A Russian lawyer who represents the family of Sergei Magnitsky is in intensive care after falling from the fourth floor of his apartment building, according to unconfirmed reports. The Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta suggested Nikolai Gorokhov had fallen after a winch snapped as he tried to lift a bath to a fourth-floor apartment, though details of the incident remained murky, The Guardian reports:
Magnitsky uncovered a massive fraud that implicated government officials, but was arrested in 2008 and died in prison in 2009, amid allegations he had been tortured and medical care had been withheld. Russia later put him on trial posthumously for tax evasion.
However, British businessman Bill Browder, for whom Mr Magnitsky worked, said he had been “thrown“, the BBC adds:
He did not give a source for his allegation. According to a press release released by a website linked to Mr Browder, Law and Order in Russia, Mr Gorokhov was due to appear in an appeals court in Moscow on Wednesday to contest its refusal to investigate allegations of organised crime.
“Basically, there is a trail of dead and seriously injured people leading from the Magnitsky case,” Mr. Browder told The New York Times early Wednesday. He said Russia’s post-Soviet version of the K.G.B., the Federal Security Service, or F.S.B., “is doing everything it can to shut down any serious investigation.”
Browder said in a March 21 statement that Gorokhov was set to appear before a Moscow appeals court on March 22, RFE/RL adds:
Browder said Gorokhov planned to argue against a lower court’s refusal to consider a new criminal complaint from Magnitsky’s mother in connection with the fraud that her son uncovered.
