Russia's Presidential Council for Civil Society Institutions and Human Rights will on July 5 send to President Dmitry Medvedev its conclusions on lawyer Sergei Magnitsky's death in detention.
The Council's special working group is conducting its own probe into Magnitsky's case, who had been arrested as part of an embezzlement and tax evasion investigation and died of a heart attack aged 37 in a Moscow pre-trial detention facility after being refused medical treatment.
The human rights body is currently preparing three intermediate statements on how the investigation into Magnitsky's death was conducted, on the work of Russia's penitentiary services and on the court's ruling, which cleared the main suspect, investigator Oleg Silchenko, of all charges.
"Those three documents are to be compiled into a single paper," said Mikhail Fedotov, the council's chief.
Lyudmila Alexeyeva, the head of the Moscow Helsinki Group, said the council will request Medvedev to hand the Health Ministry control over penitentiary health care, which is now under the supervision of the Federal Penitentiary Service.
"Magnitsky's death and other deaths in detention centers are mainly due to the fact that prison health care is under the control of prison chiefs and investigators. It must be controlled by the Health Ministry," she said.
Similar statements have already been voiced by human rights bodies and experts, but the Health and Social Development Ministry is reluctant to assume control over the trouble-ridden sector.
