The Interior Ministry investigator who put Hermitage Capital lawyer Sergei Magnitsky behind the bars where he died was accused Thursday of targeting another lawyer working for the company.
Oleg Silchenko had tried to strip Alexander Antipov, 57, a lawyer who replaced Magnitsky as the legal adviser for Hermitage Capital, of his license by claiming that he falsified evidence in a 2006 tax evasion case, the company said.
Silchenko filed a petition to the Moscow City Bar Association on May 14, requesting disciplinary action against Antipov.
Silchenko has accused the lawyer of faking an 18-page statement from Ivan Cherkasov, former CEO of the Kamia company, which is linked to the case against Hermitage Capital, a spokesman for Hermitage said.
Cherkasov has been self-exiled in London since 2005. The statement is not presently available for legal reasons, but the Hermitage spokesman said it could throw the legal justification for the entire case into question.
"It's possible that the investigator wanted to push Antipov out of the Hermitage case or to remove the evidence," said Robert Zinovyev, head of a commission with the Moscow City Bar Association.
"Right after the petition was received, the Bar Association examined the issue, but has not found any confirmation for the allegations," Zinovyev said.
Silchenko maintained that Antipov falsified a statement he had allegedly obtained from his client in London in September, Zinovyev said.
Antipov said Thursday that he did not want to comment on the issue because the association's check was still ongoing.
"It might be either a technical mistake or an intentional action. It's not clear yet," Antipov told The Moscow Times.
A spokeswoman for the Interior Ministry's Investigative Committee said they were not going to comment on the issue "today, tomorrow or in the near future."
Interior Ministry investigators had accused Magnitsky, a partner with the Firestone Duncan law firm, of being directly involved in developing and executing a scheme in which the head of Hermitage Capital, William Browder, purportedly evaded more than 100 million rubles ($3.25 million) in taxes in 2002.
The case was opened after Browder accused senior Interior Ministry officials of stealing more than $230 million in budget money.
Magnitsky died in pretrial detention in November after officials repeatedly denied him medical treatment for illnesses that he developed while waiting nearly a year for his trial to begin.