MOSCOW—Russia dropped its investigation into the 2009 death of a whistleblower attorney in a Moscow jail, the latest turn in a hardening Kremlin stance toward the West's criticism of Russia's human-rights record.
Russia's top law-enforcement body, the Investigative Committee, said on Tuesday that it had found no evidence of a crime in the death of Sergei Magnitsky, 37 years old. The case for Kremlin critics had come to symbolize the impunity for high-level corruption in Russia, and led the U.S. to impose visa and financial sanctions on Russian officials allegedly involved.
The finding contradicted the conclusions of a presidential panel in 2011 that suggested Mr. Magnitsky was killed by prison officials who for months intentionally denied him medical care. His family and former employer said he died after being handcuffed and beaten with rubber truncheons in Moscow's Matrosskaya Tishina jail.
