RA’s Daily Russian News Blast – Nov 25, 2009
TODAY: Medvedev orders investigation of Magnitsky’s death and calls for broader look at treatment of detainees, fires employees responsible for Ulyanovsk blasts; Iran could take legal action against Russia over missilse; Ismailov’s sons involved in luxury-car crash; Berlusconi’s ‘Putin bed’.
President Dmitry Medvedev has ordered the Justice Ministry to investigate the death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, a day after he was pressed by his human rights council on the matter. He also ordered an investigation into the general treatment of people detained for economic crimes, and an analysis of the practice of detaining suspects after a first charge of such crimes. ‘It would be absolutely pointless to discuss any other aspect of modernization without first addressing Magnitsky’s death,‘ writes one Russian banker, and Yulia Latynina says Magnitsky’s death proves that Russia is a ‘Third World country‘ in an article that examines some of the finer points of the Hermitage case. Medvedev has fired four top military officers for ‘criminal negligence‘ in connection with two explosions – the second occurring on the eve of a planned presidential visit – at a Ulyanovsk military depot earlier this month that left 10 people dead. Three policemen are being held on suspicion of murder, accused of having drunkenly beaten an Abkhaz man to death in Moscow.