David Cameron is ‘ignoring Russian crime problems’, according to leading investor

Daily Mail

David Cameron is turning a blind eye to ‘spectacular criminality’ to avoid disrupting his Moscow trade mission, a leading investor claims.

Hermitage Capital boss Bill Browder, formerly the biggest investor in Russia, believes the Prime Minister is ‘afraid’ to address serious crimes against British firms, including the killing of Browder’s lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.

The broadside came as documents seen by the Daily Mail revealed that officials complicit in Magnitsky’s death have been flying in and out of Britain with impunity.

Magnitsky had been probing a suspected £140m tax fraud against Hermitage for Browder, who was expelled from the country in 2005 after exposing a string of corruption cases.

The 37-year-old father of two uncovered the involvement of a cadre of senior officials, police and politicians, but was accused of being involved in fraud himself, imprisoned without trial and brutally tortured.

In 2009, a group of men entered his cell and beat him to death.

President Dmitry Medvedev’s human rights council acknowledged the complicity of some 60 officials in Magnitsky’s fate, but the Russian interior ministry says no further action will be taken.

The US has imposed visa sanctions on those implicated in Magnitsky’s death, but logs reveal that five of them have flown in and out of Britain some 48 times between March 2006 and January 2011.

Asked why Britain has not imposed visa sanctions, immigration minister Damian Green said in June that the Home Office does not discuss individual cases.

‘The Government appears to be afraid to impose sanctions on these people, even though the Americans have done it,’ said Browder. ‘Cameron should be firm and impose travel and financial sanctions on these individuals against whom there is documentary evidence of torture and murder.

‘It would be hugely irresponsible to encourage British companies to invest in Russia when, as the largest investor in the country, they tried to steal all of my assets and killed my lawyer when he stepped in to expose it.’

Browder’s accusations threaten to overshadow a trade mission that has resulted in some £215m of business deals.

Cameron has 24 business chiefs with him in Russia, from British Airways chairman Sir Martin Broughton to CBI director-general John Cridland. Rolls-Royce has already announced a major tie-up with state energy firm Rosatom.

The aim of the trip is to forge trade links following a series of business bust-ups involving the former Soviet Union.

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