MOSCOW, July 3 (RAPSI) - A prosecutor asked a Moscow court on Wednesday to end the tax fraud case against deceased Hermitage Capital lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.
Magnitsky, who died in disputed circumstances while in pretrial custody in 2009, is being prosecuted for the alleged embezzlement of hundreds of millions of rubles from the federal budget by manipulating tax returns between September and October 2007.
The trial is the first against a dead person in Russian or Soviet legal history.
Charges were also filed against Magnitsky’s former boss, Hermitage Capital fund CEO William Browder, who is being tried in absentia. The prosecutor has sought a nine-year prison term for Browder, who has in turn accused some of the officials responsible for prosecuting him and Magnitsky of fraud related to the takeover of Hermitage subsidiaries and subsequent tax rebate frauds by those companies.
Browder, once the biggest portfolio investor in Russia, was charged in absentia in March with illegally purchasing shares in Russian energy giant Gazprom at a time when foreign ownership of the world's largest natural gas producer was restricted.
Updated to include information about additional charges against Browder
