Russia seeks to drop charges over Magnitsky death

Russian prosecutors said on Monday the man on trial for causing the death of a whistle-blowing attorney should be freed without charge, in a surprising development in a case that has triggered a major row between Moscow and Washington. Dmitry Kratov is the only official remaining as a defendant in the death of Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer who died of untreated illnesses in 2009 while under pre-trial arrest at a Moscow jail. Magnitsky had claimed to have uncovered a $235 million state embezzlement scheme, before being arrested by the very officials he implicated in the crime. His case caused international outrage and led to the passage of a US law that blacklists Russian officials allegedly involved in the death. Moscow retaliated by introducing legislation banning adoptions of Russian children to American citizens in the biggest diplomatic scandal in years between the two powers. In Monday's development, prosecutor Dmitry Bokov said that Kratov, deputy head of the prison where Magnitsky died, should be acquitted of a charge of carelessness, because he acted according to the rules and did not receive any complaints from the lawyer. "There is no cause-effect relationship between Kratov's actions and Magnitsky's death," news agencies quoted Bokov as saying in court. Kratov and prison doctor Larisa Litvinova had been the only two people charged in August 2011 in connection with Magnitsky's death, despite allegations that more senior officials were involved. Litvinova, the doctor who tended to Magnitsky and was accused of causing his death by negligence, had her charges dropped in April after the expiry of the statute of limitations. Magnitsky's former employer Hermitage Capital and many rights activists have charged that his death was premeditated murder with participation of officials in the interior ministry. Investigators had said in July that Kratov failed to adequately perform his duties as deputy head of the prison where Magnitsky was held, leading to the lawyer's death. Prior to his arrest, Magnitsky was investigating a fraud scheme which he said was used by interior ministry officials to reclaim about $235 million in taxes paid by Hermitage Capital, once Russia's largest foreign investor. However instead of investigating his claims, investigators launched a fraud probe against him and put him in pre-trial detention. A report by the Kremlin human rights council last year said Magnitsky was handcuffed at the Matrosskaya Tishina prison and left unattended before he died at the age of 37, despite excruciating pain.