MOSCOW, December 27 – RAPSI, Diana Gutsul. The Tverskoy District Court of Moscow will hold preliminary hearing on January 28 in the case against Sergei Magnitsky whose death in a Moscow pretrial detention center in 2009 evoked an international public outcry, the court spokesperson told the Russian Legal Information Agency on Thursday.

The hearing will be held in January behind closed doors.

The hearing was expected to be held on Thursday, but it was postponed as neither Magnitsky’s attorneys nor representatives of William Browder, Hermitage Capital Management CEO, attended.

On November 24, 2008, Sergei Magnitsky, an auditor of Hermitage Capital, was arrested on suspicion of masterminding large-scale corporate tax evasion. He died in Butyrka pretrial detention center on November 16, 2009 after spending a year behind bars. According to the Prosecutor General's Office, his death was caused by cardiovascular insufficiency.

His death triggered amendments to the Criminal Code and a reshuffling of officials in the penal system.

Dmitry Kratov, former deputy head of the pretrial detention center, and the ward's doctor Larisa Litvinova were defendants in the case over Magnitsky’s death.
However, the case against Litvinova was closed last spring due to amendments to the Criminal Code affecting the statute of limitations.

On Monday this week, the prosecutor asked the court to acquit Dmitry Kratov, who was accused of negligence which led to Magnitsky’s death, as no link was established between the actions of the defendant and the lawyer’s death.

The sentence in the case will be announced on January 28.

According to investigators, Magnitsky and his accomplices stole hundreds of millions of rubles from the state budget by manipulating tax returns between September and October 2007.

In turn, Hermitage Capital maintains that it had paid 5.4 billion rubles ($182.75 million) in taxes, but the money was stolen by corporate raiders with the help of law enforcement officials. Magnitsky's prosecution has been attributed to this theft.

Magnitsky's prosecution was terminated after his death, but later the investigation was reopened.

In late November, the Prosecutor General’s Office filed a lawsuit against Sergei Magnitsky and William Browder for evading more than 522 million rubles ($17.1 million) worth of taxes by falsifying tax returns and illegally using benefits for disabled individuals.

The case against UK citizen William Browder was brought in his absentia, since the United Kingdom has refused to cooperate with Russia on this matter.