The deceased lawyer Sergey Magnitsky could be tried posthumously for tax evasion. Investigators have finished looking into the case and are ready to send the documents to court.

This is according to a letter from the chief investigator’s letter to Magnitsky’s family and legal representatives, namely his mother and widow and the lawyers from Hermitage Capital Investment Fund, the company that hired Magnitsky to protect its interest.

“Modern history has never known posthumous trials of this kind,” said a spokesperson from Hermitage Capita. “No country in the world would put a dead man on trial, especially one killed by law enforcement officers.”

The investigation of Magnitsky’s tax-evasion case was terminated in November 2009, when the 37-year-old lawyer, who was working for Hermitage Capital, died from heart failure in a pre-trial detention center.

In July 2011, the Constitutional Court resumed the criminal case at the request of Magnitsky’s relatives, who wanted to protect the honor and dignity of the deceased. The outcome of the investigation, however, was far from the one expected and the deceased lawyer is now being brought to trial and faces posthumous conviction of tax fraud.

The persecution in this scandalous criminal case can be terminated only if the relatives refuse to protect the honor and dignity of the deceased man, the Kommersant daily reported.

"We will not study the case files, because we believe that the investigation was resumed illegally," said lawyer Nikolai Gorokhov, who represents the interests of Magnitsky's mother.

The case against the deceased man is nothing more than the victimization of the memory of the deceased man and his relatives – especially as those responsible for his death were not punished, writes the Vedomosti newspaper. Such trials whereby the long-term sick and terminally ill were accused of crimes are characteristic of the Inquisition times or the Stalinist epoch.

The lawyer’s death outraged the top managers of Hermitage Capital. The investors launched a major public campaign in Russia and abroad, accusing certain Russian officials along with the police, the Justice Ministry and Tax Ministry, of corruption and embezzlement.

Russian authorities charged two prison doctors with manslaughter and criminal negligence and fired them, but dismissed Hermitage Capital’s charges of deliberate murder and large-scale corruption as unfounded.

In November 2011, the Russian Presidential Human Rights Council said that prison guards had beaten Magnitsky with rubber truncheons and then denied him access to medical care, which eventually resulted in the lawyer’s death.

The statement was later denied by the police, as the internal check did not confirm the council’s claims. Law enforcement authorities insist that Magnitsky created two tax evasion schemes that allowed Hermitage Capital to completely avoid municipal taxes and reduce all income tax payments by half.