The Russian Investigation Department said it had completed all procedures needed to send to court the case against Hermitage Capital lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who died in Moscow pretrial detention in 2009.
Before sending the case to court, investigators needed to receive a formal refusal by Magnitsky’s relatives to examine the case materials.
“The relatives’ stance was known before, now we received their formal refusal,” a spokesman for the department said.
He said lawyers of another suspect in the case, Hermitage Capital CEO William Browder, are about to begin examining the papers.
The Interior Ministry reopened the case against Magnitsky in 2011, accusing him and five others of embezzling 5.4 billion rubles ($185 million) of state money through fraudulent tax returns.
Magnitsky claimed the money, intended for companies managed by Hermitage, was stolen by state officials, including Interior Ministry investigators. He was detained in 2008, shortly after voicing his whistleblowing allegations, and died in his prison cell 11 months later.
His supporters insist that cases against him are retaliation for his whistle-blowing. Russian legislation allows posthumous investigation and trial, but only in case relatives of a deceased suspect request it. Magnitsky’s relatives have repeatedly said they want the ongoing case closed, but the investigators have refused.
The incident has significantly damaged Russia’s ties with the European Union and the United States, especially after the U.S. State Department last year barred unspecified officials linked to the Magnitsky case from entering the country.
