Cardin to meet with family of Russian lawyer
Sen. Ben Cardin is scheduled to meet Thursday with the family of a Russian lawyer whose death sparked an international outcry over human rights in that country, renewing focus on a controversy that has complicated U.S.-Russian relations at a sensitive time.
The meeting with the widow, mother and son of Sergei Magnitsky — who died in a Russian jail in 2009 after exposing corruption in the Russian government — comes just days after the State Department released a list of Russian officials barred from obtaining U.S. visas over alleged human rights abuses.
The list was required by a law championed by Cardin, a Maryland Democrat. He named the legislation for Magnitsky.
The Obama administration is trying to move beyond the controversy that erupted when Congress passed the law last year. While relations with Moscow remain strained — aggravated by differences over the civil war in Syria — the White House is seeking cooperation on Iran and the escalating tensions on the Korean peninsula.
Cardin, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he is not concerned that his meeting with the Magnitsky family or the naming of Russian officials prohibited from traveling in the United States might disrupt those broader international efforts.
“We can deal with more than one subject at a time,” he said in an interview.
The meeting, he said, “gives us a chance to underscore the importance of these new standards, of not abating on gross violators of internationally recognized human rights standards.”
Russian officials seem to be making a distinction between the White House and the Congress. The officials responded positively to a meeting with U.S. National Security Adviser Tom Donilon this week and a letter from President Barack Obama to Russian President Vladimir V. Putin. The two leaders are expected to meet later this year.
But those officials criticized what they described as a “Russiaphobic” Congress, a reference to the Magnitsky language. Lawmakers voted overwhelmingly in December to pass the measure after it was attached to a broader trade bill that was a priority for both countries.
The Putin administration has said the Magnitsky provision represents meddling in Russian affairs.
The measure required the State Department to publicly release a list of Russian human rights abusers, deny them visas and prohibit them from accessing U.S. banks.
The department released a list of 18 officials, most of whom were involved in the Magnitsky case, on Saturday. The Kremlin responded with a list that included several top U.S. officials involved with running the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Last year, Russia passed a law banning U.S. adoptions of Russian children. It is named after a young Russian orphan who died in Virginia in 2008 after being left in a car by his adoptive father but is viewed as a retaliation for the Magnitsky Act.
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The president again turns a blind eye to Russia’s misdeeds
According to the State Department, the government of the Russian republic of Chechnya under Ramzan Kadyrov “has committed and continues to commit such serious human rights violations and abuses as extrajudicial killing, torture, disappearances and rape.” Mr. Kadyrov, State added in an August 2011 letter, “has been implicated personally” in “the killing of U.S. citizen Anna Politkovskaya, a journalist who had reported widely on human rights abuses in Chechnya.”
Yet when the Obama administration released on Friday a list of Russian officials who are to be subject to a visa ban and an asset freeze because of their complicity in human rights crimes, Mr. Kadyrov was not on it. The list of names — mandated by Congress in legislation that the administration strongly resisted — is a step toward holding the regime of Vladimir Putin accountable for its abuses, but it also is another example of President Obama’s questionable catering to the Kremlin.
Sixteen of the 18 names on the sanctions list are connected to Sergei Magnitsky, a whistleblowing Russian lawyer who died after being imprisoned and abused; it was his case that prompted Congress to pass the law last year. Under its provisions, the administration is required to identify Russian officials complicit in the persecution of Mr. Magnitsky, as well as in other human rights crimes, and publicly sanction them.
Some advocates of the law wondered why the list was so short; some 60 Russian officials have been connected to Mr. Magnitsky’s case alone, not to mention other notorious cases such as that of Ms. Politkovskaya, who was gunned down on Mr. Putin’s birthday in 2006. There are some good reasons: An asset freeze by the Treasury Department, which can be subject to legal challenge, has to meet a relatively high standard of evidence.
Administration officials concede, however, that some names were left off the list for political reasons. One is Mr. Kadyrov, who reportedly is included in a classified annex of officials who are to be denied visas but not be subject to an asset freeze. We were told that the administration did not want to target senior officeholders, out of concern that Russian reciprocation would ban members of Congress, Cabinet members or state governors (the equivalent of Mr. Kadyrov) from visiting Russia, further complicating U.S.-Russian relations at a time when Mr. Obama is still seeking to strike deals with Mr. Putin. As it is, the Kremlin issued a sanctions list over the weekend that included several officials of the George W. Bush administration.
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Putin turns up heat on hedge fund boss Bill Browder
The Kremlin has escalated its battle with Bill Browder by announcing that it will seek the arrest of the outspoken hedge fund manager in a new case.
Mr Browder, the founder of Hermitage Capital, was a prominent foreign investor in Russia during the early years after the fall of communism, but he was barred from the country seven years ago amid allegations of tax fraud. The American-born investor is now based in Britain, where he has been a critic of President Putin’s administration. He has lobbied fiercely recently for restrictions on travel to the United States and Britain by Russian officials accused of involvement in the death of Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer for Hermitage, in a prison in Moscow in 2009.
Moscow retaliated this month by barring 18 Americans from entering Russia. Yesterday Russia’s Interior Ministry said that it would seek Mr Browder’s arrest on charges dating back to the 1990s.
According to a statement by Hermitage, Russian prosecutors have alleged that Mr Browder embezzled shares in Gazprom, defying rules against foreign ownership, and then used his illegitimate stake to try to influence the gas giant’s management.
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Can the Magnitsky list live up to its potential?
On Friday, the Treasury Department disclosed the names of 18 Russian officials who will be subjected to asset freezes and visa bans under the Magnitsky Act. Sixteen of these officials were complicit in the prosecution and death of whistle-blowing lawyer Sergei Magnitsky. The remaining two are Chechens; one connected to the death of a critic of Chechnya’s leader Ramzan Kadyrov and the other widely suspected of murdering US journalist Paul Klebnikov. Russia’s retaliation? A list of 18 Americans now banned from Russia that includes AEI’s John Yoo. To this he joked, “Darn, there goes my judo match with Putin.”
In comparison to the 280 Russian human rights violators that Congressman Jim McGovern submitted to the Obama administration earlier this month, the approved list of merely a dozen and a half low- and mid-level Russian bureaucrats disappointed human rights defenders. Yet with any luck, the appearance of two Chechens for reasons unrelated to Magnitsky’s death indicates that the administration is prepared to include additional Russian officials involved in other instances of human rights abuse. This is consistent with both the letter and spirit of the Sergei Magnitsky Act.
That said, although the administration did comply with a congressionally-mandated deadline to release the Magnitsky list by April 13, recent events have served to highlight President Obama’s refusal to publicly condemn the Putin regime for its human rights violations and rapid democratic regression over the last year. Obama didn’t say a word when the Russian authorities canceled their investigation of Magnitsky’s death. And he has remained silent during the ongoing posthumous trial to convict Magnitsky on bogus, politically motivated tax evasion charges. In response to the hundreds of recent NGO raids by the Russian police, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has publicly criticized the Kremlin’s attack on civil society. From Obama, not a peep.
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Judy Asks: Is There a Way for Europe to Deal With Russia?
Every week leading experts answer a new question from Judy Dempsey on the foreign and security policy challenges shaping Europe’s role in the world.
Marcel de HaasSenior research associate at the Netherlands Institute of International Relations Clingendael
The answer is simple and complicated at the same time: yes, there is a way, if we take a united stance.
A long-standing tradition in Moscow’s policy toward Europe is “divide and rule.” Last week, under the eyes of President Vladimir Putin, Russian gas giant Gazprom and its Dutch equivalent, Gasunie, signed a letter of intent to explore extending the Nord Stream pipeline to Britain. However, a few days later, Gazprom’s CEO made it clear that such a deal could be struck with Belgium as well. In short, Russia is playing EU member states off against each other.
This is only one detail in a broader ongoing energy war between Russia and the EU. By constructing the Nord Stream and South Stream gas pipelines, Russia is circumventing Ukraine. This tactic serves two purposes. First, it is an attempt to blackmail Ukraine into joining Moscow’s Eurasian Union instead of the EU. Second, it aims to counter Nabucco, the EU-backed alternative pipeline from Turkey to Austria, seen as a way to decrease Europe’s dependence on Russian gas.
Should Russia be interested, its membership in a new transatlantic market would do more to determine the country’s future orientation than anything the EU has put forward to date.
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Russia puts Hermitage boss Bill Browder on wanted list
The Russian Interior Ministry is seeking an arrest warrant for the British hedge fund boss Bill Browder in a move that will escalate tension between Moscow and America and the UK.
Mr Browder’s company, Hermitage Capital Management, said it had received notice that a Moscow court had been asked to issue a warrant for his arrest “in absentia” for tax evasion. The fund manager is accused of “stealing” shares in Gazprom more than a decade ago and “interfering” with the energy giant’s strategic policies.
However, in an embarrassing twist, the Moscow court judged refused to issue the warrant saying Mr Browder had not been given enough warning. Hermitage said the court will review the request again in a week’s time. It is only the second time Moscow has sought to put a westerner on the international wanted list; the first was a Spanish national embroiled in the Yukos case.
The latest development, which will be seen as an aggressive attack of the Russian state on business, has been condemned as “politically-directed abuse of justice” by Hermitage.
The claim against Mr Browder has been separated from the Interior Ministry’s case against his former employee, Sergei Magnitsky who is currently the subject of the first ever posthumous trial in Russian history.
In a statement today, Hermitage, which was one of the biggest investors in Russia, said that the warrant “follows a coordinated Russian state propaganda campaign in the last three months, where all Kremlin-controlled TV channels, including NTV, Rossiya, and 1TV ran slanderous programs accusing Mr Browder of murders, stealing IMF money in 1998, causing the Russian default, stealing Gazprom shares, and being a UK spy.”
A Hermitage spokesman added: “President Putin treats the law and the truth like a child in a sandbox. There are no rules. There is no law, and he thinks he can do whatever he wants. This may be true in Russia, but it is not true elsewhere in the world.”
Mr Browder, an American-born British citizen, has campaigned for justice for Mr Magnitsky who died in prison where he was detained on controversial charges for a year. The fund manager has been accused of illegally buying shares in Gazprom in contravention of a presidential decree in 1997 which imposed restrictions on foreigners owning the shares.
Hermitage maintains that “the case itself has no legal prospect because there were never any criminal sanctions for owning Gazprom shares.”
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Russia seeks arrest in absentia for Magnitsky boss Browder
Russian law enforcement agencies asked the court to issue an arrest warrant in absentia for Hermitage Capital co-founder and CEO William Browder at a court hearing on Wednesday.
Russian law enforcement agencies seek to declare Hermitage Capital co-founder and CEO William Browder internationally wanted as an investigation into his alleged embezzlement of Gazprom shares is currently going on. A ditective was announced at a court hearing on Wednesday, at which police asked the court to issue an arrest warrant in absentia for Browder.
Judge Pyotr Stupin read out the directive at a hearing at Moscow’s Tverskoi Court on Wednesday.
The Russian Criminal Procedure Code stipulates that arrest in absentia cannot be ordered for a person before he or she is declared internationally wanted.
The directive on declaring Browder internationally wanted is dated April 8.
As a rule, if a court grants a motion on arresting a person in absentia, the investigative agency, in this particular case the police, passes the necessary documents to the National Central Bureau of Interpol. After analyzing these documents, the bureau forwards them to the Prosecutor General’s Office, which is supposed to take the relevant procedural steps.
The Interior Ministry told Interfax that, if Browder’s arrest in absentia is endorsed, he will be placed on the international wanted list.
“As the accused Browder is evading arriving for investigative procedures, even though he has been notified about this necessity using various methods, the investigation has filed a request with a court on considering his arrest in absentia as a pretrial restrictive measure,” it said. “If a court grants this request, the mechanism of declaring Browder internationally wanted will be launched,” it said.
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No UK ban for Russian suspects
David Lidington said it was the long -running policy of the Government to deny entry to individuals believed to be responsible for human rights abuses.
But challenged by the Tory benches in the Commons to commit to following the United States’ lead in creating a Magnitsky Act and barring named individuals from entry, the Minister declined.
Under the Magnitsky Act, signed into law by President Obama last year, American officials last week named and barred 18 Russian government officials from the US. The Russians responded with a list of their own.
Speaking at an adjournment debate in the Commons, Mr Lidington said the case was “deeply troubling” and of great concern.
But he told MPs: “I’m afraid we have to conclude from what has happened in recent weeks in Russia is there is no evidence to suggest the passage of the act in the United States has brought any closer or is likely to bring any closer the outcome all of us wish to see – which is justice for Mr Magnitsky’s family and a thorough, above board investigation into his death.
“Altering our own fair and long established practice of entry requirements for foreign nationals seeking to come to the UK is unlikely either to contribute to achieving justice for Mr Magnitsky.”
Mr Lidington said the presence of “credible evidence” allowed people to be denied entry under current rules.
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Russia blacklists 18 Americans in Magnitsky row
A row that began with the death of a lawyer in a Moscow prison is seriously affecting relations between Russia and the US.
A group Russians allegedly involved in a massive fraud and the killling of Sergei Magnitsky have been barred from the US.
Now the Kremlin has responded with its own blacklist.
Al Jazeera’s David Chater reports from Moscow.
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To learn more about what happened to Sergei Magnitsky please read below
- Sergei Magnitsky
- Why was Sergei Magnitsky arrested?
- Sergei Magnitsky’s torture and death in prison
- President’s investigation sabotaged and going nowhere
- The corrupt officers attempt to arrest 8 lawyers
- Past crimes committed by the same corrupt officers
- Petitions requesting a real investigation into Magnitsky's death
- Worldwide reaction, calls to punish those responsible for corruption and murder
- Complaints against Lt.Col. Kuznetsov
- Complaints against Major Karpov
- Cover up
- Press about Magnitsky
- Bloggers about Magnitsky
- Corrupt officers:
- Sign petition
- Citizen investigator
- Join Justice for Magnitsky group on Facebook
- Contact us
- Sergei Magnitsky
