U.S. Senate stands up for human rights
How many times have I said in the past few years that the Senate has stood up for human rights? Not many, but it is deserving for two actions taken yesterday.
First, a bipartisan resolution co-sponsored by Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) and 30 other senators called for the immediate and unconditional release of Alan Gross from imprisonment in Cuba. The resolution also calls on Cuba to provide needed medical treatment to Gross, who reportedly is quite ill and has lost more than 100 pounds in prison. Gross was the U.S. contractor thrown in the dungeons of Cuba after a Mickey Mouse trial for bringing satellite phones to the Jewish community there. This outrage followed the U.S. administration’s lightening of sanctions on Cuba, a move yet to be reversed.
The resolution is important not only because it prevents Gross from being forgotten and gives hope to him and all imprisoned human rights victims; it also may stop in the tracks any deal by which Gross would be released in exchange for release of five convicted Cuban spies. The Post editorial board put it this way: “There is no equivalence between Mr. Gross and the five prisoners, as Havana itself acknowledges. It agrees the Florida prisoners were its spies, but it has never charged Mr. Gross with espionage.” So bravo to the Senate for its demand for Gross’s unconditional release.
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Police ‘ignored dossier in dead Russian witness case’: ‘Victim’ accuses City force, FSA and SFO of inaction Agencies ‘given evidence before unexplained death’
The Guardian
Police and anti-fraud agencies have been criticised by the alleged victim of a multimillion-pound fraud for ignoring dossiers of evidence – including death threats and intimidation – linking the crime with the UK, months before a witness connected to the case was found dead.
The body of Alexander Perepilichnyy, 44, was found outside his Surrey home on 10 November. His death is described as “unexplained” following two postmortems, with toxicology tests to come.
He was a key witness in a case involving the theft of pounds 140m in tax revenue from the Russian government. The alleged fraudsters are said to have stolen three companies from a UK-based investment firm, Hermitage Capital, and used them to perpetrate the fraud – leaving Hermitage in the frame for the criminal acts.
The case is known as the “Magnitsky case”, after one of Hermitage’s Russian lawyers, Sergei Magnitsky, who was found dead in a Russian prison in 2009 with his body showing signs of torture.
A motion from the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe said Magnitsky had been “killed . . . while in pre-trial detention in Moscow after he refused to change his testimony”.
Bill Browder, the founder of Hermitage Capital, has been trying to secure convictions for the death of Magnitsky, as well as those implicated in the alleged fraud against his company, for four years. Documents seen by the Guardian show that in January and February Browder’s lawyers passed a criminal complaint to the City of London police, the Serious Fraud Office (SFO), the Financial Services Authority (FSA) and Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA).
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Why the Magnitsky Act Is Pro-Russian
Moscow Times
Opposition leader Boris Nemtsov perhaps put it best regarding the Magnitsky Act passed by the U.S. Senate on Thursday: “This is the most pro-Russian law passed in the United States in the history of our countries.”
Indeed, what better way to support Russians’ interests than to punish a group of people who stole $230 million from the state budget, then framed a whistleblower and put him in jail, where he was tortured, denied medical help and eventually died?
A poll conducted by the Levada Center showed that 39 percent of those polled supported the Magnitsky Act and only 14 percent were against it, while nearly half the respondents were unsure of how to answer. Vladislav Naganov, a member of the opposition’s Coordination Council, wrote on his LiveJournal blog: “This is a victory for Russia. Anyone who claims that Russia is against this law does not have the right to speak for the entire country.”
But the Kremlin is of a decidedly different opinion. In recent months, the country’s leadership has organized a massive international media campaign to stop the passage of the act, and it reacted harshly after it was passed. An official statement from the Foreign Ministry disparaged the Senate vote as “a spectacle in the theater of the absurd.” United Russia members were even more outspoken in their condemnation. Sergei Markov, a member of the Public Chamber and former State Duma deputy, wrote on his blog on the chamber site that the Magnitsky Act “is interference in our legal system and a violation of our sovereignty. The drivers of this bill were energetic, dedicated Russophobes.”
Leonid Slutsky, a Duma deputy from the Liberal Democratic Party and deputy chief of the Russian delegation to the European Parliament, called it “interference in Russia’s internal affairs.”
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Magnitsky row grows as Russia threatens to reveal banned US officials
The Independent
Moscow retaliates to new US law with its own blacklist of Americans accused of rights abuses
Russia has threatened to unveil a list of American officials who are banned for alleged human rights abuses in the latest in a tit-for-tat row between the two powers.
Moscow is furious that American legislators approved a new law which forbids any Russian officials known to be involved in corruption or criminality of travelling to the United States or holding assets there.
The law, which was passed on Thursday night, is named after Sergei Magnitsky, a Moscow based lawyer who was hired by the British investment fund Hermitage Capital to investigate a multimillion-pound scam and died in prison after he was arrested by the same Russian officials he had accused of being behind the scam.
Alexei Pushkov, one of Russia’s top foreign policy officials, said yesterday that Russia already had a list of US citizens implicated in human rights abuses of Russian citizens banned from entering Russia. Up to now, this list has been secret rather than official policy, in response to the American informal visa ban for those on the “Magnitsky list”. Now that the Magnitsky Act is official policy, however, Russia could well respond in kind.
The passage of an American banned list is a victory for Hermitage’s CEO, William Browder, who has lobbied extensively in the United States, Canada and Europe for such legislation.
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Bill Browder wins fight to ban corrupt Russian business in the U.S. in memory of dead friend
National Post
Sergei Magnitsky was a lawyer in Russia exposing large-scale corruption by government officials when he was beaten to death by guards in a Moscow prison in 2009; Alexander Perepilichnyy, a Russian businessman, had fled to Britain and was a whistleblower over the same fraud when he mysteriously collapsed and died last month.
These two dramatic deaths bookend the remarkable crusade of Bill Browder, the American-born investor for whom Mr. Magnitsky worked and to whom Mr. Perepilichnyy was spilling his secrets.
On Thursday, Mr. Browder saw the U.S. Senate pass the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act by a wide margin, a law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers.
Related
Russian scandal takes chilling twist as whistleblower dies in ‘unexplained circumstances’ in Britain
It was a triumphant moment for Mr. Browder, who has relentlessly lobbied for such sanctions, but it hardly ends his quest for justice over Mr. Magnitsky’s gruesome demise.
His next stop is Canada.
On Monday, Mr. Browder arrives here with his remarkable story of international intrigue – state corruption, massive theft, organized crime – in a bid to see Canada pass a similar law against corrupt Russian officials.
Parliamentarians and government ministers will be hard pressed to hear a more compelling story, both his own and the one swirling around him.
Mr. Browder’s grandfather was the well-known leader of the U.S. Communist Party from the 1920s to 1940s, twice running under the red banner for president. Communism was a Browder family value.
“There is all this family history and connection to Communism, so when I was going through my teenage rebellion I became a capitalist. I figured there was nothing I could do to irritate my family more than that,” Mr. Browder, 48, told the National Post.
There is all this family history and connection to Communism, so when I was going through my teenage rebellion I became a capitalist. I figured there was nothing I could do to irritate my family more than that
He graduated from Stanford business school the year the Berlin Wall fell and the two events prompted an epiphany: “If my grandfather was the biggest Communist in America, it seems perfectly appropriate that I become the biggest capitalist in Eastern Europe,” he said.
After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, he moved to Moscow and started investing, first as an employee of Salomon Brothers, then with his own firm, Hermitage Capital Management, in 1996.
He was a success. From US$25-million in capital his fund grew to US$4.5-billion, becoming the largest foreign portfolio investor in Russia.
But the value of the huge Russian companies, some of the nation’s largest, was diminished by corruption.
“Billions and billions of dollars were being stolen through all sorts of different corrupt schemes,” said Mr. Browder. Hermitage took on an activist strategy, researching and exposing corporate corruption of firms it was investing in.
He saw Vladimir Putin, who was becoming the dominant politician in Russia, as an early ally in his fight against corruption, advocating for the former KGB officer to the suspicious West.
-Sergei Magnitsky
But Mr. Browder’s éxposés were not admired by all.
“It was a very effective way of stopping bad things from happening in Russia, but it was also a very effective way of creating a lot of high-placed and high-powered enemies who didn’t wish me well.”
After almost 10 years in Russia, he was stopped at the border in 2005 and deported as a threat to national security.
He feared he might lose everything.
“We quickly liquidated all our holdings in Russia in 2006 and evacuated my staff out of Russia so they couldn’t steal our money and arrest our people,” Mr. Browder said.
That was far from the end.
More than a year after his deportation, police raided his Moscow office and the offices of his lawyers, seizing corporate documents for his investment holding companies.
In response, he hired seven Russian lawyers to investigate. One was a talented young man named Sergei Magnitsky.
We quickly liquidated all our holdings in Russia in 2006 and evacuated my staff out of Russia so they couldn’t steal our money and arrest our people
Mr. Magnitsky investigated and reported someone had used Mr. Browder’s corporate documents to forge backdated contracts showing the firm owed US$1-billion.
The companies who were the supposed recipients of the debt sued Hermitage in Russia, seeking to claim the US$1-billion.
“We weren’t even aware of these court proceedings, but three lawyers, who we didn’t hire, then showed up to represent our companies and those three lawyers pled guilty to US$1-billion of fake liabilities,” Mr. Browder said.
“Then the police, the same police who raided our offices in the first place, raided all of our banks looking for assets to seize. Thankfully, there were no assets there because we had taken all of the money out.”
When he heard all of this from Mr. Magnitsky, Mr. Browder relaxed. He had moved faster than the schemers. It seemed almost comical.
“Sergei said, ‘I wouldn’t relax if I were you because Russian stories never end this way. There are never happy, clean ending to these stories.’ I asked how does this story end and he said it probably ends badly.”
Mr. Magnitsky probed further. He was right: The schemers were not prepared to quit without a profit.
.Sergei Magnitsky’s funeral
He found the people who sought the court award had gone to the tax authorities. The previous year, Mr. Browder’s company had paid US$230-million in taxes based on its reported gains of US$1-billion.
Using the US$1-billion court judgment as proof, the schemer claimed the firm’s actual profit should be zero since the judgment erased the gains. Therefore, the US$230-million was paid by mistake and should be refunded – to them.
“They applied for a tax refund of US$230-million, which was the largest tax refund in Russian history. They applied for it two days before Christmas – Dec. 23, 2007 – and was awarded and paid out the very next day.”
The schemers finally got their money.
Mr. Browder, meanwhile, assumed it was a rogue operation by a small, corrupt cabal.
“We filed 15 different criminal complaints with regulatory agencies, with law enforcement agencies and with connected politicians, and waited for the SWAT teams and helicopters to fan out and get all the bad guys.
“It quickly became apparent that there were no good guys in the Russian government. Instead of going out and trying to arrest the people who did this, they opened up criminal cases on all seven of our lawyers on various trumped-up charges.”
It quickly became apparent that there were no good guys in the Russian government. Instead of going out and trying to arrest the people who did this, they opened up criminal cases on all seven of our lawyers on various trumped-up charges
Fearing for their safety, he asked them to flee Russia at his expense. Six accepted, but Mr. Magnitsky declined.
A man of principle and idealism, he declared since he had done nothing wrong he had no need to flee. Instead, he started testifying against the officials involved in the tax theft.
In November 2008, subordinates of those officials arrested him. Torture to elicit the retraction of his testimony began immediately, according to Mr. Browder.
After months of abuse, Mr. Magnitsky became seriously ill.
On the night of Nov. 16, 2009, lapsing into critical condition, he was moved to a prison with a hospital, but instead of treating him, “They put him into an isolation cell and eight riot guards with rubber batons beat him for one hour and 18 minutes until he died.”
He was 37 years old.
“Sergei Magnitsky was tortured to death in order to get him to retract his testimony about the corruption that he uncovered,” said Mr. Browder.
And once again, the narrative of Mr. Browder’s life changed dramatically.
“I made a vow to myself and to his memory that I was going to make sure the people who had done this to him would face justice and his death wouldn’t be a meaningless death.”
Justice was not forthcoming in Russia.
“The Russian government completely circled the wagons to cover up the responsibility of everybody,” he said. “Like Watergate, the crime itself is one thing but what makes this case so politically important internationally, is the high-level cover-up that goes right up to the president of Russia.
ANDREY SMIRNOV/AFP/Getty ImagesA picture taken on December 7, 2012, shows snow clad grave of Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky with his portrait on the tomb (C) at the Preobrazhenskoye cemetery in Moscow. The US Congress drew today a furious response from the Kremlin by passing legislation that targeted human rights abusers in the prison death of Magnitsky. Moscow immediately called the action “a theater of the absurd” and vowed to retaliate, turning what would have been a boost in trade relations between the two powers into another source of friction. AFP PHOTO / ANDREY SMIRNOV
“We haven’t been able to get justice inside Russia in any way, shape or form. Everybody who was involved in this – and there’s a huge amount of evidence of them being involved in this – have been exonerated, some have been promoted and even received state honours.
“It became clear we would have to seek justice outside Russia.”
The corrupt Russian officials, gangsters and oligarchs profiting from this and other crimes typically hoarded their money abroad. They used foreign banks, bought foreign property, sent their children to foreign private schools and vacationed in foreign countries.
In that Mr. Browder saw a way to get at them.
“They like to behave like cannibals at home and then dine at the finest restaurants with white tablecloths in Europe and North America,” he said.
“It hits the Putin regime in the most profound way, because the entire objective of the current leadership of Russia at this stage is to steal money.”
Since 2010, he has worked with politicians in the U.S., Canada and Europe to enact visa sanctions and asset seizures, not against Russia as a country, but against corrupt individuals within its elites.
Canada’s place in such geopolitics came into focus when one of the emissaries from Moscow sent to Washington to lobby against the act was Vitaly Malkin, a Russian oligarch and member of the Russian senate.
Mr. Malkin, the National Post revealed in 2009, has been blocked from entering Canada by Canadian authorities who accused him of organized crime involvement. In his fight to overturn that decision, it was revealed he owns 111 condominium units in Toronto.
Canada should not be a safe haven for people who do this type of crime. Canada has a very attractive economic immigrant program and it is very popular for Russians so, absolutely, Canada has to be on the list of countries that are doing this
Through court filings, Mr. Malkin, whose name is sometimes spelled Vitali Malkine in English, denied any involvement in organized crime. He won a judicial review of the decision because he was not given an adequate opportunity to address the government’s concerns before it was made. Any new decision has not been made public.
Mr. Browder said the Malkin case suggests why Canada is important.
“Canada should not be a safe haven for people who do this type of crime. Canada has a very attractive economic immigrant program and it is very popular for Russians so, absolutely, Canada has to be on the list of countries that are doing this.”
Mr. Browder’s success last week in Washington brought a rebuke from Moscow, with threats of countermeasures against Americans. The diplomatic spat threatens to further damage strained U.S.-Russia relations.
For Mr. Browder, the triumph in Washington brightened the darkness of his story that had recently grown darker with a mysterious death in England.
Before Mr. Perepilichnyy fled Russia, he was wheeling and dealing with wealthy clients. Among them were people connected to the tax rebate theft.
In 2010, he contacted Mr. Browder with information on where the money went. A detailed dossier traced money to a Swiss bank and Mr. Perepilichnyy became a cooperating witness with Swiss officials.
Last month, the seemingly healthy 44-year-old collapsed and died outside his mansion in a gated community that has been home to Ringo Starr, Kate Winslet and Sir Elton John.
So far, the cause of death is unknown, pending toxicology tests.
In the meantime, the death is another reminder of the high stakes in Mr. Browder’s campaign as he arrives in Toronto before heading to Ottawa for high-level government meetings Tuesday.
National Post
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From Russia with hate – are Russian assassins on the loose in Britain? With the death of a businessman in Surrey now being treated as suspicious, we look at the spate of hits that have taken place in Britain
Daily Telegraph
Apparently healthy people do drop dead, so Surrey Police were not unduly exercised by the sudden demise of Alexander Perepilichny. The body of the Russian businessman was found near his home on the St George’s Hill estate in Weybridge on Saturday, November 10. A member of staff at his house, rented for £12,500 a month, happened upon the body as darkness fell. Perepilichny, aged 44, had been seen jogging earlier that day and was still in his running gear. There were no signs of violence, nothing to suggest foul play. The gated community, a collection of secluded detached houses selling for £3 million and above, is one of the most exclusive in Britain, favoured in the past by singers and soccer stars, and supposedly one of the most secure. For officers assigned to the case, Perepilichny’s death initially represented a personal tragedy, but nothing more.
Only later, when the alert was raised by his associates, did they begin to consider the possibility that something darker may have occurred. Following an inconclusive first autopsy, a second was ordered. A toxicology report is not expected for months.
Assassinations, successful or attempted, are rare things in Britain, but when they happen there is a reasonable chance that a Russian will be involved. Russia is a far less violent place than it was even five years ago, but for the many criminal entities in that vast country, some rooted deeply in government, there are still vendettas to be pursued and inconvenient people to be rubbed out. The fact that the target has sought shelter in the United Kingdom may serve as a deterrent to a would-be assassin, but it would not put them off completely.
Britain is home to 300,000 Russians, and London in particular has benefited from an influx of billionaires and millionaires grown fat on the privatisation of Russia’s state assets in the Nineties. Some 100 Russian millionaires accounted for a quarter of Tier 1 UK visas in the year to June. The privileged permits allow long-term, non-domicile residence here in return for a minimum investment in British property, shares and bonds of £1 million.
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Russia accuses US of using ‘cold war tactics’ over new law
The Guardian
Row comes after the Senate passes Magnitsky Act banning Russian officials accused of human rights abuses from the US.
Russia has accused the United States of engaging in cold war tactics and threatened tit-for-tat retaliation after the US Senate passed a bill banning Russian officials accused of human rights abuses from travelling to the country.
The US Senate on Thursday passed the Magnitsky Act, named after a Russian lawyer for London-based investor William Browder who died in prison, as part of a bill that lifts Soviet-era trade restrictions on Russia. The bill, which must be signed by President Barack Obama before coming into force, includes a visa ban and asset freeze on those officials involved in Magnitsky’s death.
Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, said after meeting Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, in Dublin late on Thursday that Russia would retaliate. “We will also close entry to Americans who are guilty of human rights violations,” he said.
Many Russians laughed off the threat, noting that the Russian propensity to keep assets and property in the US is not reciprocated. “And now they’ll shut down entry to Russia for some American officials who are involved, let’s say, in the death of Afghan kids. What are they going to do, cry?” Margarita Simonyan, the Kremlin-friendly head of Russia Today, the state-run international news channel, wrote on Twitter.
The Kremlin marshalled the Young Guard, the youth wing of the ruling United Russia party, to protest. The group held a protest in front of the US embassy in Moscow on Friday with the sign: “The US is a police state.”
“The US positions itself as a country of freedom. And yet, the American leadership is itself infringing upon the freedom of citizens of another country,” Maxim Rudnev, a member of the Young Guard, said in a statement. “It’s worth asking: is the United States deserving of hosting the Statue of Liberty?”
The Russian foreign ministry lashed out on its official Twitter account late on Thursday, saying the Senate’s adoption of the Magnitsky Act “will adversely affect the prospects of bilateral co-operation”. Then it went further, writing that the move “is like something out of the theatre of the absurd”.
“Apparently, Washington has forgotten what year this is and still thinks the cold war is going on,” the official account wrote. “It is perplexing and preposterous to hear human rights complaints from the US, where torture and kidnapping are legal in the 21st century.”
“This biased approach is nothing but a vindictive desire to counter Russia in world affairs,” it said.
Sergei Magnitsky was arrested in late 2008 while uncovering an alleged $230m (£143m) fraud carried out by a group of Russian police and tax officials. He was found dead in a Russian prison nearly one year later, after being repeatedly denied medical treatment and allegedly tortured. Browder, who hired him to investigate the fraud, has lobbied hard for Russian officials to be punished abroad, noting that justice in his lawyer’s death is unlikely to come in Moscow.
A new poll released on Friday found that 39% of Russians supported the US law, versus 14% who were against it.
Obama praised the Senate’s decision to pass the bill 92-4 on Thursday and is expected to sign it into law soon. займы на карту без отказа hairy woman https://zp-pdl.com/online-payday-loans-cash-advances.php zp-pdl.com займ на карту без отказов круглосуточно
U.S. legislation infuriates Russia
Washington Post
The U.S. Senate on Thursday repealed a trade sanction imposed 38 years ago to force the Soviet Union to allow Jews and other religious minorities to emigrate, replacing it with a modern-day punishment for human rights abuse that has enraged Russian officials.
The old law, one of the last vestiges of the Cold War, was called the Jackson-Vanik Amendment, named after a U.S. senator and a representative. The new law, passed 92 to 4, grants Russia and Moldova permanent normal trade relations, but it is coupled with the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act, which honors a dead Russian. The law blacklists Russians connected to the death of Magnitsky in police custody and to other gross human rights violations, prohibiting entrance to the United States and use of its banking system.
“Today, we close a chapter in U.S. history,” Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.), one of the prime movers of the Magnitsky bill, said during the debate on Jackson-Vanik. “It served its purpose. Today, we open a new chapter in U.S. leadership for human rights.”
How the United States can best promote democracy and human rights in Russia – and elsewhere – became a matter of agonizing and often bitter debate as pressure grew to repeal Jackson-Vanik. Not only was it widely considered a relic with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 and freedom to emigrate from Russia, but, under the regulations of the World Trade Organization, which Russia joined this year, it also penalized American exporters.
The House approved the measure last month. President Obama said he looked forward to signing the law because of the WTO benefits for American workers, although originally the administration had argued that the Magnitsky bill was unnecessary because the president could – and would – create the desired blacklist by executive order.
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Death in Surrey: now the plot thickens
The Independent
New details have emerged about the shadowy life of Alexander Perepilichnyy, the Russian fugitive who dropped dead while jogging outside his luxury home in Surrey last month. The supergrass, who provided documents that allegedly implicate a number of Russian officials and businessmen in a huge tax rebate scam, himself appears to have been deeply submerged in the murky world of semi-legal Russian money, and feared for his life if he returned to his home country.
“He was worried about the situation he had in Russia,” Andrei Pavlov, a Moscow-based lawyer who met Mr Perepilichnyy twice during his self-imposed exile in the UK, told The Independent in a rare interview. Mr Perepilichnyy, who was 44, had no reported health issues when he collapsed. Two autopsies proved inconclusive and toxicology tests are now being carried out on his body.
Sources describe Mr Perepilichnyy as a “private banker” who took money from wealthy Russians and invested it abroad for them. Such services are popular with Russians who have made money either legally or illegally at home and want to move it out of the country. Mr Perepilichnyy apparently fled Russia in 2009 after a dispute with business partners, and later became the source for documents handed to Swiss prosecutors that showed details of money transfers allegedly related to a huge theft of Russian tax revenue. The alleged fraud was carried out by a corrupt group of officials and discovered by the lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who died in jail after being tortured.
Most notably, Mr Perepilichnyy passed documents relating to the financial transactions of his former business partner, Vladlen Stepanov. Mr Stepanov was implicated in the fraud that Mr Magnitsky uncovered; his wife was in charge of the tax office that granted the rebate, and both appeared to make huge property purchases in the immediate aftermath. In an interview to a Russian newspaper last year, Mr Stepanov called Mr Perepilichnyy “a physics and maths genius who had started financial activities”, and managed all of his financial transactions before disappearing. He has always denied that any of his property deals had been made with laundered money.
Court documents from a Moscow case last year describe Mr Perepilichnyy as “living outside the Russian Federation because he fears for his life”. Mr Pavlov says Mr Perepilichnyy contacted him in 2010 through a mutual acquaintance and asked for a meeting in Zurich because he was scared of travelling to Russia. Mr Perepilichnyy asked Mr Pavlov to mediate the dispute with Mr Stepanov. Mr Pavlov refused, telling Mr Perepilichnyy to contact Mr Stepanov directly. The pair’s second and final meeting took place several months later, in a café on the upper floor of Heathrow Terminal 5. “He asked for a meeting, and I was transitting through Heathrow,” recalls Mr Pavlov. Mr Perepilichnyy told him he had spoken to Mr Stepanov and all was in order, although in his interview a year later, Mr Stepanov claimed Mr Perepilichnyy “is in hiding… and doesn’t answer calls”. Mr Pavlov says after the Heathrow meeting, Mr Perepilichnyy went dark. “I didn’t have his contact details, just his Skype account, and he disappeared from Skype.”
In a potentially strange twist, Mr Pavlov claims Mr Perepilichnyy managed to implicate himself in the fraud, causing Swiss prosecutors to freeze his own accounts as well as Mr Stepanov’s. “He handed over documents relating to his own company,” said Mr Pavlov. “He ended up having a lot of his own money frozen in Switzerland. This was a very negative effect for him.” Swiss prosecutors did not respond to requests for comment yesterday.
Hermitage, the investment fund that fell victim to the tax rebate scandal, claims that Mr Stepanov, Ms Stepanova and Mr Pavlov are all linked to a criminal group run by Dmitry Klyuev, a Russian businessman. “In our opinion, Andrei Pavlov provided legal support in a number of court proceedings used to perpetrate fraud against Hermitage and the Russian budget,” said a spokesman for Hermitage yesterday.
The Russian government has not opened an investigation against any of those whom Hermitage says is responsible for the rebate; instead it has opened a posthumous case against Mr Magnitsky, claiming he himself carried out the fraud. One of the most surprising turns of events in the saga came during a hearing of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly in Monaco in July. Hermitage’s CEO, Bill Browder, was presenting a film detailing his allegations about Mr Klyuev and his associates, when the man himself, accompanied by Mr Pavlov, arrived at the session venue.
A source on Capitol Hill who has been involved in the Magnitsky legislation said the American delegation to the OSCE was “blown away” when the pair showed up. “Senator [John} McCain had publicly written to the President calling on him to proscribe these guys in the same way you would a terrorist group. And when he goes to Monaco they turn up,” said the source. “It would be like making a presentation on why you should ban al-Qa’ida only for a member to turn up at the meeting.”
Mr Pavlov says the pair’s appearance was simply an attempt to get their side of the story heard. “We decided to go and say, hello, this is us, maybe you could ask us [about the allegations] first, but they didn’t let us in,” he says. “We found the Russian delegation and asked them to let us in, but they said they couldn’t help us.” Mr Pavlov says the delegates were shocked and told them to speak with Mr Browder directly. “But Browder had already left.”
Mr Pavlov described the furore over Mr Perepilichnyy’s death as “much ado about nothing”, and said he thought that news coverage of the event was part of a sinister campaign against him and others.
MAGNITSKY CASE
THE KEY PLAYERS
Sergei Magnitsky
The lawyer, right, tasked with investigating the alleged fraud against the US fund Hermitage Capital. Died in prison in 2009 after he was beaten and prison officials refused him medical treatment.
Dmitry Klyuev
Russian businessman, former owner of a bank that received the money from the tax rebates. Denies all knowledge of the fraud.
Bill Browder
American-born British founder and CEO of Hermitage Capital; has fought tirelessly in favour of a “Magnitsky list”.
Andrei Pavlov
The lawyer, right, that Hermitage Capital says gave Klyuev legal support in a number of fraudulent deals. He denies this, and says he is just friends with Klyuev.
Olga Stepanova
Stepanova, below left, was in charge of Tax Office 28 in Moscow, where she authorised $230m tax rebate. Bought luxury property despite her modest official salary.
Vladlen Stepanov
Businessman. He claims no involvement in fraud, says he divorced Stepanova several years ago and all money he has is his own. Partners with Alexander Perepilichnyy. hairy women микрозайм онлайн https://zp-pdl.com/how-to-get-fast-payday-loan-online.php https://zp-pdl.com/online-payday-loans-in-america.php unshaven girls
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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