Russia Bans Americans in Tit-for-Tat Reprisal

Wall Street Journal

Russia banned 18 Americans from entering its territory over the weekend, responding to a list published Friday by the Obama administration that barred the same number of Russians from the U.S. for their alleged involvement in the death of a whistle-blowing tax attorney in a Moscow jail.

The diplomatic row heightens discord ahead of a meeting Monday between U.S. National Security Advisor Thomas Donilon and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow. Relations between the two global powers have grown tense, even as the White House tries to revive a “reset” in hopes of gaining the Kremlin’s support in dealings with North Korea, Syria and Iran.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry divided the list of banned current and former U.S. officials into two categories: four former U.S. officials that it alleges were involved in legalizing or authorizing torture at the Guantanamo Bay detention center and 14 U.S. officials that it alleges were involved in “violating the human rights and freedoms of Russian citizens abroad.”

The Guantanamo Bay list includes two former commanders of the detention center and former Bush Administration officials David Addington and John Yoo. The other list includes U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff, as well as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara and seven current and former officials from his office. It also includes four Drug Enforcement Administration officials and a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent.

“I have rarely received such an honor,” Mr. Rakoff said in response to a query from The Wall Street Journal on Sunday.

Mr. Yoo, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and former Justice Department official known for writing a series of controversial legal memos on enhanced interrogation techniques, said he has never been to Russia and has no plans to go. “But there goes the Black Sea vacation home for the wife,” he wrote in an email.

A spokeswoman for Mr. Bharara declined to comment Sunday. Mr. Addington couldn’t immediately be reached to comment.

The Obama administration list stems from a law Congress passed last year named after Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian attorney who died in pretrial detention in a Moscow jail in 2009 after being beaten and denied medical treatment, according to family members and former colleagues. Before his death, Mr. Magnitsky was working at a law firm representing investment fund Hermitage Capital Management and had accused Russian officials of stealing $230 million in government funds through falsified tax refunds tied to Hermitage. He was charged with tax evasion and jailed.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry accompanied its list with harsh words for the U.S. “A war of lists was not our choice, but we cannot fail to respond to outright blackmail,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said. “It is time for the politicians in Washington to finally realize that to build relations with a country such as Russia in the spirit of mentorship and outright dictatorship is futile.”

The State Department criticized Russia’s response. “As we’ve said many times before, the right response by Russia to the international outcry over Sergei Magnitsky’s death would be to conduct a proper investigation and hold those responsible for his death accountable, rather than engage in tit-for-tat retaliation,” a State Department spokesman said.

Since Russian President Vladimir Putin accused the U.S. of fomenting post-election protests against his government that erupted in Moscow in late 2011, the Kremlin has stepped up anti-American rhetoric and criticized the U.S. repeatedly for meddling in its internal affairs. The Magnitsky Act, as the law Congress passed is known, stepped up the tension with the Kremlin and led Russia’s parliament to pass a retributive law late last year that banned Americans from adopting Russian orphans.

The list the U.S. published Friday includes Russians who were allegedly involved in Mr. Magnitsky’s arrest and detention. Under the law, the Russians are banned from entering or holding assets in the U.S., part of a sanction designed to hold officials responsible for human-rights abuses by curtailing their access to travel and bank accounts abroad. займ на карту быстрые займы на карту www.zp-pdl.com https://www.zp-pdl.com hairy women