The Investigative Committee of the Russian Prosecutor General's Office has overturned its decision not to prosecute police officers who handled a case against British hedge fund lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who died in a Moscow jail in November 2009, a committee spokesman said.
Sergei Magnitsky died in a Moscow pretrial detention center at the age of 37 after spending 358 days awaiting trial. The Russian Prosecutor General's Office said he died of heart failure, but Hermitage Capital head Bill Browder told the BBC that Magnitsky was "killed" after refusing to sign a confession.
Vladimir Markin said on Wednesday that human rights activist and Head of the Moscow Helsinki Group Lyudmila Alekseyeva appealed in April to the Investigative Committee to press charges against the investigators of Magnitsky's case but the appeal was refused due to lack of evidence.
"According to instructions given by Russian Investigative Committee Head Alexander Bastrykin, the ruling... not to implement criminal proceedings against police and Investigative Committee officers, working on Magnitsky's case, was canceled," Markin said.
He said materials from the investigation have been sent to the Moscow city police department for checking and for the department to decide if it is necessary to open a criminal case.
The head of the Federal Penitentiary Service said last year that the service was partially responsible for the death of the lawyer.
Following Magnitsky's death, which caused uproar in Russia, President Dmitry Medvedev pushed through a law allowing people suspected of economic crimes to be released on bail in order to prevent jail detentions being used to pressure businessmen. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin called the death a "tragedy".
Investigators alleged that Magnitsky had conspired with Browder, who has reportedly been banned from entering Russia, to establish dummy firms to illegally buy and sell shares in Russian energy giant Gazprom.
