U.S. Magnitsky list penalizes 18 Russians for alleged rights abuses
The Obama administration has sanctioned 18 Russian officials for alleged violations of human rights in their country, adding new strain to the difficult U.S.-Russian relationship.
U.S. officials released the names of 18 Russian officials on Friday who they said were involved in three human rights cases, including the persecution and death of Russian whistle-blower Sergei Magnitsky. The officials will be denied visas to the United states, and any U.S. financial assets they have will be frozen.
The blacklisting was carried out under the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2012, which has become a major irritant between the United States and Russia. Russians consider the law an example of hypocritical American meddling and have already adopted a retaliatory law calling for sanctions against U.S. officials.
U.S. officials said other Russian officials were sanctioned on a separate, classified blacklist. Those officials can’t be publicly identified without threatening U.S. security, they said.
Officials in Russia said they would announce their own blacklisting of U.S. officials involved in what they see as human rights abuses, as well as lawmakers responsible for the Magnitsky act.
“We will react, and [our] U.S. partners are aware of that,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said at a news conference in Switzerland.
But the American list doesn’t include the names of top Russian officials, a fact that appeared to soften the reaction in Moscow.
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US identifies alleged Russian human-rights abusers targeted for sanctions
The Treasury Department on Friday announced sanctions against 18 Russians over human rights violations, but avoided some prominent officials whose inclusion could have enflamed U.S.-Russian relations.
U.S. lawmakers who backed the sanctions viewed the list as timid while a prominent Russian lawmaker said it could have been worse. State Department officials denied that political considerations had been a factor.
The list was mandated by a law passed last year and named for Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who was arrested in 2008 for tax evasion after accusing Russian police officials of stealing $230 million in tax rebates. He died in prison the next year, allegedly after being beaten and denied medical treatment.
The list included Artem Kuznetsov and Pavel Karpov, two Russian Interior Ministry officers who put Magnitsky behind bars after he accused them of stealing $230 million from the state. Two tax officials the lawyer accused of approving the fraudulent tax refunds, and several other Interior Ministry officials accused of persecuting Magnitsky were also on the list. Absent were senior officials from President Vladimir Putin’s entourage whom some human rights advocates had hoped to see sanctioned.
Magnitsky’s former client, London-based investor William Browder, who has campaigned to bring those responsible in his death to justice, has claimed that one of those tax officials, Olga Stepanova, has bought luxury real estate in Moscow, Dubai and Montenegro and wired money through her husband’s bank accounts worth $39 million.
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Magnitsky Sanctions Listings
Magnitsky Sanctions Listings
4/12/2013
OFFICE OF FOREIGN ASSETS CONTROL
Specially Designated Nationals List Update
The Office of Foreign Assets Control has added the following names to the SDN list under the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2012. The newly added SDN list tag of [MAGNIT] corresponds to this new program.
The following individuals have been added to OFAC’s SDN List:
BOGATIROV, Letscha (a.k.a. BOGATYREV, Lecha; a.k.a. BOGATYRYOV, Lecha); DOB 14 Mar 1975; POB Atschkoi, Chechen Republic, Russia (individual) [MAGNIT].
DROGANOV, Aleksey O.; DOB 11 Oct 1975; POB Lesnoi Settlement, Pushkin Area, Moscow Region, Russia (individual) [MAGNIT].
DUKUZOV, Kazbek; DOB 1974; POB Urus-Martan District, Chechen Republic, Russia (individual) [MAGNIT].
KARPOV, Pavel; DOB 27 Aug 1977; POB Moscow, Russia (individual) [MAGNIT].
KHIMINA, Yelena; DOB 11 Sep 1953; POB Moscow, Russia (individual) [MAGNIT].
KOMNOV, Dmitriy; DOB 17 May 1977; POB Kashira Region, Moscow, Russia (individual) [MAGNIT].
KRIVORUCHKO, Aleksey (a.k.a. KRIVORUCHKO, Alex; a.k.a. KRIVORUCHKO, Alexei); DOB 25 Aug 1977; POB Moscow Region, Russia (individual) [MAGNIT].
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US publishes Magnitsky list of sanctioned Russians
The United States has published a list of mainly Russian officials banned from entering the country because of alleged human rights abuses.
Russia had earlier warned against making the 18 names public, warning it could severely damage relations.
The US imposed the sanctions after Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky died in jail in 2009 in disputed circumstances.
The list includes tax officials and police officers who jailed Magnitsky after he accused them of corruption.
But senior officials from President Vladimir Putin’s entourage who had been expected to be included were left off, including Russia’s top police official Alexander Bastrykin.
Alexei Pushkov, a senior Russian lawmaker, said the pared down list suggested that “the US presidential administration decided not to take the path of aggravating a political crisis with Moscow”, according to the Interfax news agency.
Some 250 names had originally been put forward by US politicians. The final list includes people from Russia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan, 16 of them linked to the Magnitsky case.
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US blacklists 18 Russians over case of dead lawyer Magnitsky
The Obama administration has blacklisted 18 Russians for human rights violations in relation to the case of deceased lawyer Sergei Magnitsky. The move could cause further friction between Washington and Moscow.
The US Treasury on Tuesday released the names of 16 Moscow prosecutors, investigators, tax officials and judges linked to the Magnitsky case. Two Chechens tied to other alleged rights violations were also on the list.
The list was part of a law passed last year, named after Russian human rights lawyer Sergei Magnitsky. Magnitsky died in 2009 after 11 months in Russian jails. He was arrested for tax evasion in 2008 after he exposed massive theft of state assets by Russian officials. He died in prison after allegedly being beaten and denied medical treatment.
Included on the list were Artem Kuznetsov and Pavel Karpov, two Interior Ministry officials who imprisoned Magnitsky after he accused them of stealing $230 million (175 million euros) from the state. Tax officials accused of approving fraudulent tax refunds, as well as other Interior Ministry officials accused of persecuting Magnitsky, were also on the list.
The US Treasury also named Moscow judges Aleksey Krivoruchko, Sergei Podoprigorov, Yelena Stashina and Svetlana Ukhnalyova, who were involved in Magnitsky’s detention.
Two men from Chechnya, Letscha Bogatirov and Kazbek Dukuzov, were also blacklisted. Bogatirov was accused of killing a critic of Chechnya’s Moscow-backed leader Ramzan Kadyrov in 2009, while Dukuzov was arrested, tried and exonerated in the 2004 murder of US journalist Paul Klebnikov in Moscow.
List required by Magnitsky Act.
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Washington to Release Magnitsky Blacklist Today
The Kremlin was bracing for the release late Friday of a U.S. blacklist of Russians that could include Investigative Committee chief Alexander Bastrykin and Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov.
At the same time, the authorities were preparing to release their own blacklist with U.S. citizens.
Washington was expected to release its blacklist at 2 p.m. (10 p.m. Moscow time). The list, required under the Magnitsky Act signed into law in December, aims to punish Russian officials implicated of human rights violations by barring their entry into the U.S. and depriving them of U.S.-based assets.
President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman acknowledged Friday that the release of the blacklists would further strain relations between the two countries.
“The appearance of any kind of blacklist will, of course, have a negative impact on Russian-U.S. relations,” Peskov said.
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Russia warns U.S. on human rights law, seeks to limit damage
The forthcoming publication of a list of Russians barred from the United States over alleged human rights abuses will severely strain relations, President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman said on Friday, but he also sought to limit the damage.
“The appearance of any lists will doubtless have a very negative effect on bilateral Russian-American relations,” Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters while accompanying Putin on a trip to eastern Siberia.
“At the same time, these bilateral relations are very multifaceted, and even under the burden of such possible negative manifestations … they still have many prospects for further development and growth.”
President Barack Obama must submit to U.S. lawmakers by Saturday a list of Russians to be barred entry to the United States under a law penalizing Moscow for alleged human rights abuses. Their assets in the United States will also be frozen.
The Magnitsky Act is named after Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer who died in a Moscow jail in 2009 while awaiting trial on tax evasion charges. Relatives and former colleagues say he was jailed by the same officials he had accused of stealing $230 million from the state through fraudulent tax rebates.
His death underscored the dangers of challenging the Russian state and deepened Western concerns about human rights and the rule of law in Russia.
Passage of the Magnitsky Act in December added to tension in ties already strained by disagreement over issues ranging from the conflict in Syria to Russia’s treatment of Kremlin critics and Western-funded non-governmental organizations since Putin returned to the Kremlin for a six-year term last May.
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Senator Blunt Urges President Obama To Address Blatant Pattern Of Russian Intimidation, Repression
U.S. Senator Roy Blunt (Mo.) sent a letter to President Barack Obama this week expressing his concern for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “broader pattern of blatant intimidation and authoritarianism,” as demonstrated by Putin’s ban on U.S. adoptions and the recent expulsion of a Russian lawmaker from his party after he met with Blunt and other U.S. lawmakers in April 2013 to improve relations between the two countries.
“Last month I had the opportunity to visit with Russian opposition lawmaker named Dmitry Gudkov, who was in the United States in an effort to improve relations between our countries. During our visit we discussed the Russian Government’s recent ban on U.S. adoptions, among other important matters. When he returned to Russia, Mr. Gudkov was expelled from his party and accused of treason for discussing these matters with American lawmakers,” wrote Blunt. “I’m deeply concerned about Russia’s further slide into authoritarianism and believe that the United States should provide international leadership that both calls attention to this behavior and take steps to address it.”
On January 18, 2013, Blunt joined a bipartisan coalition of more than 70 House and Senate members in sending a letter to Putin urging him to reverse a law banning the adoption of Russian children by American families. Blunt and his colleagues also sent a separate letter to President Obama urging him to help American families by encouraging the Russian government to complete cases that were pending before the adoption ban took effect.
On January 1, 2013, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed a bipartisan resolution introduced by Blunt and U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu (La.) strongly condemning President Putin’s ban on the adoption of Russian children by Americans families and urging the Russian government to reconsider the law.
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EU audit on Cyprus money laundering – whitewash in the making?
EU Observer
Auditors on an EU-sponsored mission to see if Cypriot banks launder money for Russian criminals began work last Wednesday (20 March).
The project has slipped out of view amid dramatic talks on Cyprus’ new bailout.
But it is likely to come back with a vengeance when the Dutch, Finnish and German parliaments vote in April on whether the EU should lend Cyprus the €10 billion it needs.
The German government pushed for the probe in the first place because the Social-Democrat opposition threatened to veto a Cypriot rescue on money laundering grounds.
“This is a matter of concern … for public opinion in several of our member states,” European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso noted on Monday.
There are two units supposed to do the job.
One is Moneyval, a specialist branch of the Strasbourg-based Council of Europe, whose top man, John Ringguth, a former British prosecutor, was in Nicosia last week to kick things off.
The other is a “private international audit firm” to be hired by Cyprus’ central bank.
The auditors’ terms of reference (what powers they have, which banks they will check) are “confidential,” to use the phrase of one German official.
Moneyval told EUobserver its task is to “focus exclusively on the effectiveness of Customer Due Diligence (CDD) measures in the [Cypriot] banking sector.” In other words, to see if banks check who their customers really are.
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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
