Posts Tagged ‘browder’
Death in a Russian prison cell: Britain’s shameful silence
One minute Sergei Magnitsky was investigating tax fraud. The next he was dead. A coincidence? No, the businessman campaigning for the truth tells Jerome Taylor
Two years ago today the body of a father of two from Moscow was found face down in a prison isolation cell where he had languished in squalid conditions for more than 11 months. Every year hundreds of people die inside Russian prisons and most go unreported.
But the death of Sergei Magnitsky, a corporate lawyer hired by a British firm to investigate a multimillion-dollar tax scam, lit a fire that has rallied those seeking to end the culture of corruption and impunity among Russian government officials and has caused diplomatic rifts that have reverberated around the world.
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William Browder speaks to Lithuanian TV about the Magnitsky case
Lyrtas.lt
During a trip to Lithuiania to meet with politicians and journalists, Hermitage Capital CEO, William Browder took time to speak to Lithuanian TV channel about the Sergei Magitsky case.
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Cold war-style blacklists? Wide ripples from Russian lawyer’s death in prison.
Two Russian generals have reportedly called off a US visit after senators asked for a review of their visa requests. A proposed Senate bill would restrict visas for 60 Russians allegedly linked to the case of Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.
Sergei Magnitsky was just one statistic among more than 4,000 people who die each year after being consigned to Russia’s overcrowded and brutality-plagued prison system.
But the story of the dedicated corporate lawyer who died under suspicious circumstances in pretrial custody two years ago, after being arrested by the very police officers he had testified against in a major corruption case, has shocked the world and led to a wave of repercussions that could undo the tenuous “reset” that has thawed US-Russian relations since President Obama took office.
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William Browder on Human Rights in Russia
William Browder: “It’ll have an enormous impact on the human rights situation in Russia, if there are real consequences to the people who violate human rights.”
William Browder is the co-founder and CEO of the investment fund Hermitage Capital Management currently based in London, a former client of the late lawyer Sergei Magnitsky and an initiator of the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act. Interview with Iivi Anna Masso, published in Diplomaatia 96 / August 2011 (also in Estonian).
IAM: You did a great career in Russia as an investor and ended up as a public enemy of the Kremlin. How did your story in Russia begin?
WB: I have a connection with Russia that comes from my family. My grandfather was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the US and he lived in Russia in 1927–1932. My grandmother was Russian and my father was born in Russia.
My teenage rebellion against my Communist family was to become a businessman. I graduated from Stanford Business School in 1989, when the Berlin Wall came down. When trying to figure out what to do with my life, I decided to go to Russia. I thought that with my background, it would be a good idea to do something in the post-Communist world.
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Russian play about judicial corruption comes to the Capitol
The City of Baltimore has recently found itself under the harsh gaze of the Russia Today: in a 500 word piece, shaped by an hour or so of immersion in Baltimore’s one-block red zone, and many hours evidently spent watching “The Wire,” a Russian reporter dutifully described Baltimore as a war zone of economic imbalance. A few days later, Russia Today parroted a Baltimore Sun piece describing Baltimore’s homeless problem.
Now, with a production of One Hour Eighteen Minutes, it looks like Baltimore is ready to return the favor with a ruthless theatrical investigation of Russian judicial corruption.
On November 16, One Hour Eighteen Minutes, directed by Baltimore based Russian director Yury Urnov and supported by the Baltimore-based Center for International Theatre Development, is going to play at the Cannon House Office Building in Washington DC.
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Taking on Russia: A global financier fights back after a lawyer’s suspicious death in prison
IF YOU think you know what the 1 percent is like, then you haven’t met Bill Browder, the founder of Hermitage Capital Management, a multi-billion dollar investment firm. His personal worth is estimated to be around $100 million. His grandfather was the head of the American Communist party, and when Russian markets opened, Browder seemed to return the favor by exporting capitalism there. Hermitage became the largest investment fund in Russia.
But his career took an unexpected turn. He’s now on a different kind of mission – to pass legislation that would deprive human-rights violators of the things they love: legitimacy, travel, Western goods, and taking their kids to Disneyland. It’s a mission that should please the US government, too.
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Alexei Navalny vs. Vladlen Stepanov
Anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny has lost a defamation lawsuit filed by Vladlen Stepanov, whom Navalny had implicated in the death of Hermitage Capital lawyer Sergei Magnitsky. This is very good news — not that Navalny lost, of course, but that the lawsuit publicized some very important information. But let’s first look at what we knew before the lawsuit.
We knew that there was a greenmailer, Hermitage Capital founder William Browder, who had a falling out with the Russian authorities. We know that in June 2007 Interior Ministry officer Artyom Kuznetsov entered Browder’s offices and seized documents and stamps of three of his “shell” firms — Hermitage Capital subsidiaries Makhaon, Parfenion and Riland.
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One Russian Official Who is Proud to Be a Criminal
Looking at this happy-looking fellow right here to the left. Not only is he a highly decorated public servant of the Russian Federation, he loves puppies too (perhaps he was inspired by Paul Krugman’s bizarre cat photos). His name is Vladimir Churov, Chairman of the Central Elections Committee, and apparently he would like you to know that he is “honored” to be included on the “Magnitsky List.”
For those who haven’t followed the case, the Magnitsky list is an item of draft legislation in the United States which proposes visa sanctions on Russian officials who were personally involved in the murder by medical torture of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who was jailed without trial or charges for blowing the whistle on a $230 million tax rebate fraud perpetrated against Bill Browder’s Hermitage Capital Management. Churov believes inclusion on the list is a credit to his “efficiency” as a Russian public servant, and now he claims he’ll be unable to travel to the United States to observe the 2012 presidential elections.
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A Sobering Look Inside Putin’s Russia
Vaclav Havel was stooped and frail last week when he opened his annual Forum 2000 at the glittering Zofin palace beneath Prague Castle. While the voice of the iconic former Czech president is weakened by illness and the burden of 75 years, through these yearly events Havel still speaks truth to power.
Several speakers, most prominently opposition politicians Gregory Yavlinsky and Boris Nemtsov, painted a grim picture of a corrupted Russia groaning under the weight of a tyranny only slightly less cruel than in Soviet times. The 59-year old Yavlinski, whose Yabloko party will participate in December’s parliamentary elections, said Russia has neither rule of law nor property rights. “The judiciary,” he said, “is controlled by the ruling elite and money.”
Nemtsov, a leader of the People’s Freedom Party, said that by orchestrating a return to the presidency, “Putin has decided to be president for life.” He accused the Russian leader “of keeping totalitarianism to protect corruption.” Putin’s friends, he continued are the “crony capitalists” who have plundered state assets and safely deposited that ill-gotten wealth outside of Russia. Nemtsov, a deputy prime minister in 1997-1998, has been arrested three times this year. The Kremlin refuses to register his party, which is thus unable to contest the Duma elections.
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