Russia Requests Interpol Warrant for Browder

Moscow Times

The Interior Ministry has officially requested that British investment fund manager and “Magnitsky list” campaigner William Browder be placed on Interpol’s international wanted list.

In a statement released by the ministry, it was confirmed that a request for the arrest of the Hermitage Capital CEO had been made by the General Procurator’s Office, Interfax reported.
“In accordance with current legislation and on the basis of documents received from the General Procurator of the Russian Federation, the Interpol Bureau for Russia have sent a request to the General Secretariat to issue an international arrest warrant for Browder, William Felix, a citizen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, born in 1964,” the statement read.

Browder is wanted in connection with the illegal acquisition of 131 million Gazprom shares at domestic-market prices between 1999 and 2004. As a result of Browder’s alleged dealings, the state lost 2.9 billion rubles, the statement says.

In May, the ministry asked Interpol to issue a ‘blue notice’ for Browder, which would have required all 190 member states to collect additional information about his identity, location and activities. The Interpol General Secretariat rejected that request however, citing “the predominantly political nature” of the case.

In July, Browder was tried in absentia in Moscow’s Tverskoi District Court for stealing more than $15 million in state funds and was sentenced to nine years in prison. His former lawyer Sergei Magnitsky was also tried posthumously and found guilty.

Magnitsky died in his jail cell in November 2009 where he had been held for over a year in connection with alleged tax evasion. The Kremlin human rights council conducted its own investigation into the affair in 2011, concluding that Magnitsky’s death was a result of severe beatings. A criminal investigation into his death though was closed earlier this year due to a lack of evidence.

Browder said the decision to find Magnitsky guilty could convince European governments to create their own versions of the U.S. Magnitsky Act, which bans former Russian officials suspected of involvement in the lawyer’s death from traveling to the U.S. and holding bank accounts there.

In April the U.S. published a list named after Magnitsky, which contains the names of 18 Russians subject to the sanctions prescribed by the act.

The request for a warrant comes days after Browder asked a London court to throw out a libel suit brought against him by Pavel Karpov, a Russian former police officer who denies allegations that he played a part in Magnitsky’s death. Karpov is one of those named on the Magnitsky list. срочный займ на карту онлайн hairy women https://zp-pdl.com/online-payday-loans-cash-advances.php https://zp-pdl.com/get-a-next-business-day-payday-loan.php hairy girl