#SergeiMagnitsky's mother slams Russian Foreign Ministry's comments about new US Magnitsky List

Natalia Magnitskaya, the mother of Sergei Magnitsky, released a statement today responding to the Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry’s recent commentary that the expansion of the Magnitsky list was an effort to 'discredit' Russia.

Natalia Magnitskaya asked the Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry to publish her statement on its website.

"Each of the officials [included in the list of Magnitsky] has been involved in malfeasance, acting with impunity guaranteed by beneficiaries of the 5,4 billion rubles (around 230$ million) theft, and is rightly included in the sanctions list" said Natalia Magnitskaya.

"Our country is discredited not by the existence of this list, but by officials who worked towards corrupt goals instead of performing their duties to safeguard and protect our country and its citizens,"

"I take as an insult the recent comment [from the Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry] that the tragic fate of my son was a ‘bargaining chip’ in the ‘unscrupulous Washington's campaign to discredit our country.’ For my son, such concepts as ‘honesty’, ‘honour’, ‘patriotism’ and ‘duty’ were not empty words, but his life’s principles", she added.

"The [Russian] investigators and prosecutors tasked to investigate my son’s death and the embezzlement of budget funds deliberately destroyed evidence, sabotaged the investigation, advanced knowingly false theories and ended up with accusing my son after his death of organizing the theft of 5.4 billion rubles - the crime for the exposure of which he suffered martyrdom and death, With bitter regret I note that the Magnitsky Law and the Magnitsky Sanctions List, which the Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry’s Information Department called ‘notorious,’ today are the only means to tell the public about the abuses committed by some officials in the law enforcement and judicial authorities," said Magnitskaya.

Earlier this month, the US State Department announced the addition of four Russian Interior Ministry officials for their role in the posthumous persecution of Sergei Magnitsky to the visa and financial sanctions list under the 'Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2012'.

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