EU backs assets freeze for Moscow jail death

The European Parliament has voted to recommend a freeze on the assets of 60 Russian officials implicated in the death of a corporate lawyer in a Moscow prison last year.

Sergey Magnitsky died aged 37 after his pancreatitis, which he developed in jail, went untreated.

His colleagues say he was subjected to appalling conditions after he discovered that officials in Russia's Interior Ministry were behind a scam to steal millions from the Russian state. He was working on the defence of Hermitage Capital Management, which had accused top officials of fraud.