Justice for Sergei

Justice for Sergei is a powerful documentary which succinctly discusses incredibly distressing subject matter.

Sergei Magnitsky worked as a tax lawyer for Heritage Capital Management, a privately owned investment management firm formerly operating in Russia. From what I gathered, HCM was operating 3 Russian investment companies. These businesses had made profits of around 973 million and paid something like 230 million in taxes. One day, the police raided HCM's Russian offices and commandeered all of the documents proving they owned these organizations.

No reason was provided to explain the raid and employees who protested were beaten.

Around the same time, court proceedings were being held of which HCM had no knowledge during which ownership of the three companies was transferred to someone else who had previously been convicted for murder. The proceedings fined the companies 973 million thereby nullifying their most recent profits. As a consequence, the new owner of the companies was able to apply for a tax refund for which they applied and received 230 million.

When HCM protested stating that they owned the companies in question they were told to prove ownership by producing the documents then held by the police and therefore inaccessible.

Sergei uncovered this information (the largest tax fraud in Russian history) and consequently tried to have those responsible exposed. He was then arrested. He continued to try and illuminate the corruption in court and was ignored. He became sick while in a detention centre and was then sent to another with poorer facilities.

It is thought that the collusive individuals who put this plan into action, many of them government officials, tried to convince the incarcerated Sergei to change his testimony in order to draw attention away from their misdeeds.

Sergei refused, maintaining both his integrity and respect for the law.

He died shortly thereafter and no one was permitted to examine the body.

Many of the government officials involved in this fiasco and their cronies have since been promoted.

An investigation into the matter was called by President Dmitry Medvedev and after its first year no one had yet to be held accountable.

Sergei is described as a dedicated workaholic who devoted his life to his family and uprightly upholding the law.

His tragic death represents what happens when ethics confronts a thoroughly corrupt oligarchic body politic bent on using its judicial influence to obtain economic leverage from which it can nefariously continue to conduct its private business under the cloak of governmental justice.

Thoroughly revolting and reminiscent of Caligula, local, national, and international pressure can still bring about justice for Sergei if a committed campaign is sustained over time.

You can watch the film here.