U.S. Criticizes Russian Decision In Magnitsky Case

Russian anticorruption lawyer Sergei Magnitsky died in police custody in 2009.

The United States has criticized Russia's decision to drop charges against a doctor implicated in the prison death of anticorruption lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said on April 10: "We continue to call on Russian authorities to conduct a genuine investigation, to prosecute and punish those responsible for Magnitsky’s death."

Magnitsky died in pretrial detention in 2009 after implicating top Russian officials in a scheme to defraud the government.

He was routinely denied medical care and beaten before his death.

Russia last week dropped negligence charges against Larisa Litvinova, the chief physician at Moscow’s Butyrka prison, where Magnitsky was held, citing a two-year statute of limitations for such probes.

Legislation pending in the U.S. Congress would punish some 60 Russian officials implicated in the lawyer's death.