Kremlin has imposed sanctions on several American citizens and banned the adoption of Russian children by Americans.

Lawmakers now intend to pass a similar Magnitsky Act that would impose sanctions on people anywhere in the world for the human rights violations that surfaced in the murdered lawyer's case. Much to the dismay of the Russian government, the bill will once again bear his name. Film demonstrationMagnitsky Law. Behind the Scenes at the Newseum is particularly controversial because it could attract lawmakers or their aides. In a huge museum located on Pennsylvania Avenue near the Capitol, the text of the First Amendment is carved above its main entrance.

Suspicious director

Nekrasov is an accomplished documentary filmmaker whose work has sometimes been critical to the Russian government. He made films about Russia's crackdown on Chechnya and the poisoning of former intelligence officer Alexander Litvinenko, funded by Boris Berezovsky.

Speaking in Berlin, the director said that he had no intention of denying the death of lawyer Browder. Directed by Nekrasov Magnitsky's Law. Sees Behind the Scenes as a docudrama depicting the last days of a lawyer's life and says he consulted with Browder, whom he planned to use to read the voice-over. But as soon as he began to examine the original documents of the case, according to Nekrasov, he began to doubt Browder's version of events.

"It's hard to say at what point I thought it was a lie, a made-up story," he said. One of the key points was that "there was no sign of reporting corruption or illegal activities" by Magnitsky.

Public reaction

People familiar with the Magnitsky case expressed doubt that he was involved in the conspiracy. “When I was in government,” Michael saidMcFaul, former United States Ambassador to Russia, we carefully studied his tragic case and had a fundamentally different assessment.”

In April, the screening of the film “Magnitsky's Law. Behind the Scenes at the European Parliament did not take place at the last minute after Browder's lawyers began threatening legal action. British law firm Carter-Ruck also sent a letter to the German-French television network Arte, which was planning to broadcast the film.

Who pays?

In the United States, Nekrasov hired a small lobbying firm, the Potomac Square Group, which worked for Kuwait, Bahrain and Azerbaijan, along with other governments. It is run by former Wall Street Journal reporter Christopher Cooper. He rented a movie theater at the Newseum Museum and declined to say who was paying for his company's services. "I'm organizing this event for the director," he stated.

Cooper said there would be a Q&A session with Mr. Nekrasov after the screening, moderated by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh. The organizers also considered inviting Mr. Browder to take part in this activity.

Attempt to sow doubt

He did not respond to requests for comment. But he has spoken out against the film in the past, calling it "a calculated attempt to cripple our campaign and cast doubt on the legacy of Sergei Magnitsky."

Browder's lawyers produced strong documentary evidence, includingphotos of a lawyer being beaten in his prison cell. They also refer to the transcript of Magnitsky's testimony, in which the lawyer named the people involved in the tax scam.

Testimony of Medvedev's advisers

The mistreatment of Magnitsky in custody is hardly in doubt. Russian authorities initially claimed that he died of sudden cardiac arrest. But after persistent questions, then Russian President Dmitry Medvedev ordered prosecutors to investigate.

In 2011, a group of Medvedev's human rights advisers published a report concluding that Sergei Magnitsky had been beaten. His illnesses were not treated during all 11 months he was in custody. The report said that investigators and prison officials were jointly responsible for his death.

Raider capture

William Browder was once one of the major foreign investors in the Russian stock market. He sided with Putin, and in 2005 told a reporter that Ukraine's newly elected president, Viktor Yushchenko, needed to develop closer ties with the Russian Federation. But after he was expelled from the country, Browder began to wage a tough fight against corrupt Russian officials.

Last year, he published Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and a Lone Fight for Justice, detailing the circumstances surrounding the death of Sergei Magnitsky.

Criminal Talent

On June 13, 2016, Andrey Nekrasov showed an updated version of his anti-Magnitsky film to a private audience at the Newseum Museum in Washington, in which he attempts to exonerate Sergei Roldugin, cellist and childhood friend of Putin, whose involvement in the scam was discovered in April 2016 thanks to the Panama Papers leak.

In his new version of the Magnitsky Law. Behind the scenes” Nekrasov argues that President Putin’s pal could not have been the recipient of the $230 million tax break fraud that Sergei uncovered, claiming the money arrived in Roldugin’s accounts before the Magnitsky case.

Nekrasov claims in his film that the money transfer that was supposed to link the fraud and Putin's friend was carried out in July and October 2007, that is, before the fraud took place at the end of December, when the tax refund was approved by Russian officials.”

In fact, according to the Panama Papers and the Organized Crime and Corruption Project, $2 million related to the $230 million fraud was deposited in Delco Networks SA on February 27, 2008, 2 months after the crime was committed, and from there $ 800,000 were transferred to Sergey Roldugin's company International Media Overseas SA under an agreement dated May 2008. The company was registered on February 1, 2008 and opened an account with a Gazprombank branch in Switzerland.

Recidivist Admirers

"These lastAndrey Nekrasov's statements clearly show his partisanship and that the purpose of his film is to justify corrupt Russian officials and individuals who benefited from the $230 million fraud that Sergei exposed,” said William Browder, leader of the global Justice for Justice movement. Magnitsky".

Andrey Nekrasov's main allies in promoting his film are Natalia Veselnitskaya and Russian lawyer Denis Katsyv, whose company is currently being charged by the US Department of Justice and the Swiss Attorney General for money laundering in connection with the $230 million fraud uncovered by Sergei Magnitsky. Information about Veselnitskaya's involvement in filming and the interrupted demonstration in Brussels was released by the pro-Kremlin news agency TASS, which called her "one of the Russian organizers of the preview of the tape."

Other supporters of Andrei Nekrasov's film Magnitsky's Law. Behind the scenes" are Pavel Karpov, a former police officer who was in charge of keeping documents used in the theft of budget funds, and Andrey Pavlov, an "adviser to the family" of the Klyuev organized crime group, who was involved in a judicial conspiracy that became a tool for swindlers. They both flew to Brussels for the canceled European premiere.

A billion for a snack

The premiere of the film "Magnitsky's Law" in Russian took place at the Moscow International Film Festival, whose president, Nikita Mikhalkov, who was undergoing treatment for pneumonia, for the sake ofviewing even left the hospital. Such enthusiasm was probably fueled by the billion rubles he asked from the budget to open his new chain of eateries.

In his film, Nekrasov dismisses the evidence, conclusions and opinions of several independent investigative bodies and journalists that Magnitsky was arrested after testifying against corrupt Russian police officers and died in custody.

Testimony of Human Rights Defenders

The list of Andrey Nekrasov's deliberate lies is set out in a 50-page presentation by the Justice for Magnitsky movement. It is based on official documents, Sergei's testimony and the results of independent investigations.

Nekrasov's lie in the film was also set up by Russian human rights activists, who said his purpose was to attack the Magnitsky list on behalf of corrupt officials affected by the sanctions. The corresponding statement was made by the head of the Moscow Helsinki Group, Lyudmila Alekseeva, and the head of the Moscow Public Supervision Commission, which conducted a forensic medical examination of the death of a lawyer in custody, Valery Borshchev.

Magnitsky was a lawyer for the Hermitage Capital Management fund, who uncovered a scam about the theft of $ 230 million from the state budget and testified to the involvement of Russian officials in it. He was arrested on false charges, detained without trial for 358 days, tortured and killed while in custody inage 37 years old. These events are described in the New York Times bestseller The Red Mark by William Browder and in the Youtube video series Russian Untouchables.