MOSCOW, April 6 - RAPSI. Amnesty International, an international human rights organization, urges Russian authorities to terminate a criminal case against lawyer Sergei Magnitsky who died in the pre-trial detention center in November 2009, the organization reported on its website on Friday.

The Moscow's Ostankinsky District Court affirmed the resumption of Magnitsky's case on Tuesday, April 3. The posthumous investigation was ordered by Deputy Prosecutor General Viktor Grin on July 30, 2011.

Meanwhile, human rights activists have repeatedly called on the Russian authorities to investigate the circumstances of Magnitsky's death.
The court dismissed on April 3 the appeal filed by Magnitsky's mother to cancel Grin's order. His widow Natalia Zharikova filed a petition in which she supported Magnitsky mother's appeal.

In her petition Zharikova noted, that pursuant to the Constitutional Court's decision, only relatives of the deceased defendant are entitled to request for continuing investigation and not the officials of the Interior Ministry or the prosecutors office.

During the hearing prosecutor Sergei Bochkaryov said the resumption of investigation is legal and well-founded. He reminded that before he died, Magnitsky contested charges brought against him while his relatives called them unfounded. In this regard, the Deputy Prosecutor General later decided to resume investigation of the case.

Magnitsky was charged with involvement in a large-scale corporate tax evasion. He died in a Moscow pretrial detention center on November 16, 2009, after spending nearly a year behind bars. His death sparked a public uproar.