Freezing Order: A True Story of Money Laundering, Murder, and Surviving Vladimir Putin's Wrath

by Bill Browder

After 365 days, the Russian government either had to put the defendant on trial or release them. But in Sergei’s case, they couldn’t risk a trial. If they did, he would have had an international platform to expose the $230 million fraud, the $107 million fraud before it, and all the Russian government officials involved. The court could find him guilty—and it would—but that wouldn’t silence him. They had to silence him. On the night of November 16, 2009, 358 days after his arrest, Sergei went into critical condition. The Butyrka authorities didn’t want to have responsibility for him anymore, so they put him in an ambulance and transferred him to a different detention center across town, which had a medical wing. But when he arrived there, instead of putting him in the emergency room, they put him in an isolation cell, chained him to a bed, and eight riot guards with rubber batons beat Sergei until he was dead. He was only 37 years old.