Posts Tagged ‘Hermitage’
Bill Browder: ‘It’s insane to do business in Russia’
Russia is a “terrible, terrible place to do business”, according to Bill Browder of Hermitage Capital, once the country’s largest portfolio investor.
He was speaking as the British prime minister met Russian leaders in an effort to improve relations.
Much of Mr Browder’s concern relates to lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who was imprisoned as a healthy man without trial in November 2008, then died in jail a year later, aged 37.
A report by President Dmitry Medvedev’s human rights council concluded that there was reasonable suspicion that Mr Magnitsky’s death was triggered by beatings while in police custody.
Mr Magnitsky had claimed to have unearthed evidence that implicated the police, officials and bankers in a massive fraud, which used Hermitage as a vehicle.
In July Russian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation into his death. микрозаймы онлайн займы на карту без отказа https://zp-pdl.com/get-a-next-business-day-payday-loan.php https://zp-pdl.com/online-payday-loans-cash-advances.php займ на карту срочно без отказа
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PM Pursues Litvinenko Murder on Moscow Visit
David Cameron has insisted that Britain will not give up on bringing the killer of ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko to justice, as he kicked off his visit to Russia.
But the Prime Minister said the two governments had to end the “tit-for-tat culture” and work together despite festering tensions over the dissident’s murder.
It is the first visit by a British leader since the murder of Mr Litvinenko in London in 2006.
The poisoning of the Kremlin critic caused relations between the two countries to hit a post-Cold War low.
The wider aim of David Cameron’s visit is to increase trade and improve his relationship with the country’s president, Dmitry Medvedev, and Prime Minister Putin.
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Kremlin Sees No Reset in Historic Cameron Visit
A top Kremlin aide cautioned on Sunday that no “reset” looms in long-troubled relations with Britain, hours before Prime Minister David Cameron was to arrive in Moscow for the first visit by a British leader in six years.
Cameron is leading a delegation including Foreign Secretary William Hague and BP chief executive Bob Dudley to talks with President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin that he hopes will boost economic ties and perhaps mend some fences.
Relations have been strained since the polonium poisoning death of former KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko in London in November 2006 and the Russian government refused to extradite Britain’s prime suspect, State Duma Deputy Andrei Lugovoi.
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Cameron meeting Putin is a ‘historical mistake’, says exiled Russian tycoon
Boris Berezovsky urges David Cameron to raise human rights abuses with Putin, especially those against businessmen.
Exiled Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky has warned David Cameron that his decision to meet Vladimir Putin is a “historical mistake” that will lead to more bloodshed inside the country.
Russian dissidents and exiles are urging the prime minister to raise Russia’s disastrous human rights record in his talks with the country’s leadership. Cameron is due to hold a day of talks in Russia on Monday, accompanied by two dozen British businessmen, as the two countries seek to revive a relationship all but frozen in the wake of the London killing of the Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko.
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Russia warns Cameron to ‘get over’ the Litvinenko poisoning
The Kremlin has told David Cameron to abandon Britain’s “ideological obsessions” over the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, the dissident spy, if he wants relations with Russia to improve.
Sergei Lavrov, the Foreign Minister, issued the thinly veiled warning as Mr Cameron prepared to fly to Moscow today for the first visit by a British Prime Minister since Mr Litvinenko was poisoned with radioactive polonium-210 in London almost five years ago.
Mr Lavrov made clear that the Kremlin expected him to abandon the stance of the previous Labour Government, which imposed sanctions after Russia refused to extradite Andrei Lugovoy, the former KGB officer accused of killing Mr Litvinenko in November 2006. Mr Lugovoy, now a member of Russia’s parliament, has denied any involvement in the crime.
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Scam Patrol: Following Moscow’s Money
Russian law enforcement jumped into action after we highlighted the sudden wealth enjoyed by some Moscow tax officials last spring. Their bureaus had handled a $230 million tax scam that victimized the hedge-fund firm Hermitage Capital and led to the 2009 prison death of Hermitage’s whistle-blowing lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky (“Crime and Punishment in Putin’s Russia,” Barron’s, April 18).
Prosecutors and police say they are reopening their criminal investigation…of Magnitsky, two years after the young lawyer died in the custody of the very officials he accused of participating in the tax scam. In pressing their case against the dead man, the cops have summoned Magnitsky’s elderly mother for interrogation. And they’ve vowed to ignore the findings of a human-rights council appointed by President Dmitry Medvedev, which concluded that Magnitsky had been framed by his arresting officers and beaten to death in jail.
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Jamison Firestone, “We reject the option, where we do not demand that the people who killed Magnitsky go to prison”
(Translated from Original Russian)
Hermitage Capital’s lawyers demand a criminal case against the former head of the Moscow Tax Inspectorate № 28 of Olga Stepanova. Jamison Firestone (Firestone Dunken), colleague Magnitsky, answered questions from RFI.
RFI: Jamison, good morning. Attorneys «Hermitage Capital» call to investigate a new crime of tax official’s Olga Stepanova. Sergei Magnitsky has helped uncover a crime, was arrested and died. Are not you afraid that history may repeat itself?
Jamison Firestone: Of course, we’re afraid of this. But there is a problem: there is a group of people who systematically stole huge amounts of money – nearly $ 400 million – from the budget, and to hide it, they killed a man. And we just categorically reject the option where we do not require that the people who killed Sergei go to prison. So, of course, it is frightening work; But on the other hand, people killed a man, a man whom Russia should recognize as a hero, and these people should be held responsible for his murder. And in order for them to answer for this, we continue to work.
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Hermitage Capital: Tax Officials Stole $33M
Hermitage Capital Management on Thursday released a new exposé about officials implicated in the death of its lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, accusing them of siphoning off 1 billion rubles ($33 million) of state money through illegal tax refunds.
The complaint, filed with the Investigative Committee, says a Moscow district tax inspection office, headed at the time by Olga Stepanova, authorized the refunds in seven tranches to a small company called TekhProm in 2007 and 2008.
This is the same tax inspection office that Magnitsky accused of separately embezzling 5.4 billion rubles in a similar scheme in 2006 and 2007.
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After Magnitsky, Prison Doctors Ordered to Check Inmates
Chastened by the Kremlin and the international community after the death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, the Justice Ministry has ordered prison doctors to check the health of prisoners being punished with solitary confinement.
The decree outlines the procedures for the medical check, which is already required under the law. Human rights activists warned that little would change in prisons as a result, saying prison doctors are dependent on prison wardens, who, in turn, are biased in their treatment of prisoners.
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