Posts Tagged ‘EU Observer’
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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Pussy Riot: Magnitsky ‘not an isolated case’ in Putin’s jails
Two members of the Russian punk band “Pussy Riot” on Monday (10 February) rubbished President Vladimir Putin’s amnesty law and said prison conditions are still as inhumane as they were for Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian whistleblower who died in jail in 2009.
Speaking at a press conference in Berlin, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina, who spent two years in prison for an anti-Putin punk song performed in a church, thanked all those in Europe who campaigned for their release.
“We are sitting at this table after two years in prison, but there are still people in Russia facing five-six years in prison for the same reasons as us,” 25-year old Alyokhina said through a translator.
Tolokonnikova, who is 24 years old and has a young daughter, rejected the charges and said their song did not incite religious hatred, as ruled by the judge who sentenced them.
“We want religion to be free of political influence such as the corrupt link between Partriarch Kyrill and Putin,” she said, referring to the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Released under a special presidential amnesty just before Christmas last year, the two denounced the move as a mere PR trick by Putin.
“It’s not a real amnesty, it’s a fake – just Putin trying to polish his image. The number who got released is very small,” Alyokhina said.
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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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EU: Magnitsky verdict is ‘disturbing’ sign
EU ObserverThe EU’s foreign service has said Russia’s posthumous conviction of whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky is a “disturbing” sign of lack of rule of law.A Moscow court on Thursday (11 July) found the dead auditor guilty of tax fraud, reading out its verdict to an empty bench.It also sentenced Bill Browder, Magnitsky’s former employer, an investment fund manager based in London, to nine years’ jail in absentia on similar charges.An EU spokeswoman, Maja Kocijancic, told EUobserver: “Magnitsky has been declared a criminal on the basis of unconvincing evidence, while neither the corruption scandal he helped to uncover nor the circumstances of his death have been clarified.”
She added: “This is a revealing illustration of the state of the rule of law in Russia.It also gives a disturbing message to those who fight corruption in Russia.”She noted that the posthumous trial, the first in Russian history, was itself illegal because “the prosecution of a deceased person is not possible under Russian law unless requested by his or her family” for the purpose of rehabilitation.But “the posthumous trial against Mr Magnitsky was initiated by the prosecutor’s office against the will of Mr Magnitsky’s family.”
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Europol joins hunt on EU-Russia money laundering
The EU’s joint police body, Europol, is hunting down Russian mafia money laundered in EU banks.
Its operation was revealed in a report by an investigator in the Strasbourg-based Council of Europe, Swiss MP Andreas Gross, out on Tuesday (25 June).
It says: “On 25 April 2013, a meeting took place at Europol in The Hague to exchange information and co-ordinate the investigation by anti-money-laundering experts of a number of countries concerned by transfers of funds originating in the tax reimbursement fraud denounced by Sergei Magnitsky.”
Gross notes the meeting “should … mark the beginning of a co-ordinated action by the competent authorities to follow the ‘money trail’ wherever it leads.”
He adds: “Russian authorities should be at the forefront of such an action, as it is the money of the Russian people that was stolen.”
The case concerns a fraudulent tax refund, in 2008, of $230 million organised by the so-called “Kluyev group” and the subsequent death of the man who exposed it – Russian accountant Magnitsky.
Europol declined to comment on the revelation, citing house rules on confidentiality.
But EUobserver understands the countries which took part in the April meeting are Bulgaria, Cyprus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Switzerland.
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