DAVOS. Jan 23 (Interfax) - Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev believes it is important to find out the causes of Sergei Magnitsky's death in prison, but is convinced that the issue is being unwarrantedly over-politicized.
"I don't know whether his trial would end in conviction or not, but unfortunately that hasn't happened. We need to see the reasons why he died in prison," Medvedev said in an interview with Bloomberg TV in Davos on Wednesday.
"Yes, that is very important task for the state," he said.
"All the other things are a politicized invention of separate citizens - a part of whom are here in Davos as well - to justify their own commercial operations on the territory of Russia," he said.
"Those people earn billions of dollars by trading Russian assets. At that moment when the fraud was detected, they took the political stand," he continued.
"So, the Magnitsky case is not about seeking truth unfortunately; it is a politicized process. However, sad this sounds," Medvedev concluded.
He also said that Magnitsky protected interests of those who he worked for. "He was a corporate lawyer or an accountant, and he just stood for the interests of the people who hired him. He is not a truth seeker and truth fighter. But of course, we feel sorry for him because he died in prison," Medvedev said.
Magnitsky, an lawyer of the Hermitage Capital investment fund, who was charged with tax evasion, died at the age of 37 at Moscow's Matrosskaya Tishina detention center on November 16, 2009. His death sparked a public outcry. Human rights activists accused doctors and law enforcers in his death.