Posts Tagged ‘cotler’
Canada can help Ukraine by targeting Russian corruption
As quickly as the Sochi Olympic flame was snuffed, so was the brief respite on politically motivated repression and arrests in Vladimir Putin’s Russia. On Monday, mass arrests of Russian pro-democracy activists began in earnest after eight protesters were sentenced for protesting against the Putin regime in May, 2012. And news is emerging that Russia has put troops on alert in the western military district.
Among those arrested in Moscow were former deputy prime minister Boris Nemtsov, anti-corruption activist Alexey Navalny, members of Pussy Riot – including Canadian landed immigrant Nadezhda Tolokonnikova – and others. The group was protesting outside of a courthouse and then shifted to a nearby square where the police moved in.
Radio France journalist Elena Servettaz witnessed police arresting bystanders whose only mistake was to stop and silently watch the small protest. Activists tweeted on Tuesday that Mr. Nemtsov had been sentenced to 10 days in prison and Mr. Navalny for seven.
What is alarming, is that these new cases were argued in front of the same judge who actively participated in the prolonged detention of Russian whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky, who died in custody in 2009 after being beaten in jail and denied medical treatment. He died in prison of pancreatitis in 2009.
In November, 2012, The United States adopted “Magnitksy” legislation that targets Russian officials who engage in and benefit from corruption and the abuse of human rights in Russia. It bans such individuals from traveling to the U.S. and freezes their U.S.-based assets. A European version of the law has been actively debated in the EU and in January, The Parliamentary Assembly for the Council of Europe recommended the adoption of Magnitsky legislation. In Canada, Liberal MP Irwin Cotler introduced a similar private members bill in 2011.
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Russian businessman’s 20-year bid to enter Canada spawned top secret spy agency probes, but never citizenship
One evening last fall in the Parliament Hill office of a Canadian senator, a group of influential Canadians met with a controversial Russian oligarch bearing an intriguing offer: to help reveal the fate of Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat hailed as a hero for saving tens of thousands of Jews during the Holocaust, before he disappeared in Soviet custody.
Two bodyguards stood outside Conservative Senator Linda Frum’s office watching over Vitaly Malkin, founder of a private national bank, once listed as one of the world’s wealthiest people and a member of the Russian senate.
Inside, Mr. Malkin and Ms. Frum were joined by Liberal MP and former justice minister Irwin Cotler, who brought with him Mr. Wallenberg’s niece, Louise von Dardel. Charles Wagner, Mr. Malkin’s Toronto lawyer, and Moshe Ronen, vice-president of the World Jewish Congress, were also there, all of them looking to Mr. Malkin to pry the Wallenberg secret from KGB archives.
Despite a whiff of Hollywood thriller about the after-hours gathering, it likely seemed entirely normal to Mr. Malkin, whose life is writ against a backdrop of international intrigue, precipitous geopolitics, high-level access and massive financial deals.
For 20 years, Mr. Malkin has eyed Canada, applying to live here and seek citizenship, investing millions in Toronto real estate.
Immigration rejection, RCMP probes, secret notations about him with Canada’s spy agency, accusations of organized crime ties, court battles with the government and lawsuits with former business partners have been his reward.
His November visit can be seen as something of a triumph, as it meant overcoming a 19-year ban on entering Canada for alleged involvement in organized crime, an accusation he steadfastly fought as unfair and baseless. Mr. Malkin, never charged with a crime, says he is a victim of Western prejudice against Russia’s business elites, with an assumption that their wealth comes from mobsters or corruption.
However, Mr. Malkin also found that not everything about his past was forgotten when he again crossed the Canadian border.
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Canada urged to take a stand in U.S.-Russia spat over corruption, adoptions
Ottawa is studying a list of 60 Russian officials who have allegedly gone unpunished over a major corruption and murder case in their home country, and now has to decide whether to ban them from Canada.
The situation places the Canadian government in the middle of a diplomatic spat between the United States and Russia that has grown to engulf the emotional issue of international adoptions. Last month, Washington moved to freeze the assets and deny visas to Russian officials who have been linked to the 2009 death of a tax-lawyer named Sergei Magnitsky. Moscow quickly retaliated, blocking all adoptions in the country involving American couples last week.
Human-rights advocates are now calling on the Harper government to follow in the footsteps of the Obama administration and bring about a form of justice for Mr. Magnitsky. He died in a Russian jail of alleged mistreatment and torture after testifying against officials in a massive tax fraud, in a case that has sparked concerns of a cover-up after no one was held to account for his death.
Liberal MP Irwin Cotler said that Ottawa should either pass legislation that mirrors the American law, or use existing powers to go after the Russian officials by denying them entry into Canada.
“We share the hopes of the Russian people for a country that is governed by the rule of law, that combats the culture of repression, impunity and corruption that the Magnitsky case highlighted,” Mr. Cotler said in an interview on Monday.
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Hitting Russia’s “crooks and abusers” where it hurts — in Canada
“It is only our task to bring democratic change to Russia,” says Russian opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza. “It’s for the democratic opposition. We don’t want or need outside actors to come in and do anything.”
But, says Kara-Murza, there is much that Western democracies such as Canada can do to help Russian democracy by passing legislation in their own countries.
Russia’s political elite routinely plunders the country of billions of dollars. They operate like organized criminals: protecting their own and murderously silencing those who expose them. They rule in the style of Zimbabwe or Belarus, says Kara-Murza, but prefer the West as a safe place to store their money, buy second homes, and send their children to school. And it is in the West where they are most vulnerable.
Kara-Murza was in Ottawa this week to urge Canada to pass a private member’s bill introduced by Liberal Member of Parliament Irwin Cotler. The proposed legislation would render inadmissible to Canada Russians who played a role in a particularly egregious example of Russian state pillage and brutality.
Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer, uncovered a $230 million tax fraud while working for Bill Browder, the American-born co-founder of Hermitage Capital Management. For the crime of exposing this theft and the Russian officials involved, Magnitsky was arrested, beaten, denied medical treatment, and died in police custody without ever facing trial. A Russian prison doctor was charged with negligence. But no senior officials have been punished. Russia isn’t ignoring the matter, though. It’s putting Magnitsky on trial posthumously.
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Investor presses Ottawa to take up case of whistleblower who died in Russian jail
Russian tax lawyer Sergei Magnitsky was working for Bill Browder’s investment company when he uncovered the largest tax fraud in Russian history and exposed the misdeeds of senior functionaries in six ministries.
Mr. Magnitsky was also working for Mr. Browder, the American-born co-founder of Hermitage Capital Management, when he was thrown into a Moscow prison in November, 2008, by those same officials after testifying against them in the tax case.
So when the 37-year-old lawyer was refused treatment in prison for a pancreatic condition, subjected to repeated torture, and, according to his supporters, beaten to death by guards in the fall of 2009, Mr. Browder decided to devote much of his time to publicizing the case and securing justice for the man who had worked doggedly to bring the Russian corruption to light.
His efforts are starting to pay off. Last week, the U.S. Senate passed the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act, which denies visas and freezes the assets of Russians accused of human-rights violations. Now Mr. Browder is asking for a similar response from Canadian authorities.
“The case of Sergei Magnitsky really lays bare the criminality at the top of the Russian government,” he told reporters in Ottawa on Tuesday. “The Russian government has refused to prosecute anybody involved. And so I have spent the last three years looking for other means of justice.”
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Officials may try lawyer posthumously for taxes
Russia may posthumously try for tax evasion Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer who died in prison in 2009 after exposing police corruption, investigators said Tuesday. His former employer, investment firm Hermitage Capital, decried the continued “repression” of the lawyer and accused authorities of “running roughshod over all legal precedent, practice and morality.”
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Nemtsov backs Canadian call for Russia visa blacklist
Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov during a visit to Canada’s parliament on Wednesday backed calls for a Canadian blacklist of 60 Russian officials linked to the death of a young lawyer.
Sergei Magnitsky died of untreated heart condition and pancreatitis in an isolation cell in November 2009.
The 37-year-old lawyer’s death after 11 months in a Moscow jail sparked global outrage and came to symbolize problems in the Russian judicial system.
In September, his mother Natalia Magnitskaya alleged that the death of her son was not caused by negligence but was a premeditated murder brought on by months of torture to keep him silent.
The blacklist proposed by Canadian Liberal MP Irwin Cotler “won’t be against Russia, but against the corrupt system in Russia,” declared Nemtsov. “I believe Canada is friendly with Russia as a country.”
Cotler — Canada’s former justice minister — introduced legislation in October calling for those individuals believed to be responsible for Magnitsky’s death to be barred from Canada.
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Canada Considers ‘Magnitsky List’ Ban
The diplomatic fallout from the prison death of Sergei Magnitsky has spread to Canada, where a bill has been floated to create another “Magnitsky list” of Russian officials barred from entering the country, similar to that already in place in the United States.
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Canadian lawmaker calls for Russia visa blacklist
A Canadian lawmaker on Monday urged the Canadian government to issue a blacklist of Russian officials linked to the death of a young lawyer.
Sergei Magnitsky died of untreated heart condition and pancreatitis in an isolation cell in November 2009.
The 37-year-old lawyer’s death after 11 months in a Moscow jail sparked global outrage and came to symbolize problems in the Russian judicial system.
In September, his mother Natalia Magnitskaya alleged that the death of her son was not caused by negligence but was a premeditated murder brought on by months of torture to keep him silent.
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