Stop the Untouchables. Justice for Sergei Magnitsky.

Britain should rise above Russian money and power

Financial Times

By blocking a public inquiry into Litvinenko, the UK plays to the most cynical Putinesque instincts.

Edward Snowden seems like a bright chap. So he will probably have noticed the irony of voicing his complaints about persecution by the US legal system from the confines of Moscow airport. There are few governments in the world that abuse the law, for political purposes, with the ruthlessness and cynicism of Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

The ironies do not stop there. Mr Snowden’s original motivation, as a whistleblower, was to expose over-mighty American spies. Yet Russia is a state that is effectively run by its intelligence services. Mr Putin is a former KGB operative. Spies and their cronies dominate his inner circle. Indeed Russia – which has become Mr Snowden’s temporary protector – is the perfect illustration of his argument that a state in thrall to its intelligence services would be a frightening place.

Over the past fortnight, three different cases have highlighted the country’s dangerous contempt for justice. In each insta

nce, the victims were Russians or former citizens – but the implications are global.

Last week, a Russian court found Sergei Magnitsky guilty of fraud in absentia. In fact, Magnitsky was not merely absent, he was dead – beaten to death in 2009, while in the custody of the Russian police. His real “crime” was to have pursued corruption with too much vigour and then, after his death, to have become an international cause célèbre. America’s “Magnitsky” law bans officials implicated in his killing, from travelling to the US. This act has so angered and alarmed the Russians that they felt it necessary to “prove” that Magnitsky was a criminal by staging a show trial of a dead man.

Alexei Navalny is likely to be the next victim of the Russian system of injustice. Since the Moscow protests of 2011 and 2012, he has emerged as the most charismatic leader of the opposition to Putinism. Witty, brave, internet-savvy, and with a populist and nationalistic streak, Mr Navalny presents a clear political danger to Putinism. The Russian authorities have openly acknowledged that there are political motives behind his trial on ludicrous-sounding charges of embezzlement. This Thursday, he is all-out certain to be convicted – and probably imprisoned, joining other prisoners whose political activities have displeased Mr Putin.

A third miscarriage of justice took place last week, when it was announced in London that the British government is refusing to hold a public inquiry into the death of Alexander Litvinenko, who was poisoned in London in 2006. The UK tried for many years to secure the extradition of Andrei Lugovoi, Litvinenko’s suspected killer, who is now a member of parliament in Moscow. There were tit-for-tat expulsions of Russian and British diplomats.