It’s not easy to hear of how Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky was killed.

“You need to be sitting down for this story” said chair, Edward Lucas, foreign correspondent with the Economist. “Could those people at the back find a space?”

William Browder was once the largest foreign portfolio investor in Russia with the Hermitage fund before he was thrown out of the country in 2005.

Sergei Magnitsky

“Twenty-five police officers raided my office in Moscow” Browder said, “and 25 more police officers raided the office of my American law firm. . . . One of the lawyers protested at the seizure of these documents and he was beaten so badly he was hospitalised for three weeks.”

Browder hired seven lawyers to find out more about the mess, one of them was a 36-year-old Sergei Magnitsky. They started an investigation that unearthed a high-level attempt to siphon a high-volume of funds. It was a complicated scheme that lead to a false tax refund of $230m that came – not from Browder‘s company but from the Russian taxpayer.

Six out of seven of Browder’s lawyers left  Russia for safety. Sergei Magnitsky decided to stay.

“He testified against the police officers who did the raid used to get the documents . . . and one month later the same police officers came to his home . . . and arrested him and put him in pre-trial detention and then began to torture him.”

He was later sent to the infamous Butyrka prison and got very sick after months of serious mistreatment.

“They did move him to a facility that had an emergency room but instead of treating him in an emergency room they put him in an isolation cell and chained him to a bed and allowed eight riot guards with rubber batons to beat him until he died.”

Browder is now trying to push the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act through US congress. If approved, this would allow assets of those responsible for his detention, abuse or death to be seized.

Corruption

Brutal truths about the Russian state unravel through the Magnitsky story. From a citizen’s point of view, bribery is a part of what Masha Gessen, author of a recent book on Putin, says is the “daily humiliation of living in Russia”.

But she said corruption in the country should be concerning from a strategic point of view, too.

“Russia happens to have one of the two largest arsenals of nuclear arms that’s reason enough to pay attention to the fact that . . . it’s extremely corrupt and on the brink of collapse.”

According to Browder the rot runs deep. He cites the beginnings of the investigation that ultimately led to Sergei Magnitsky’s murder.

“I discovered . . . that all the Russian companies I was investing in were basically losing all the money they should have been sharing with the shareholders with a bunch of corrupt officials and corrupt management.”

Putin

Gessen said the Russian president models government on the Russian spy agency – his former employer.

“I think Putin seriously believes that the KGB is the best thing ever invented. And he’s done everything in his power – and that’s a lot –  to re-shape Russia in the image of the KGB.

“The KGB’s a closed system, it’s best on personal connections and paranoia, where information comes in and doesn’t go out.”

This is the system that allowed Magnitsky’s death. As Browder said when asked by the audience what happened to his Russian investments, “I didn’t lose any money, I lost something far more precious; the life of a young man.”

Against a backdrop of growing discontent, and widespread allegations of fraud, Russia’s recent elections heralded Vladimir Putin’s re-election to the presidency. The man who many still saw as Russia’s de facto leader will now resume his tenure, four years after ostensibly ceding power to Dmitry Medvedev. 

In light of these developments a panel of experienced commentators gathered at the Frontline Club to assess the past, present and future of Putin’s Russia. The evening was chaired by Edward Lucas, The Economist’s Deputy International Editor, in discussion with Masha Gessen, a Russian-American journalist and author, and Bill Browder, an outspoken shareholder activist who was the largest foreign investor in Russia until 2005, when he was banned from the country.

Gessen, author of The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin, described Putin’s Russia as a mafia state in which large-scale corruption at the top relies on small-scale corruption at the bottom. She claimed that Putin “thinks the KGB is the best thing that was ever invented”, adding that she saw him as pleonexic – in that he suffers from the insatiable desire to have what rightfully belongs to others.

Browder agreed, describing his own experience as “the story of how bad things have got in Russia, and emblematic of the bare face of Russia from the beginning to the end.” He began to withdraw his money when he realised that all of his companies were hemorrhaging money to corrupt officials. A saga ensued in which Russian police seized his assets, took control of his companies and – amongst other things – conspired to reclaim $230m that Browder’s companies had paid in tax.

What followed has now become an infamous tale of state corruption and brutality. Sergei Magnitsky, the lawyer investigating matters on Browder’s behalf, was imprisoned and eventually murdered in custody. 

His is not the only case of this kind, as Browder and Gessen observed, but the unfailing bureaucracy of all involved led to the publication of an exact account of the events, written by Magnitsky, and a list of those responsible. Lucas described the Magnitsky list as “one of the most effective fires lit under the regime”, and Browder summarised the reasons behind its impact: 

“The people who committed these crimes didn’t do it because of religious intolerance, or ideological intolerance. They did this for money.”

Browder suggested that the regime was unsustainable, given the prevalence of events like this, but the panel recognised the inherent difficulty in ensuring a genuine transition of power. Gessen offered her own analysis of the regime’s ability to adapt and protect itself:

“With the whole reset campaign of the last 3 years, there were a lot of people who fell into Medvedev’s trap. The best way to think of Putin and Medvedev is of a president and a first lady: the first lady gets to reach out to people, and perform humanitarian gestures. That humanitarian gesture deceived a lot of people.”

Despite this, Gessen noted that the West is an important influence, even to the most corrupt Russian officials:

“More important than anything else, it’s the place where they keep their money. You can’t keep your money in Russia, there is always somebody better connected than you are.”

And, as the question and answer period drew to a close, Lucas suggested that Putin’s hold on power might begin to loosen if another disaster on the scale of the Kursk or Beslan were to strike:

“He handles these situations very badly. The people who’ve got a huge stake in the survival of the regime may wonder if they can keep it going for a few more years by pushing him downwards or sideways.”

Watch the event here:

By Nicole Hunt

EU and Ukrainian officials meet in Kiev on Monday for the annual EU-Ukraine Summit, with rumours abound that President Viktor Yanukovych is planning to skip the meeting in favour of the EurAsEC summit taking place in Moscow on the same day. Yanukovych’s planned visit to Brussels in Octoberwas delayed after opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko was convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison on what the EU says are politically motivated charges.

The Gulf Cooperation Council holds its annual summit in Riyadh, the first formal meeting of leaders since the beginning of the Arab Spring last year. The meeting begins on the same day that the UN Security Council is scheduled to discuss sanctions against Iran and receive a briefing from Jamal Benomar, Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Yemen.

Leaders from the Commonwealth of Independent States meet in Moscow on Tuesday to celebrate the organisation’s 20th anniversary. The CIS was formed out of the dissolution of the Soviet Union; the initial agreement was signed by Belarus, Russia and Ukraine on 8 December, 1991, while eight more former Soviet republics joined on 21 December.

In Tripoli, Tuesday marks the deadline issued by the government and the Tripoli Council for rogue, non-Tripoli based militias to disarm and leave the city. Despite the announcement of the deadline on 6 December, clashes between militias and security forces have continued unabated.

Pending the confirmation of election results by the Supreme Court of the Democratic Republic of Congo on 17 December, President Joseph Kabila is scheduled to be sworn in for a second term in Kinshasa. International observers have raised concerns about the validity of the country’s 28 November election.

The long-awaited verdict in the ‘Government I’ genocide trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda is handed down on Wednesday in Arusha. Former Interior Minister Edouard Karemera and former President of the MRND political party Mathieu Ngirumpatse are accused of recruiting and arming the Interahamwe militia and disseminating Hutu Power propaganda.

The European Central Bank holds the first of two 36-month longer-term refinancing operations announced by ECB President Mario Draghi on 8 December as part of a series of measures to support bank lending and market activities. The LTRO comes on the same day that Italy releases Q3 GDP figures; the preliminary figures had been due in November, but were not released amid political turmoil.

Palestinian leaders meet in Cairo on Thursday, with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas expected to chair the first meeting of what would be a unified Palestinian decision-making body in place until elections are held in May 2012. Members of the Palestinian National Council, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation’s executive boards and the directors-general of various Palestinian factions are scheduled to attend.

Amid weeks of protests against the recent parliamentary elections, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev gives his annual state of the nation address in Moscow.

On Friday, the South Korean military is set to turn on the lights on three giant steel Christmas trees placed at points along the country’s border with North Korea. Pyongyang has reportedly called the trees a form of ‘psychological warfare’ and has threatened ‘unexpected consequences’ if the lighting goes ahead.

Activists in Russia have planned another mass protest against the 4 December elections on Saturday, after an estimated 50,000 people turned out for the 10 December demonstration, which was organised on Facebook. The tens of thousands already signed up to attend have clearly not been swayed by President Dmitry Medvedev’s pledge to investigate allegations of electoral fraud.

Sunday is, of course, Christmas Day. While millions worldwide will be focusing on egg nog, Christmas pudding and what Santa’s left under the tree, Pakistani cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan will be addressing a rally in Karachi, where he is said to be launching a ‘revolutionary manifesto’ ahead of elections in 2013.

Sunday also marks the 20th anniversary of the resignation of Mikhail Gorbachev, who had been President of the Soviet Union from October 1988. Gorbachev’s resignation came a day before the USSR was formally dissolved on 26 December, 1991.

By Nicole Hunt

US President Barack Obama hosts Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al Maliki for talks in Washington on Monday, with discussions focusing on strengthening the ‘strategic partnership’ between the two countries. The summit comes ahead of a looming 31 December deadline for the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq.

Following last week’s European Council meetings, the focus early this week is, predictably, still the euro zone debt crisis. Experts from the IMF, the European Central Bank and the EU begin their sixth review mission to Athens, hoping that this time around they’ll be able to stick around until the scheduled end of the visit on Friday.

The venue changes but the topic stays the same on Tuesday, with Spain, Italy and France in the limelight. Spain’s Congreso de los Diputados convenes for the first time since elections on 20 November, though new Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy won’t formally take up his post until he’s sworn in by King Carlos later this month.

In Rome, Parliament is scheduled to begin debating Prime Minister Mario Monti’s austerity measures, which he issued by decree on 4 December. MPs are expected to approve the measures well before the 60-day deadline.

Meanwhile, French unions have planned a nationwide day of protests against their government’s austerity measures. Thousands are expected to take the streets in Paris, where the largest demonstration takes place outside of the Assemblée Nationale.

Under Egypt’s complicated election laws, another parliamentary vote is held on Wednesday, with polling taking place in nine governates, including Giza and Suez. The elections on 28 November, which were held despite violent protests only days before, covered nine provinces, including Cairo and Alexandria. A third round of voting takes place on 3 January.

In New Orleans, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management holds the first oil and natural gas lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico since the April 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster.

A Paris court is expected to issue its verdict on Thursday in the long-running corruption trial of former French President Jacques Chirac. Chirac is accused of misusing public funds and creating false job contracts during his time as Mayor of Paris. He settled a €2.2m civil suit with the city of Paris in August 2010.

Thursday also sees two meetings taking place which will be viewed very differently by Russia. President Dmitry Medvedev attends the EU-Russia Summit in Brussels, but the visit will be coloured by expressions of concern from the EU over allegations of unfair voting practices in Russia’s 4 December parliamentary elections, which saw Medvedev’s United Russia party win a majority despite heavy losses.

Over in Geneva, the World Trade Organisation holds its eighth Ministerial Conference, where delegates are expected to hold a long-awaited vote on Russian accession to the WTO.

TIME Magazine announces its annual Person of the Year on Friday. Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg was 2010’s winner; leaders in this year’s online poll (which don’t have any bearing on the final choice) include Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, footballer Lionel Messi, The 99%, Anonymous, Steve Jobs, and the Arab Youth.

The US army begins an Article 32 hearing for Private First Class Bradley Manning, which is expected to last just over a week. The hearing is to determine whether there is enough evidence to proceed with a court martial against Manning, who is accused to leaking a 2007 video to WikiLeaks which showed a military operation in Baghdad in which two Reuters reporters were killed.

As Saturday happens to be Manning’s 24th birthday, an international day of solidarity has been organised, with protests planned worldwide. Occupy London protesters have already pledged to take part.

Though it hardly seems possible as Egypt works through elections and protests and killings rage on in Syria, Saturday also marks the one year anniversary of the self-immolation of Tunisian fruit and vegetable seller Mohamed Bouazizi, an event that has been singled out as the catalyst for the Arab Spring movement as it kicked off Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution.

By Nicole Hunt 

Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, better known as Carlos the Jackal, goes on trial in Paris on Monday accused of complicity in the deaths of 11 people. The charges relate to bombings in France in 1982 and 1983. Carlos is already serving a life sentence for the 1975 murder of two French security agents and a Lebanese informant; he rose to prominence after orchestrating an armed raid on OPEC’s Vienna headquarters that same year, during which three people were killed.

In Brussels, euro zone Finance Ministers hold their monthly meeting. Tensions are expected to be high following last week’s will-they-or-won’t-they discussions on a referendum on the new EU bailout deal.

The meeting continues into Tuesday when non-euro zone EU members join their counterparts for yet more talks.

The second round of Liberia’s presidential election is also on Tuesday, with the country set to find out whether incumbent President and newly-anointed Nobel Peace laureate Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf will serve another term or be replaced by former UN envoy William Tubman.

Dmitry Medvedev, Angela Merkel, Francois Fillon and Mark Rutte attend the opening ceremony for the Nord Stream 1 Pipeline in Lubmin, Germany. The gas pipeline connects Northern Europe to Russia via the Baltic Sea.

The International Energy Agency publishes its annual World Energy Outlook on Wednesday, which projects energy supply and demand worldwide through to 2030.

In Paris, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) convenes to discuss the recommended catch limits for bluefin tuna. The meeting follows a report last month which found that overfishing was rampant, with 140 per cent more bluefin meat entering the market than was reported from the Mediterranean alone.

News Corporation’s James Murdoch is back in front of the UK Parliament’s Culture, Media and Sport Committee on Thursday. The Committee recalled Murdoch to question him about testimony he gave at a hearing on 19 July, when he appeared alongside his father Rupert, which was contradicted by witnesses at subsequent hearings.

With all eyes nervously watching the global financial markets, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and the European Central Bank hold their annual International Banking Conference on Thursday and Friday.

The New 7 Wonders Foundation announces the new seven wonders of nature on Friday, following a world campaign that has seen them visit 28 finalists sites and has encouraged people to vote for their favourites.

Meanwhile, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, the UN tribunal set up to investigate the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq al Hariri, holds a public hearing to decide whether to try in absentia four Hezbollah members indicted in the case.

The United States hosts the APEC Economic Leaders Meeting in Honolulu on Saturday, followed by the North American Leaders’ Summit with Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Sunday.

Candlelight vigils are held in London, Cape Town and Mariestad, Sweden, in memory of Anni Dewani on the first anniversary of her death. Dewani was murdered in an apparent carjacking while on honeymoon in Cape Town last year. Her husband Shrien was subsequently implicated in her death, and is currently appealing his extradition to South Africa to face charges.

Following this week’s announcement of arrest warrants against Muammar Gaddafi and co., The Hague continues its stint in the limelight next week with the high-profile hearing on Monday for former Bosnian Serb Commander Ratko Mladic at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.

Meanwhile, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen lead a meeting of the NATO-Russia Council in Sochi, the first since military action began in Libya. Russia has been increasingly vocal about its opposition to the NATO action.

Focus shifts back to Greece on Tuesday as the Federal Constitutional Court in Germany hears challenges to the constitutionality of a law adopted last year which guarantees the maintenance of Greece’s financial stability and solvency, authorising up to €22.4bn in loans.

8,500km away, Chavez-watchers are keeping an eye out to see whether the President Hugo Chavez will return for Venezuela’s bicentennial. Chavez has been in Cuba since he travelled there on 8 June to undergo surgery, and, until a video aired on 28 June showing him with Fidel Castro, he had not been seen since.

The International Olympic Committee takes a break from its four-day AGM in Durban on Wednesday to announce whether Munich, Annecy or PyeongChang will host the 2018 Winter Olympics.

Closer to home, American news site Huffington Post launches its UK version, following the arrival of Huffington Post Canada in May. Founder Arianna Huffington has promised the website will be live in 12 countries by the end of the year.

On Thursday, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon leads the latest round of discussions between Greek Cypriot leader Dimitris Christofias and his Turkish counterpart Dervis Eroglu in Geneva. Back in New York, the UN launches its annual Millennium Development Goals report, assessing MDG progress worldwide.

In London, families mark the sixth anniversary of the 7 July bombings, which killed 56 people on the Tube and bus network.

Egyptian activists return to Cairo’s Tahrir Square on Friday, just under five months after the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak. Protesters say elections planned for September should not go ahead under the current constitution.

In France, the Cour de Justice de la République is expected to rule on whether to initiate a judicial inquiry into new IMF Managing Director (and erstwhile French Finance Minister) Christine Lagarde’s role in the 2007 Tapie Affair. The decision was delayed from 10 June.

Saturday marks the official independence of South Sudan, following a referendum in January and despite ongoing violence in the Abyei region.

Back to the Arab Spring on Sunday, as Syria’s National Dialogue Commission holds a consultative meeting to discuss constitutional amendments, including changes to Clause 8, which enshrines the leadership of President Bashar al Assad’s Baath Party.

In Israel, the final hearing is scheduled to take place in a case brought against the state by the family of Rachel Corrie, and American activist who was killed in 2003 when an Israeli bulldozer poured soil over her while she tried to block the demolition of Palestinian homes in the Gaza strip.

Highlights: Mladic hearing and NATO-Russia Council (4 July); German court hearing on Greece and Venezuelan independence day (5 July); 2018 Olympics host and Huffington Post UK launch (6 July); UN activity and 7/7 anniversary (7 July); Egypt protests and Christine Lagarde decision (8 July); South Sudan independence (9 July); Syrian National Dialogue and Rachel Corrie trial (10 July).