Posts Tagged ‘browder’
Russia forced Ireland’s hand on Magnitsky case
It is rare the joint Oireachtas committee on foreign affairs and trade hits international headlines but that is just what happened in the last week. The normally sleepy committee made its way into the New York Times , the BBC and Russian media as it waded into a high stakes war being waged ever since Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer, died in a Russian jail after uncovering fraud among state officials.
The episode saw the committee consider and then back away from sanctioning Russian officials involved in the death. It has given a stark insight into the rough workings of Russian diplomacy and has pitted Irish families trying to adopt Russian children against international power politics.
The Oireachtas committee kicked off events when US businessman William Browder appeared before it in February describing what had led to the death of Magnitsky, who worked for his firm, Hermitage Capital.
After uncovering the theft by state officials of $230 million in taxes from the firm and testifying against them, Magnitsky was jailed and died a year later, in 2009. Russia’s own human rights council said he was denied medical treatment and was probably beaten to death. “It is my duty to his memory and his family to make sure that justice is done,” Browder told the committee.
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Moscow Recruits Interpol
The Russian authorities have requested an Interpol Red Notice against William Browder, head of the Hermitage Capital Management investment fund and a key architect of the Magnitsky Act. Author and analyst Alexander Podrabinek notes that Interpol has a history of honoring the Kremlin’s politically motivated requests.
At the end of April, Moscow’s Tverskoy District Court issued an arrest warrant in absentia for British citizen William Browder. The Russian justice system is accusing him and the late Sergei Magnitsky of purchasing Gazprom shares between 1999 and 2004. Browder could only be arrested in absentia because he is not willing to appear in the Tverskoy District Court, rightly believing that “justice” there is nothing but fiction. Sergei Magnitsky is not in the courtroom either. In 2009, he was killed in the Matrosskaya Tishina prison to prevent him from publicly exposing the crimes of a gang of police investigators and tax officials.
According to a statement by the Russian Interior Ministry, Browder “acquired more than 130 million Gazprom shares worth at least 2 billion Rubles at domestic-market prices, which caused large-scale damages to the Russian Federation.” The nature of the crime is unclear. The point is that at the time it was forbidden for foreign investors to buy Gazprom shares on the market. On Browder’s initiative, Russian citizens and Russian legal entities founded dozens of companies, which then purchased Gazprom shares (for the market price) and waited for the day when they would be able to sell them for a higher price on the international market. This is a normal speculation, with its risks and its investments. There is nothing illegal here. Apart from an understandable resentment of someone who bought something cheaply and intends to sell it at a higher price, there is nothing objectionable in these actions. According to the Russian “justice” system, however, this is a crime.
The case does not have any prospects in court. It will be impossible to carry out the sentence. Magnitsky is dead, and Browder is beyond the reach of Russia’s authorities. The fact that a dead man is being tried posthumously makes the trial not only pointless but also immoral. Nevertheless, the regime decided to take this shameful step, and the reason is clear. The international scandal that resulted from Sergei Magnitsky’s death, and US sanctions that followed with regard to those connected with this crime motivate the Kremlin to prove its innocence by accusing the deceased of committing a crime, along with his colleague William Browder.
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Is Russian crime arriving on UK shores?
Russian money has poured into London, but it is feared organised crime is accompanying it. Panorama investigates a death in a Russian prison that has brought the threat of violence to the UK. Could a whistleblower found dead on the streets of Surrey be the latest victim of the Russian crime wars?
When you investigate organised crime in Russia, strange things happen.
We had almost finished filming when one of our team received an email in Russian from a man calling himself “H”. He said he was a hacker and had been approached by an agent of the Russian state to hack into BBC emails. He had apparently decided to warn us instead.
We had been looking into one of the most notorious organised crime cases in Russia – the theft of $220m from the Russian Treasury in 2007.
The case has become an international scandal and London is at its centre because the man who blew the lid on it is a UK citizen living in the capital.
Bill Browder used to manage billions of dollars of investments in Russia through his company Hermitage Capital. But in 2007, the offices of Hermitage and its lawyers were raided by the Russian Interior Ministry.
A few months later, Hermitage discovered that three of its companies had been stolen. The three companies were then used to commit a massive tax fraud in Russia totalling $220m.
Silenced
In Moscow, a legal adviser called Sergei Magnitsky had begun to investigate for Browder, but within months Magnitsky was arrested on suspicion of tax offences.
For nearly a year, Magnitsky was held in pre-trial confinement. During that time he developed pancreatitis, and on 16 November 2009, he died.
The Russian authorities said he died of heart failure, but a report by the Kremlin’s own Human Rights Council concluded he had been denied medical treatment and his right to life had been violated.
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Magnitsky Law Implemented
The United States believes there should not be impunity in Russia for those who violate human rights. In this week/today’s “Policy Brief” segment, we’ll take a closer look:
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On April 19–20, the Joint Baltic American National Committee (JBANC) held its 10th annual conference in Washington DC. The key topics of discussion included the deteriorating political and human rights situation in Russia, and the prospects for EU visa sanctions against Russian human rights abusers modeled on the US Magnitsky Act.
JBANC’s 10th annual conference brought together diplomats; government officials; political, business, and NGO leaders; journalists; and policy analysts from the European Union, the United States, Canada, Russia, and other countries. This year’s keynote speaker was William Browder, CEO of Hermitage Capital Management and former employer of Sergei Magnitsky, the Moscow attorney who was arrested, denied medical care, and died in prison after uncovering a $230 million tax fraud scheme involving Russian officials. Not one of the officials linked to the theft—or to Magnitsky’s unlawful prosecution and death—has been punished; indeed, some have received awards and promotions.
“I realized that it is impossible to achieve justice for Sergei inside of Russia,” Browder said in his remarks to an audience that included Magnitsky’s mother, widow, and youngest son. “So I decided to seek justice outside of Russia.” Over the past three years, the Hermitage CEO has been leading international efforts to get those implicated in the Magnitsky case—as well as other Russian human rights abusers—blacklisted from Western countries. In the United States, the visa ban and asset freeze were effected by the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act, a measure passed and signed into law last year. On April 12, the US government published its first public blacklist under the Magnitsky Act. Browder vowed to continue his efforts to achieve similar sanctions in the European Union, despite persistent threats to his own life and an Interpol arrest warrant issued by the Russian government.
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Moscow Court Issues Warrant for Magnitsky Boss Browder
Russia put Hermitage Capital equity fund head William Browder on an international wanted list after Moscow’s Tverskoi Court issued an arrest warrant for the UK-based businessman on Monday, the Interior Ministry said in a statement on its website.
The Moscow court upheld a request from investigators who said Browder had failed to respond to a summons from investigators.
UK citizen Browder is, however, unlikely to be arrested. Britain has repeatedly rejected extradition requests from Moscow for businessmen in the past.
Browder’s defense said it will appeal his arrest warrant, a RAPSI legal news agency correspondent reported from the courtroom.
Browder, the ex-boss of Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, whose 2009 death in a Moscow jail triggered a furious diplomatic row between Moscow and Washington, was charged in absentia in March with illegally purchasing shares in Russian energy giant Gazprom.
He was charged with buying Gazprom stock at a time when foreign ownership of the world’s largest natural gas producer was restricted. The Interior Ministry said the charges were filed in absentia because no one had responded to the summons served two days before by diplomatic mail.
On Monday, the Interior Ministry said any comments from Hermitage Capital on the case of the Gazprom stock purchases would be interpreted as an attempt to pressure investigators.
“Representatives of the affiliate of Hermitage Capital are not a competent body to interpret the norms of Russian laws, and are not entitled to assess the actions of official bodies of power who are conducting an objective investigation,” the ministry said in a statement.
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Moscow steps up battle against Browder
The Anti-Terrorist Department (Department ‘T’) of the Russian Interior Ministry is trying to arrest the American-born head of Hermitage Capital, William Browder, who has conducted a successful global campaign to sanction those involved with the jailing and death of his lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky.
Browder, left, a U.K. citizen, was named in an arrest warrant in absentia, Hermitage Capital said Monday.
‘Court records indicate that Lt. Colonel A.K. Gubanov of the Department “T” of the Russian Interior Ministry visited the second secretary of the British embassy in Moscow in March 2013 “searching” for Mr. Browder, who lives in London,’ Hermitage said.
The British Home Office rejected prior Russian requests for mutual legal assistance in relation to Browder, Hermitage said.
Browder is behind a global campaign to punish the Russians implicated in Magnitsky’s jailing and death.
The 39-year-old lawyer died in a Moscow prison in 2009 after uncovering a massive tax fraud. There was evidence he was tortured during his year-long detention and denied medical attention.
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Browder Placed on International Wanted List
A Moscow court revealed Wednesday that Bill Browder, head of the Hermitage Capital investment fund, has been placed on an international wanted list in connection with an investigation into the embezzlement of Gazprom shares.
But in an embarrassment to prosecutors, the court refused to issue a warrant for his arrest in absentia, saying they had failed to make a reasonable effort to notify Browder about the court proceedings.
The decision to place Browder on the wanted list, made April 8, was disclosed by the Tverskoi District Court as it started hearings into a request by prosecutors to arrest Browder in absentia.
Under Russian law, a suspect cannot be arrested in absentia unless he is first put on an international wanted list. After an arrest warrant is issued, Russian investigators pass the materials for the case over to Interpol.
But the likelihood of Browder facing actual arrest appears slim. Browder, who heads what was once the biggest foreign investment fund in Russia, is at loggerheads with the Russian government amid his successful campaign to blacklist Russian officials implicated in the death of Hermitage lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in 2009.
The U.S. announced Friday that several of those officials had been banned from entry into the U.S., and several European countries are looking to create blacklists of their own.
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Hermitage Capital chief Browder placed on international wanted list
Investigators have asked the court to issue an arrest order in absentia for Hermitage Capital Management CEO William Browder.
A court in Moscow said that Browder has also been placed on an international wanted list, RAPSI reported. According to Russian law, once a court has sanctioned an arrest, his case is sent to the Russian Interpol division.
Browder has ignored several summonses from Russian authorities.
He has been accused of illegally buying Gazprom stock when foreign ownership of the world’s largest natural gas producer was restricted.
The Interior Ministry’s Investigation Department opened a case against Browder on March 5. The British Embassy in Moscow has been duly notified.
Hermitage Capital dismissed the charges as “absurd” and “hysterical.”
Browder is also on trial in absentia alongside lawyer Sergei Magnitsky on embezzlement charges. Investigators claim that they embezzled hundreds of millions of rubles from the budget by manipulating tax returns between September and October 2007.
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