Netherlands expects punishment for people behind Magnitsky’s death

The Netherlands hopes that people implicated in the death of Hermitage Capital lawyer Sergei Magnitsky will be punished, the country’s ambassador in Moscow said. Magnitsky was arrested in November 2008 on tax evasion charges shortly after alleging that law enforcement officials and others were involved in a $230 million tax scam. The 37-year-old Magnitsky died a year later in Moscow’s notorious Butyrka prison after being denied medical care. Larisa Litvinova, chief doctor at the Butyrka prison, and the jail's deputy chief Dmitry Kratov, were charged with "causing death through negligence." President Medvedev's human rights council said two different officials - senior Interior Ministry investigator Oleg Silchenko and Butyrka chief Ivan Prokopenko - were also at fault. “We hope the people implicated in this [Magnitsky’s death] will be punished,” Netherlands ambassador Ronald Keller said. In July, the Kremlin's rights body said Magnitsky's death was the result of "calculated, deliberate and inhumane neglect." In August, the United States imposed a visa ban on an unspecified number of officials it believes were involved in the death. Russia responded with its own blacklist of U.S. officials.