Attorneys for Sergei Magnitsky, the Hermitage Capital Management lawyer who died in prison two years ago while awaiting trial, will be able to access the documents relevant to the criminal case being pursued posthumously against him, announced Russian officials on Thursday.

The Russian Prosector General's Investigative Department also told the defendant's family that if they do not consent to closing the case, all results of the investigation will be publicized in court.

A reputed Russian crime boss linked to 27 murders and seven attempted murders was extradited from Spain on Wednesday, announced Marina Gridneva of the Russian Prosecutor General's Office.

Dmitry Belkin is accused of leading the Orekhovo gang, which allegedly was involved with large scale extortion and infiltration of large Russian businesses in the country and abroad.

 The Chair of the Bulgarian Judges Association, Miroslava Todorova, filed a libel lawsuit against the Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov. The first hearing in the case is scheduled for April 27^th at the Plovdiv Regional Court. Todorova sued Tsvetanov for saying that she is incompetent and is patronizing organized crime. 

Tsvetanov’s criticism of Todorova is a part of an ongoing media war between the Bulgarian judiciary and  law enforcement, in which each side blames the other for the country’s failure to meet the reform goals set by the European Union.

In an interview for the Bulgarian National Television in February, Tsvetanov said that “There are approaches applied in the judiciary by like-minded judges who are actually not in the service of society…but rather in the service of organized crime.”

Lutfi Dervishi, the owner of a Kosovo clinic accused of organ trafficking, said he has been libeled by the European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo (EULEX), an international administrative body that oversees the country.   Dervishi made the comments  in an interview with the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) in Kosovo.

Nine people including Dervishi are currently on trial in the case, on charges of organized crime, unlawful exercise of medical activities, and human trafficking.  According to the indictment, 30 illegal kidney transplants took place in Dervishi’s Medicus clinic outside of Kosovo’s capital Pristina.

Kosovo police arrested four senior municipal officials Tuesday on suspicion of organized crime.

Police say that three municipal directors and a municipal assembly member in the northern region of Vushtrri, all from Kosovo’s dominant Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK), are suspected of abuse of office.

“The four are suspected of the criminal offences of illegal expropriation of municipal property, abusing their official positions or authorizations, influencing bids and organized crime,” Kosovo Police spokesperson Brahim Sadriu told Balkan Insight.

Zoran Copic, a Serbian businessman who authorities say laundered money for drug lord Darko Saric, used strong connections with a number of major banks to clean the money, according to testimony from his money laundering trial in Banja Luka in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Despite facing criminal charges of cigarette smuggling  as early as 2004, he had no trouble obtaining large loans from well known banks to fund a chain of privatizations. Prosecutors say the companies he privatized, purchased and founded were just mechanisms for laundering millions, including the money of the fugitive drug lord. The effortless borrowing raises questions about the cozy relationships with major bank and the accused money launderer.

“You start by borrowing some money to buy a company… The company you bought has some capital. Then you buy a second, a third, a sixth company, you see?”  In an interview for CINS seven days before his arrest in April 2010, Copic explained his strategy.

New York authorities on Thursday arrested 36 people and charged them with participating in a car accident insurance fraud ring.

The arrests are the result of an 18-month joint investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the New York City Police, and the Manhattan US Attorney’s office. The defendants were charged with participating in a scheme to defraud private insurance companies of more than US$279 million between 2007 and 2012. The list of charges includes insurance fraud, racketeering and money laundering.

According to the US Attorney’s Office, the uncovered insurance scheme is the “largest single no-fault automobile insurance fraud ever charged. The case is the first of its kind to prosecute violations under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (“RICO”) Act,” the US Attorney’s Office said in a statement.

A call for a probe into the privatization of Montenegro’s state-owned telecommunications provider was approved on Tuesday by the country’s parliament. The company has already faced an investigation by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Montenegro Telekom was bought by Hungarian Magyar Telekom in 2005. Montenegrin authorities faced pressure to react after Magyar Telekom and its parent company Deutsche Telekom settled corruption charges with the SEC in December.

The Chief Prosecutor’s Office of Montenegro has asked the US authorities to provide them with the evidence they collected regarding the Montenegro Telekom privatization.

Two tax officials accused of tax fraud by a former Hermitage Capital lawyer Sergei Magnitsky cannot be summoned for questioning because they left the country last May, according a report released by the Federal Security Service (FSB).

The report was released in response to a lawsuit by a colleague of the dead lawyer who sued government authorities for failing to open an investigation into officials Magnitsky accused of embezzling public funds, reported Interfax on Tuesday.

Allegations that Russian Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika cooperated with the US intelligence firm Strategic Forecasting Inc (Stratfor) are an “outright provocation,” a spokeswoman for his office told Interfax news on Monday. Chaika himself told reporters such allegations were “delirious.”

He was responding to e-mails written by employees of the American think thank Stratfor that was linked by Wikileaks.

In a statement on Stratfor’s website, the company’s founder and CEO George Friedman called WikiLeaks’ publishing of the Stratfor emails “a deplorable, unfortunate -- and illegal -- breach of privacy.” Friedman explained that “a large number of company emails, as well as private information of Stratfor subscribers and friends” was stolen by hackers. He also added that some of the emails may have been altered to include inaccuracies.