MOSCOW, January 13. /ITAR-TASS/. Russia’s Interior Ministry disclaims information about a new criminal case against Hermitage Capital’s former lawyer, who died in 2009 in a Moscow pre-trial prison.

Earlier on Monday, several media published information referring to the Fund’s press service about a new criminal case opened against Magnitsky on embezzlement of 5.4 billion rubles (about $162.6 million).

“This information is not true to life. Neither the Interior Ministry’s investigation department or any other investigative bodies of the ministry have opened any criminal cases against Magnitsky,” the press service said.

“The Russian Federation does not practice opening criminal cases against the dead man,” he said, noting that “the spreading of such reports is just silly.”

Sergey Magnitsky died at the age of 37 in the intensive therapy ward at a hospital of the Matrosskaya Tishina detention centre on November 16, 2009, after 11 months of keeping under arrest and seven days after the accusation was brought against him. Before the transfer to the hospital, he had been kept at the Butyrskaya prison. The detectives have found that Magnitsky was not given timely medical treatment and an adequate therapy course, when his state of health had worsened sharply.

The criminal case was terminated against Magnitsky over his death on November 30, 2009. The investigation was resumed on August 9, 2011, on the instruction from the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office that was based on a verdict by the Russian Constitutional Court of July 14, 2011.

Magnitsky’s family refused to participate in the trial, finding it unlawful and groundless.

On July 11, 2013, Tverskoy court in Moscow has found guilty head of British foundation Hermitage Capital William Browder and auditor of the foundation Sergey Magnitsky of two episodes of tax evasion to the tune of more than 522 billion rubles ($15.7 billion). Browder was sentenced in absentia to nine years in prison. Magnitsky was relieved from punishment; the criminal case versus him was terminated over his death that is not a rehabilitating ground.