Russia's top investigative body has dropped charges against a prison doctor in connection with the prison death of anti-corruption lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in 2009, media reports citing prosecutors said Monday.
State prosecutors said they were dropping the charges against Larisa Litvinova, the chief physician at Moscow's infamous Butyrka prison where Magnitsky amidst claims of torture and neglect, citing a recently adopted two-year statute of limitations in such cases. Nevertheless, negligence charges against the prison's deputy chief, Dmitry Kratov, were not dropped.
Hermitage Capital, a Western investment fund for which Magnitsky was working for when he was imprisoned, said in a statement that the move to drop charges against Dr. Litvinova was conveyed to the lawyer's mother via a legal document issued by the Russian Investigative Committee's lead investigator, Marina Lomonosova.
In the statement, the investment company alleged that Dr Litvinova had "refused all medical treatment" to Magnitsky when he was under her direct care from October 7, 2009. It added that the move to drop charges against Dr. Litvinova was "the latest example of the reluctance within the Russian government to hold anyone accountable for Sergei Magnitsky's death."
Magnitsky was arrested in 2008 on tax evasion charges after he accused top officials from Russia's Interior Ministry, Federal Tax Service, Federal Security Service, and other agencies of using false tax documents to steal $230 million from the treasury.
He spent nearly a year in pre-trial detention before he died on on November 16, 2009, after falling gravely ill. His family and friends alleged that the lawyer was denied medical treatment for pancreatitis and gallstones.
An independent Russian oversight body in July 2011 said Magnitsky's body was found with broken fingers and bruises. The marks found on the lawyer's body indicated that he had been severely beaten by prison guards before his death.
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