Backbench Business — [Unallotted part day] — Sergei Magnitsky

Part of Opposition Day – in the House of Commons at 5:45 pm on 7 March 2012.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Emma Reynolds Emma Reynolds Shadow Minister (Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs) 5:45, 7 March 2012

I congratulate Mr Raab on securing this debate and commend all right hon. and hon. Members who have supported the motion.

In all parts of the House, there is strong and unequivocal condemnation of the brutal treatment and alleged murder of Sergei Magnitsky. Mr Magnitsky, as the hon. Member for Esher and Walton has explained, was a young Russian lawyer working on behalf of a British firm in Moscow. He is thought to have uncovered the biggest corruption case in Russian history—a case that implicated politicians, the police, judges, and members of the Russian mafia. Days after Mr Magnitsky filed a criminal complaint and testified on the involvement of the tax police, among others, he was arrested on spurious tax charges by the same tax police officers against whom he had testified. He was held in pre-trial detention for nearly a year. In prison, he was mistreated, denied medical treatment and beaten. He died just days before the one-year limit within which he could be held without trial expired.

As the motion underlines, this is one of several cases in Russia in which human rights defenders and those exposing corruption have been brutally murdered. World-renowned journalist Anna Politkovskaya, human rights activist Natalya Estemirova, and human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov have all been killed in cold blood for pursuing the truth. The brutality of the killings has even extended beyond Russia’s borders, with the murder of political exile Alexander Litvinenko on British soil five years ago.