Sergei Magnitsky, 2009
Lawyer Sergei Magnitsky passed away in police custody back in November 2009, after being brutally beaten. Allegedly, he denied any medical care. He had been working for the British-American businessman William Browder, being in charge of the investigation of a massive tax fraud case.
Magnitsky was presumably arrested after he managed to uncover evidence that suggested how the police officials were behind the fraud. In 2012, he was posthumously convicted of tax evasion, and Browder required the U.S. government to impose sanctions on those who were linked to his death. The sanctions bill is named after him, and it has been applied ever since to all rights abusers in various other cases.