3% Withholding Repeal and Job Creation Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. WICKER. Madam President, I have come to the floor on a number of occasions to voice my concern about the deteriorating rule of law and the lack of respect for human rights in Russia, primarily highlighting the cases of Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev.

The fact that Khodorkovsky and Lebedev remain in jail is deplorable. But I rise to speak about another case, in which a man who opposed the government not only went to jail but died there. I choose my words carefully this afternoon, knowing that they will be disturbing to many and that a number of people within the Russian Government will take great offense. But I want everyone within the sound of my voice to know that I am choosing my words carefully.

Sergei Magnitsky was a lawyer and a partner with an American-owned law firm based in Moscow. He was married, with two children. His clients included the Hermitage Fund, which is the largest foreign portfolio investor in Russia.

Through Sergei Magnitsky's investigative work on behalf of Hermitage, it was discovered that Russian Interior Ministry officers, tax officials, and organized criminals worked together to steal $230 million in public funds, orchestrating the largest tax rebate fraud in Russian history. As Magnitsky would come to find out, this group had fraudulently reregistered three investment companies of the Hermitage Fund and embezzled from the Russian Treasury all of the profits, taxes, that these companies had paid, and did so under the guise of a tax refund.

In October of 2008, Magnitsky voluntarily gave sworn testimony against officials from the Interior Ministry, against Russian tax departments, and the private criminals who he found had perpetrated the fraud. A month later, Interior Ministry officers came to his Moscow apartment, arrested him in front of his wife and two children, and threw him in pretrial detention.

At the same time, the Russian Federal Security Service claimed there was evidence that Magnitsky had applied for a U.K. visa and that he was considered a flight risk. The Russian courts used this to prolong the term of his detention without a trial to 12 months. I should note that the British Embassy in Moscow has confirmed that Mr. Magnitsky had not applied for a U.K. visa since the year 2002, and so the pretrial detention was based on a fabrication.

Once in custody, Magnitsky was pressured and tortured by officials, hoping he would withdraw his testimony, and asking him to falsely incriminate himself and his client. They placed Mr. Magnitsky in an overcrowded cell with no heat, no window panes, no toilet, and kept lights on all night in order to deprive him of sleep. Each time he refused to withdraw his testimony against the officials, his conditions worsened--as did his health. He lost 40 pounds and developed severe pancreatitis and gallstones.

On July 25, 2009, 1 week before a planned operation by detention center doctors, Mr. Magnitsky was transferred to a maximum security detention center with no medical facilities. He spent the next 4 months of his life without any medical care. All of his requests for medical examination and surgery were denied by the Russian Government officials.

The Interior Ministry officials managing Magnitsky's detention refused family visits as ``inexpedient to the investigation.'' From the time of his arrest, Magnitsky saw his wife only once. He never saw his children again after his arrest.

During his 358 days in detention, Mr. Magnitsky wrote more than 450 petitions requesting medical attention and challenging his cruel treatment, the denial of legal remedies, and protesting his being taken hostage by the very Interior Ministry officials he had testified against. Every petition filed was either ignored or rejected by Russian authorities.

On November 13, 2009, Sergei Magnitsky's condition worsened dramatically. Doctors saw him on November 16, when he was transferred to a Moscow detention center that had medical facilities. Instead of being delivered to the detention center hospital and actually treated immediately, Mr. Magnitsky was placed in an isolation cell, reportedly handcuffed, beaten, and he died in that cell.

On the day following Mr. Magnitsky's death, detention center officials informed his lawyers that he had died from a rupture of his abdominal membrane and toxic shock. That same day, although detention center facilities had said abdominal membrane and toxic shock, the official cause of his death was changed to heart failure. Indeed.

Two requests by his family for an independent autopsy were rejected by Russian authorities. A week after Mr. Magnitsky's death, senior Russian Interior Officials publicly claimed that Magnitsky was not sick at all in detention. Seven months after his death, Interior Ministry officials claimed they were not aware of Magnitsky's complaints and requests for medical assistance. Ten months after his death, the Russian state investigative committee claimed that Magnitsky was not pressured and tortured but died naturally of heart disease. His death, the committee claimed, was ``nobody's fault.''

Nearly 2 years after Magnitsky's death, not a single person has been prosecuted for his false arrest, for his torture, for his murder in custody, or for the $230 million theft he exposed.

Some may question the facts I have outlined today. Are they in dispute? I would point out that on November 23, 2009, 1 week after Mr. Magnitsky's death, the chair of President Medvedev's Human Rights Council publicly raised Magnitsky's death with President Medvedev. The following day, President Medvedev ordered the General Prosecutor and the Justice Minister of Russia to investigate the death. The investigation was limited and did not result in any criminal prosecutions.

However, on December 28, 2009, the Moscow Public Oversight Commission, an independent watchdog mandated under Russian law to monitor human rights abuses in Moscow prisons and detention centers, issued its conclusions on the Magnitsky case. The report stated that in detention, Magnitsky had been subjected to torturous conditions, physical and psychological pressure, and was denied medical care. Moreover, the members of this courageous Commission concluded that his right to life had been violated by the Russian State--by the Russian State. These conclusions were sent to the Russian General Prosecutor's Office, the Russian State Investigative Committee, the Russian Ministry of Justice, the Presidential Administration, and the Federal Penitentiary Service. None of the government agencies responded to any of the report's conclusions.

Then, on July 5, 2011--this year--the Russian President's Human Rights Council issued its independent expert findings on the Magnitsky case. The report found the following: that Mr. Magnitsky was arrested on trumped-up charges in breach of Russian law and the European Human Rights Convention; that his prosecution was unlawful; that he was systematically denied medical care; that he was beaten in custody, which was a proximate cause of his death; that his medical records were falsified; and that there is an ongoing coverup and resistance by all government bodies to investigate. Thank heaven for the intrepid members of the Russian President's Human Rights Council.

While little has been done inside Russia regarding that case, action has been taken here in the United States. In May 2011, I joined Senator Ben Cardin in introducing the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act. The bill extends the application of visa and economic sanctions to officials in the Magnitsky case and in other cases of gross human rights abuses. The legislation currently has 23 sponsors, and I urge all of my colleagues to consider joining us on this bill. Join us on this bill today.

On September 16, 2011, 15 leading human rights activists and representatives of the Russian civil society issued an open letter urgently calling on this Congress to pass this legislation. The letter states:

Sergei Magnitsky has become a victim of the inhumane Russian justice system. Many Russian citizens are unlawfully deprived of liberty due to the travesties of this system. The impunity of those who have fabricated the case against Magnitsky and have persecuted him opens the door for other officials who enrich themselves with stolen property and target political opponents of the re-Ðgime. .....

The letter goes on to say:

The consistent application of international pressure on corrupt members of the ruling establishment would significantly support our civil society and those honest individuals inside the Russian power structures who are trying to revamp and reform the existing government institutions.

The letter concludes:

We urge you--

They urge us, the Members of Congress--

to adopt the ``Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2011'' without any delay.

We in the Senate should be standing in support of the principled, fearless Russian citizens who have the courage to expose these corrupt abuses, to expose the brutality and thuggery of their own Russian Government.

I urge President Obama and I urge Secretary Clinton to make human rights and rule of law in Russia a central part of our efforts to reset bilateral relations. Without commitment to these basic principles, our efforts to find common ground on other issues of mutual concern will continue to be undermined.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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