PARIS – A top European court says Russia’s failure to provide adequate medical care to jailed lawyer Sergei Magnitsky could have led to his 2009 death, which sparked U.S. and European sanctions.

The European Court of Human Rights on Tuesday ordered Russia to pay Magnitsky’s widow and mother 34,000 euros ($38,000) in damages.

The Russian Justice Ministry said it is studying the ruling and whether to appeal.

Magnitsky, an accountancy expert who worked for an international investment firm, alleged he had uncovered $230 million in tax fraud by Russian officials — and was then jailed, accused of tax evasion himself. He died after a year in pre-trial detention, at age 37, and a Russian court found him guilty of fraud four years later.

The court says Russian authorities’ handling of Magnitsky’s pancreatitis and other medical problems were “manifestly inadequate” and “unreasonably put his life in danger.” The court found Russia’s handling of his detention, the investigation into his death and his posthumous conviction all constituted violations of Magnitsky’s rights.

A Russian presidential commission concluded that Magnitsky had been beaten and denied medical care.

Yet no one has been convicted. Two prison doctors were charged with negligence leading to his death, but one was acquitted by a court in 2013 and the other didn’t face justice because of a statute of limitations.

In a statement, the Russian Justice Ministry noted that the ruling does not oblige Russia to review the fraud verdict in Magnitsky’s case, and that the court did not find that the lawyer’s arrest and subsequent incarceration were unlawful.

Still, Magnitsky’s supporters welcomed the ruling.

“Sergei Magnitsky had the courage to denounce corruption at senior levels of the Russian government because he believed in a democratic society that respects human rights. Ultimately that courage cost him his life. Today the system of laws in which he placed such faith has finally given him and his family some measure of justice,” said James A. Goldston of the Open Society Justice Initiative, who represented Magnitsky’s mother in the ECHR case.

Magnitsky worked for U.S.-born financier Bill Browder and his investment fund Hermitage. Browder has mounted a campaign to bring Magnitsky’s killers to justice and pushed through legislation in the United States imposing travel and financial sanctions on top Russian officials. Several other countries have since adopted the Magnitsky Act.

The European court ruling was based on a complaint originally filed by Magnitsky himself a decade ago, and later taken over by his family.