Posts Tagged ‘andrew rettman’
MEPs to Mogherini: Stop ignoring us on Russia sanctions
A cross-party group of MEPs has urged the EU foreign service to stop ignoring the European Parliament on Magnitsky sanctions.
Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian anti-corruption activist, died in jail in 2009 in what EU Council chief Herman Van Rompuy once called an “emblematic case” for lack of law and order in Russia.
The EU parliament has urged EU diplomats in four resolutions over the past four years to follow the US in blacklisting the Russian officials implicated in the killing.
This week, 23 MEPs from centre-right and liberal groups in the EU assembly urged foreign relations chief Federica Mogherini to “present a proposal to the Council of Ministers to sanction these 32 individuals”.
They said in a letter, seen by EUobserver: “As the new head of the European External Action Service, what nearest actions do you plan to undertake … to make sure there is no further impunity in the Magnitsky case?”.
MEPs have no formal powers on foreign affairs.
But Mogherini’s spokeswoman, Maja Kocijancic, told EUobserver the letter is “a new opportunity to consider the case”.
She noted that top EU officials, such as Van Rompuy and Mogherini’s predecessor, Catherine Ashton, on several occasions urged Russia to take action on the issue.
“So far we have not seen a satisfactory response”.
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MEPs to Mogherini: Stop ignoring us on Russia sanctions
A cross-party group of MEPs has urged the EU foreign service to stop ignoring the European Parliament on Magnitsky sanctions.
Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian anti-corruption activist, died in jail in 2009 in what EU Council chief Herman Van Rompuy once called an “emblematic case” for lack of law and order in Russia.
The EU parliament has urged EU diplomats in four resolutions over the past four years to follow the US in blacklisting the Russian officials implicated in the killing.
This week, 23 MEPs from centre-right and liberal groups in the EU assembly urged foreign relations chief Federica Mogherini to “present a proposal to the Council of Ministers to sanction these 32 individuals”.
They said in a letter, seen by EUobserver: “As the new head of the European External Action Service, what nearest actions do you plan to undertake … to make sure there is no further impunity in the Magnitsky case?”.
MEPs have no formal powers on foreign affairs.
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Russia complains of ‘Cold War’ prejudice in EU visa talks
Russia’s EU ambassador has blamed Cold-War-era prejudice in some EU countries for lack of progress in visa-free talks.
Vladimir Chizhov told EUobserver that negotiations on letting Russian officials, or “service passport” holders, enter the EU without a visa are moving forward.
He said Russia agreed to limit the number of eligible people to those with passports which have electronic security features.
But he noted: “Some ‘fears’ still persist among certain EU countries, however ridiculous and reminiscent of the times of the Cold War they may seem, thus making the rest of facilitations envisaged hostage of their past and [creating] distrust unworthy of a genuine strategic partnership that we are striving for.”
He said the Russian officials in question are “mostly … engaged in further developing Russia-EU relations.”
His thinly veiled allusion to objections by former Soviet and former Communist EU member countries comes shortly before the next EU-Russia summit, expected in December.
The twice-yearly meetings have failed to yield concrete results in recent years.
One EU source said there could be a visa deal in time for December. But two other EU contacts voiced scepticism.
Russia has a few bargaining chips up its sleeve: It could drop punitive tariffs on EU car imports in return for a visa deal, or it could threaten to re-impose passenger data transfer demands on EU airlines.
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Sweden declines safe passage to Magnitsky campaigner
Sweden has declined to guarantee the safety of a campaigner for EU sanctions on Russian officials despite Russian threats.
Bill Browder, a London-based businessman who is calling for EU countries to blacklist Russian officials suspected of fraud and conspiracy to murder, asked the Swedish government to promise him “safe passage” back in June.
He did it in order to speak at a Swedish parliament hearing in the context of Russian threats to have him arrested, extradited and jailed.
But a senior official in the Swedish justice ministry, Martin Valfridsson, in a letter in June and in a second letter on 23 September said No, leading Browder to cancel his trip.
Valfridsson hinted that Sweden would not help Russia to get its hands on Browder.
He spoke of the “appalling … lack of respect for human rights and rule of law in the Russian Federation.”
He also said Sweden “takes due note” of a decision by Interpol, the international police body based in Lyon, France, not to honour Russia’s request for a Browder arrest notice because it was made for “political” motives.
But he added that under Swedish law, he cannot promise to decline a Russian request before it has been made and he cannot instruct the police not to arrest people.
For Browder, the real reason is fear of upsetting Russia.
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European rights body to debate Magnitsky report
The Council of Europe, the Strasbourg-based human rights watchdog, will on Wednesday (4 September) in Paris debate a damning resolution on the Magnitsky affair, with Russian delegates pledging to attack the text.
The resolution, drafted by Swiss centre-left MP Andrea Gross in June, accuses Russian authorities of orchestrating the death in pre-trial detention, of Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian auditor, who exposed a mafia-related scam to embezzle the Russian taxman.
“There is no doubt that some of the causes of Mr Magnitsky’s death were created deliberately, by identifiable persons,” his report says.
It calls for the council’s 47 member states to impose “intelligent sanctions” on Russian officials implicated in his death.
It also urges Moscow to help Europol and financial sleuths from six EU states to investigate the money laundering trail linked to the scam.
Russian MPs on the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) have indicated they will try to water down the text before it is officially adopted, however.
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Interpol open to abuse by ‘criminal states’
When Petr Silaev, a Russian journalist, got political asylum in Finland in April 2012 after escaping a crackdown in his home country, he felt safe and began a new life.
But in August the same year, he found himself handcuffed and shoved face-down on the floor of a police car on a seven-hour trip from Granada, Spain, where he went on holiday, to a detention centre in Madrid, where he risked extradition.
“The Spanish police treated me in a mind-breaking way … They kept saying: ‘You’ll be deported.’ They kept abusing me, saying: ‘You’re a Russian terrorist’,” he told EUobserver.
When Ales Mihalevic, an opposition candidate in Belarus’ presidential elections in 2010, fled his home country, he found himself, in July 2011, detained by Polish airport police and risking a similar fate.
The link in both cases was Interpol, the international police body based in Lyon, France.
Belarus and Russia had filed requests for their capture using Interpol systems and two of Interpol’s 190 fellow member states, Spain and Poland, took action.
Mihalevic and Silaev are not freak examples.
In January last year, Eerik Kross, an Estonian politician and a former director of Estonia’s intelligence service, also became a wanted man after Interpol issued a “red notice” on Moscow’s say-so.
Kross is a known adversary of the Kremlin.
He was a leading proponent of Estonia’s Nato membership. In the 2008 Georgia-Russia war, he helped Georgia to fight off Russian cyber attacks.
But Russia used the long arm of Interpol to reach out for him on different grounds.
It filed the notice saying Kross masterminded the hijack of a Russian ship, the Arctic Sea, off the coast of Sweden in 2009, a claim which Kross calls “idiotic.” It did so on grounds that a witness in an Arctic Sea trial had mentioned his name.
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Russian officials: Banned by the US, on holiday in the EU
Russian officials banned from entering the US on accusations of corruption and conspiracy to murder are frequent visitors in EU countries, leaked information shows.
Pavel Karpov, a senior investigator in the Russian interior ministry, Artem Kuznetsov from the ministry’s economic crimes unit, and Olga Stepanova, a director in the Moscow tax authority, feature on a list of 18 persona non grata published by the US state department on 12 April.
All 18 were banned for their roles in an affair involving embezzlement of Russian tax money and the death of the man who exposed them – Russian accountant Sergei Magnitsky.
But Karpov, Kuznetsov and Stepanova stand out as leading protagonists.
Karpov and Kuznetsov organised the seizure of corporate seals and documents from Magnitsky’s former employer, British investment firm Hermitage Capital, used to expedite the fraud.
Kuznetsov also organised Magnitsky’s arrest and pre-trial detention, in which he died.
Meanwhile, Stepanova authorised a tax refund of $153 million, which flowed into the private bank of Dmitry Kluyev, a convicted criminal, who went on to launder the money in six EU jurisdictions and in Switzerland.
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EU considers visa-ban-lite on Russian officials
The European Commission is considering a ban on visa-free travel for Russian officials linked to the alleged murder of Sergei Magnitsky.
Under the terms of a visa facilitation deal currently being discussed by Brussels and Moscow, Russian officials, who carry so called “service” passports, will no longer have to apply for visas to enter the EU’s borderless Schengen zone.
The perk is due to cover dozens of people accused of involvement in a 2008 plot to embezzle millions of euros from the Russian treasury and to kill the man who found them out – Magnitsky, a 37-year-old accountant and father of two.
US authorities found the evidence against them compelling enough to ban them from visiting the states altogether.
In Brussels, MEPs have called for a similar EU travel ban.
But Russia says they are innocent, while the European External Action Service is happy to let Moscow treat the case as an internal matter.
For their part, a group of 48 euro deputies rebelled against the situation on Tuesday (4 June).
The parliamentarians – which include senior figures from major political groups, such as German centre-right MEP Elmar Brok and Belgian Liberal Guy Verhofstadt – said in a letter to EU countries’ foreign ministers that parliament will veto the visa facilitation deal unless diplomats act.
“Under current circumstances we will be unable to support any visa facilitation agreements with Russia and will advocate the parliament to refuse its consent, unless the [EU] Council adopts an EU ‘Magnitsky Law’,” they said, by reference to the US legal ban.
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Russia asks Interpol to track Magnitsky campaigner
The diminutive US-born businessman and his entourage of one or two assistants has become a familiar sight in the European Parliament in Brussels, which Bill Browder visits several times a year to make the case for EU sanctions on Russian officials linked to the alleged murder of his former employee, whistleblower accountant Sergei Magnitsky.
He is also a frequent visitor in Berlin, The Hague, Paris, Rome, Stockholm and Warsaw.
But he is a wanted man in Russia, which last month issued a warrant for his arrest on charges that he illegally obtained shares in its national energy champion, Gazprom, 15 years ago.
He is also wanted in other ways.
Following a series of anonymous death threats, he now lives in London under the protection of the Special Branch of the British police.
When he travels, the UK liaises with security services in other European countries to keep him safe.
But if the Kremlin gets its way, his travels could come to an end.
The Russian interior ministry on 7 May filed a request with Interpol, the international police body in Lyon, France, to issue a so-called All Points Bulletin (APB) on Browder.
If it agrees, authorities in all 190 Interpol member states will be obliged to alert Russia of his movements, enabling it to request his detention and extradition.
The police body will consider Russia’s demand at a meeting on Thursday (23 May).
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