Posts Tagged ‘clinton’
Moscow Martyr
When David Cameron arrives in Moscow this month for the first visit by a British prime minister since the Litvinenko murder five years ago, both sides will be keen to downplay the issue of human rights. In his talks with President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin, there will doubtless be echoes of Margaret Thatcher’s remark when she first met Mikhail Gorbachev in 1984: “We can do business together.”
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US visa ban on Russian officials poses questions for EU
The US has quietly imposed a visa ban on senior Russian officials believed to have played a part in the murder of lawyer Sergey Magnitsky, posing questions about EU handling of the affair.
A state department memo confirms that most or all of the 60 officials implicated in the Magnitsky conspiracy have been red-flagged in the Consular Lookout and Support System (CLASS), a database used to grant or refuse visas.
The non-public memo, dated 22 July, says: “[US secretary of state Hilary] Clinton has applied existing laws and authorities to implement the visa limitations on multiple individuals associated with the wrongful death of Sergey Magnitsky.” It adds: “Individuals included on the list … are already flagged in the visa adjudication (known as CLASS) system used by visa officers.”
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U.S. gets serious on Russian mega-corruption case
One of Russia’s most notorious scandals, the death in prison of hedge fund lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, is taking on an international political dimension. The United States has become the first country to impose a visa ban on Russian officials accused of complicity in the affair, which threatens to sour U.S.-Russia relations. But Russia’s conspicuous failure to investigate this crucial case means the West is right to act.
No case better illustrates the pervasive nature of Russian corruption — and the Kremlin’s woeful failure to tackle it. A lawyer for London-based Hermitage Capital, managed by the well-known investor William Browder, Magnitsky was arrested after he had accused Russian officials of involvement in a $230 million tax fraud. His subsequent death in prison naturally caused a global stink. But the subsequent cover-up was even more shocking and revealing. Russia’s inability to pursue the real culprits seems to indicate that its entire law enforcement system is rotten to the core.
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U.S. puts Russian officials on visa blacklist
The U.S. State Department has quietly put Russian officials connected to the death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky on a visa blacklist as Moscow threatens to curtail cooperation on Iran, North Korea, Libya and the transit of supplies for Afghanistan if the Senate passes a measure imposing even tougher sanctions for human rights abuses.
The Russian government has grown ever more infuriated by a series of international reprimands over the case of the 37-year-old lawyer who died a painful death in pretrial detention, and it has complained that other countries are interfering in its domestic affairs.
The European Parliament, Canada and the Netherlands are moving toward their own visa bans for a list of 60 Russians involved in the case. The United States, however, is the first to have an active blacklist for the Russians, although senior U.S. officials say it has fewer than 60 names.
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Khodorkovsky verdict sheds light on justice system
Russians begin to take notice as oil tycoon is again found guilty. Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the jailed oil tycoon turned liberal martyr, was found guilty today of a second set of charges in a trial held up as a symbol of Russia’s compromised justice system.
The guilty verdict was widely expected but nonetheless provoked harsh condemnation from Russia’s marginalized opposition, international observers and Khodorkovsky’s family.
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Crime and unjust punishment in Russia
The Lancet
Tom Parfitt
A year after the controversial death in a Moscow detention centre of Sergei Magnitsky—a 37-year-old lawyer who was denied vital medical treatment—Russia is promising an overhaul of its antiquated prison system. But will the reforms bring real change to health-care provision?
It was 1830 h on November 16, 2009, when Sergei Magnitsky was transferred to the Matrosskaya Tishina detention centre in Moscow. The 37-year-old lawyer had been healthy when he was arrested a year earlier on fraud charges that colleagues said were trumped-up in revenge for his work for Hermitage, an international investment fund that passed evidence about corrupt officials to Russian media. Yet within 4 hours of arriving at Matrosskaya Tishina (Sailors’ Rest), Magnitsky was dead.
In the past year the Magnitsky Affair, as it is known in Russia, has become emblematic of the country’s woeful human rights record and its—sometimes wilful—neglect of the sick in prison. 6 weeks after Magnitsky was found lifeless in his cell, the public oversight commission (ONK) for Moscow’s pretrial detention centres published a scathing report describing the events that led up to his death.
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Justice for Sergei
National Post
November 16, 2010 marked the first anniversary of the tragic death in detention of Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who uncovered the largest tax fraud in Russian history and paid for it with his life. While his story is one of great moral courage and heroism, his saga shines a spotlight on the pervasive culture of corruption and impunity implicating senior government officials in Russia today.
Working as a tax attorney for Hermitage Capital Management in Moscow, an international investment fund founded by CEO William Browder, Magnitksy blew the whistle on widespread Russian government corruption, involving officials from six senior Russian ministries. The officials he testified against arrested and detained him, beginning a nightmare in which he was thrown into a prison cell without bail or trial, and systematically tortured for one year in an attempt to force him to retract his testimony.
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