US ‘slaps travel ban on Russian officials implicated in Sergei Magnitsky death’

The Telegraph. By Andrew Osborn

The United States is reported to have quietly slapped a travel ban on a group of key Russian officials implicated in the suspicious death of Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer, in jail.

Sergei Magnitsky died two years ago in police custody By Andrew Osborn, Moscow

In a move that risks damaging warming US-Russia relations, the US State department is said to have imposed an entry ban on dozens of unnamed Russian officials in an apparent attempt to get the Kremlin to conduct a proper investigation into the 2009 death of Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer retained by UK-based investment fund Hermitage.

Mr Magnitsky died in November 2009 at the age of 37 after being kept in appalling conditions without essential medical treatment in pre-trial detention for almost a year.

Before he was jailed, he said he had uncovered a $230m (£141m) fraud against the Russian taxpayer perpetrated by a group of corrupt officials at Hermitage’s expense.

Although the Kremlin has recently shown some signs of getting serious on the issue, the dead lawyer’s colleagues and friends remain far from satisfied.

The US Senate was already examining a bill that would impose a travel ban and freeze the assets of 60 officials involved in the case.

But in an unexpected twist, the Washington Post reported on Tuesday that the State Department has already taken unilateral action. “Secretary (Hillary) Clinton has taken steps to ban individuals associated with the wrongful death of Sergei Magnitsky from travelling to the United States,” it quoted the Obama administration as telling the US Senate.

The same document reportedly said Russia had threatened to withdraw cooperation on key international issues if the bill under discussion was adopted raising the prospect of a serious diplomatic rift.

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