Alexander Zemlianichenko / AP

Police officers stand near an empty defendant's cage in a courtroom in Moscow on March 11, 2013. The court postponed the trial of Sergei Magnitsky, a dead lawyer who accused law-enforcement authorities of massive corruption and whose case sparked a dispute between Washington and Moscow.

Mikhail Voskresensky / Reuters

Flowers lie near the grave of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in the Preobrazhensky cemetery in Moscow on March 11, 2013.

Journalists crowded into a packed Moscow courtroom on Monday to witness a legal first: the first prosecution of a dead person in Russian history. But the case was postponed as the absence of defendant Sergei Magnitsky — who died in 2009 — was compounded by the non-appearance of his legal team.

Magnitsky is charged with tax evasion and fraud — similar to accusations that he had leveled against police and tax officials — in a case that sparked a dispute between Washington and Moscow when Congress passed a law named after Magnitsky.

"The defense team ... believes that they have not yet fully acquainted themselves with the 60 volumes of case materials,"  Judge Igor Alisov said, looking down on the barred cage usually reserved for the accused and the empty seats where Magnitsky's lawyers should have sat. Alisov postponed the trial until March 22.

-- Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report

Misha Japaridze / AP, file

Russia is going to try lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who died in jail after being accused of fraud. Magnitsky said Russian officials and organized crime member conspired to frame him, and a report by Russia's presidential human rights council found in July 2011 that Magnitsky had been repeatedly beaten and deliberately denied medical treatment while in jail.

MOSCOW -- Russia is preparing to put lawyer Sergei Magnitsky on trial, even though he died in 2009, in the latest twist in a case that has become a byword for Russian corruption and has severely strained U.S.-Russian relations.

The posthumous trial has already provoked outrage among rights groups who see the whistle-blower's case as indicative of the rampant judicial abuse, skyrocketing graft and blurred boundaries between the state and organized crime that have plagued Russia under President Vladimir Putin.

"The trial of a deceased person and the forcible involvement of his relatives is a dangerous precedent that would open a whole new chapter in Russia's worsening human rights record," Amnesty International said in a statement last week.

Prosecutors accuse Magnitsky and his former client, London-based investor William Browder, of a $230 million tax fraud carried out through subsidiaries of Browder's company, Hermitage Capital Management.

Magnitsky claimed in 2008 that the fraud was committed by an organized crime group who colluded with the corrupt Interior Ministry to register themselves as the owners of three Hermitage subsidiaries and then claim a $230 million tax rebate. He was arrested shortly after by the same officials and accused of stealing the money himself.

Abused in prison
A year later, the 37-year-old Magnitsky died in jail of pancreatitis, after what supporters claim was a systematic torture campaign. A report by Russia's presidential human rights council found in July 2011 that Magnitsky had been repeatedly beaten and deliberately denied medical treatment.

"If they have the same investigators and judges try the case, then what are they going to say — 'we're guilty and we should be punished?' It's obvious what's going to happen," Magnitsky's mother, Nataliya Magnitskaya, told The Associated Press last week.

Russia's top court ruled shortly after Magnitsky's death that posthumous trials were allowed, with the intention of allowing relatives to clear their loved ones' names. Though neither Magnitsky's relatives nor Browder say they asked for charges to be refiled, prosecutors reopened his case just days after the ruling.

A Moscow court on Monday set preliminary hearings in the case for Feb. 18. Browder is being tried in absentia; he has not been to Russia since he was banned from entering the country in 2005.

Evidence collected by Browder on a website, Russian Untouchables, indicates that the officials accused by Magnitsky became substantially wealthier after the tax rebate, spending vastly in excess of their meager official salaries on international travel, luxury cars, and prime real estate in Dubai.

Officials in Switzerland, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia are attempting to trace portions of the $230 million rebate to banks in those countries.

Last December, tensions between the U.S. and Russia flared when Congress passed a law named after Magnitsky sanctioning officials Browder accuses of involvement in the fraud.

Putin at that time said that Magnitsky died of a heart attack and accused Browder of politicizing his death to distract from his own crimes.

Russia responded to the U.S. law by banning adoptions of Russian children by Americans and dropping charges against a prison doctor on trial for negligence in Magnitsky's death.

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Misha Japaridze / AP

The tombstone of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky at a cemetery in Moscow. U.S. lawmakers are expected to vote in a human rights legislation named after Magnitsky that would impose sanctions on Russian officials involved in human rights violations.

MOSCOW -- Russia increased pressure on U.S. Congress on Friday not to pass legislation that would punish Russian officials for human rights violations, warning Washington that it had prepared tough retaliatory measures.

Congress was due to vote on a bill named after Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky later Friday, the third anniversary of his death in detention. The bill is designed to deny visas for officials involved in his imprisonment, abuse or death.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Russia had already prepared its response but gave no details other than a Foreign Ministry statement on Thursday warning of tough retaliation against "unfriendly and provocative" legislation.

"Of course there are (measures in place). We have discussed (them) at all stages of the debate over the so-called Magnitsky bill," Interfax news agency quoted Ryabkov as saying. "I can confirm that our response will be tough."

Possible sanctions against US officials
He gave no details but Russian officials have indicated that Moscow would retaliate by imposing sanctions on U.S. officials it accused of violating Russian citizens' rights.

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They would be likely to include officials involved in refusing a Russian request for the extradition of a convicted arms trader, Viktor Bout, serving a 25-year prison term in the United States.

The rhetoric became more heated this week as the vote neared. Adoption of the bill -- and any reprisal -- could damage efforts to improve relations between the former Cold War enemies at the start of President Barack Obama's new term, and a few months after Vladimir Putin's return to the Kremlin.

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During his first term in office, Obama initiated a "reset" in relations after bilateral ties sank to a low after a 2008 war between Russia and pro-Western Georgia. But recent months have seen both successes and strains in U.S.-Russian relations.

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The House of Representatives voted Thursday to include the legislation in a broader package to extend "permanent normal trade relations," or PNTR, to Russia following its entry to the World Trade Organization in August.

'Horrendous and unacceptable'
Magnitsky was jailed in 2008 on suspicion of tax evasion and fraud, charges which colleagues say were fabricated by police investigators he had accused of stealing $230 million from the state through fraudulent tax refunds.

The Magnitsky case has become a symbol of corruption and the abuse of citizens who challenge the authorities in Russia, where the Kremlin's own human rights council has said he was probably beaten to death.

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Rep. David Dreier, the Republican chairman of the House Rules Committee, said on Thursday that such action in a country "that claims to be a democracy ... is horrendous and it is unacceptable."

Congress must approve PNTR to ensure that American companies receive all the market-opening benefits of Russia's entry into the World Trade Organization in August.

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U.S. business backs the combined trade and human rights bill out of a belief that the benefits from approval of PNTR will outweigh negative fallout from the Magnitsky portion of the legislation.

Russia's entry into the WTO after 18 years of negotiations and strong support from Obama obliges the United States to lift a Soviet-era amendment that linked favorable U.S. tariffs on Russian goods to the rights of Soviet Jews.

The amendment is outdated, but U.S. lawmakers are reluctant to remove it without passing legislation to keep pressure on Moscow over their human rights concerns, which have deepened since Putin returned to the presidency in May.

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If the House approves the bill, it will then go the Senate, where supporters are optimistic it will be approved. Obama is expected to sign the bill, even though the White House preferred legislation without the human rights sanctions provisions.

The two countries negotiated a simplified visa process earlier this year. But Moscow's closure of a U.S. international aid agency office and accusations that Washington was meddling in Russian politics undermined prospects for better relations.

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