When Irina Perikhina, one of those junior lawyers, heard the knock on her door, she was sitting at her vanity. Like any self-respecting thirtysomething Russian woman, she wouldn’t be caught dead talking to anyone without her makeup on. Instead of answering, she continued to brush on mascara and apply lipstick. When she was finally done and went to the door, no one was there. The police had given up and left, thinking the apartment was empty.
Boris Samolov, another of Sergei’s lawyers, was luckily not living at his registered address when the knock came. He avoided the police altogether.
Sergei, however, was at home with Nikita, his eight-year-old son. Sergei was getting himself ready for work and Nikita for school. His eldest son, Stanislav, was already gone. Sergei’s wife, Natasha, hadn’t been feeling well that morning and had gone to see the doctor.
When the knock came, Sergei opened the door and was faced with three officers. He stepped aside and let them in.
The Magnitsky family lived in a modest two-bedroom apartment on Pokrovka Street in central Moscow. Over the next eight hours the officers turned the apartment upside down. When Natasha returned from the doctor, she was shocked and scared, but Sergei wasn’t. As they sat in Nikita’s bedroom, he whispered, «Don’t worry. I’ve done nothing wrong. There’s nothing they can do to me». The police were still there when Stanislav returned home from school. He was angry, but Sergei, in his calm voice, assured him that everything would be fine.
The police finished their search at 4:00 p.m. They confiscated all of Sergei’s personal files and computers, family photos, a stack of children’s DVDs, and even a paper airplane collection and sketchbook that belonged to Nikita. They then arrested Sergei. As he was being led away, he turned toward his wife and children, forced a smile, and said he’d be back soon.
Thus began the tragic ordeal of Sergei Magnitsky. I learned about it in fits and starts over several months, but it’s an ordeal that I have never stopped thinking about.
I learned about the search of his home in real time. In the midafternoon of November 24, Vadim rushed to my desk with a panicked look on his face. «Bill, we need you in the conference room now!»
I followed him. I knew what he was going to tell me. Ivan, Eduard, and Vladimir were already there. As soon as I closed the door, Vadim said, «Sergei’s been arrested!»
«Shit». I fell into the nearest chair, my mouth suddenly dry. Dozens of questions and images ran through my head. Where was he being held? On what grounds had they arrested him? How did they frame him?
«What’s going to happen next, Eduard?» I asked.
«He’ll be given a detention hearing where he’ll either be granted bail or put into a detention center. Almost certainly the latter».
«What are those like?»
Eduard sighed and avoided my eyes. «They’re not good, Bill. Definitely not good».
«How long can they hold him?»
«Up to a year».
«A year? Without charging him?»
«Yes».
My imagination launched into overdrive. I couldn’t help but think of the American TV show Oz, about a Harvard-educated lawyer who gets thrown in jail with horrific and violent criminals at a fictional New York State correctional facility. It was only a TV show, but the unspeakable things that happened to this character made me shudder when I considered what Sergei was about to face. Were the authorities going to torture him? Would he be raped? How would a gentle, erudite, middle-class lawyer deal with a situation like this?
I had to do whatever I could to get him out of there.
My first move was to get Sergei a lawyer. He requested a well-known attorney from his hometown named Dmitri Kharitonov. We hired him immediately. I assumed Dmitri would share any information he learned about Sergei’s situation, but he turned out to be extremely guarded. He was certain his phone was being tapped and his email monitored. He wanted to communicate with us only in person, and that could only happen when he would be in London, in mid-January. I found this arrangement highly unsatisfactory, but if this was the lawyer Sergei wanted, I couldn’t possibly argue.
My next move was to see the new head of the Russia desk at the Foreign Office, Michael Davenport, a Cambridge-educated lawyer roughly my age. Unlike his predecessor, Simon Smith, I didn’t warm to Davenport. I’d met him several times before to brief him on our troubles with the Russians, but he seemed to view me as a businessman who’d gotten what he deserved in Russia and didn’t merit the attentions of the British government.
Now that a vulnerable human being was involved, I hoped his attitude would change.
I went to his office on King Charles Street and he ushered me in. He pointed to his wooden conference table and we sat opposite each other. He asked his assistant to bring us some tea, then said, «What can I do for you, Mr. Browder?»
«I have some bad news from Russia», I said quietly.
«What’s happened?»
«One of my lawyers, a man named Sergei Magnitsky, has been arrested».
Davenport stiffened. «One of your lawyers, you say?»
«Yes. Sergei discovered the massive tax-rebate fraud I told you about earlier in the year. And now the Interior Ministry officers who committed the crime have taken him into custody».
«On what grounds?»
«We’re still trying to figure that out. But if I had to guess, it would be tax evasion. That’s how these guys operate».
«That’s very unfortunate. Please, tell me everything you know».
I gave him all the details as he took notes. When I was finished, he promised authoritatively, «We will raise this issue at an appropriate time with our counterparts in Russia».
I’d met enough diplomats by that point to know this was standard Foreign Office speak for «We’re going to do jack shit for you».
The meeting didn’t last much longer. I hurried out, hopped into a black taxi, and headed back to the office. As we drove through Trafalgar Square, my phone rang. It was Vadim.
«Bill, I just got some bad news from my source Aslan».
«What is it?»
«He told me that the Interior Ministry has assigned nine senior investigators to Sergei’s case, Bill. Nine!»
«What does that mean?»
«A normal criminal case gets one or two. A big one might get three or four. Only a huge political case like Yukos would have nine».
«Shit!»
«There’s more. He also said that Victor Voronin, the head of Department K of the FSB, was personally responsible for Sergei’s arrest».
«Fuck», I muttered, and hung up the phone.
Sergei was in big trouble.
Sergei’s bail hearing took place at the Tverskoi District Court in Moscow two days after his arrest. The police had no evidence of a crime and no legal basis for keeping him in custody. Sergei and his lawyers thought that with such a flimsy case, bail would be granted for sure.
As they assembled in court, they were confronted with a new investigator from the Interior Ministry, a thirty-one-year-old major named Oleg Silchenko, who was so boyish-looking that he didn’t even appear qualified to give evidence to a court. He could have been an intern in Sergei’s tax department at Firestone Duncan, or a graduate student at Moscow State University. But Silchenko was wearing a crisp blue uniform, and as he aggressively presented his «evidence», he showed that he was every inch an officer at the Interior Ministry.
Silchenko argued that Sergei was a flight risk and waved around a «report» from Department K as his evidence, claiming that Sergei had applied for a UK visa and had reserved a plane ticket to Kiev. Both allegations were fabricated. Sergei pointed out that he hadn’t applied for a UK visa, which could easily be proven by contacting the British embassy. Sergei then addressed the made-up Kiev reservation, but the judge wouldn’t let him finish. «I have no reason to doubt the information provided from investigative bodies», the judge said. He then ordered Sergei to be held in pretrial detention. Sergei was hustled out of the court, handcuffed, and put in a prison transport. He spent ten days at an undisclosed location and was then taken to the place where he would be held for at least the next two months, a jail known simply as Moscow Detention Center No. 5.