Posts Tagged ‘jerome taylor’
US risks angering Russia by publishing blacklist
Washington risked reopening a diplomatic rift with Moscow following the publication of a blacklist of Russian officials who are banned from the United States because of their alleged involvement in the death in custody of the whistleblowing lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.
Earlier in the day Moscow had warned that any decision to go ahead and release the list could damage relations between the two countries. Washington passed legislation banning the officials in December but had so far put off making the list public until now.
According to the list released last night on the Treasury’s website there are 18 officials who have been named. It was compiled in the wake of the arrest and death in custody of Mr Magnitsky, a father of two and Moscow-based lawyer who helped expose a multi-million dollar tax scam that was allegedly carried out by criminal underworld figures allied with Russian officials and police officers.
Among those included on the blacklist is Pavel Karpov, a former interior ministry police officer who is currently suing William Browder in the UK courts for libel. Mr Browder, a millionaire hedge fund manager and staunch critic of official corruption inside Russia, employed Mr Magnitsky to uncover a $230million tax scam against a series of subsidiaries that were once owned by his company Hermitage capital.
After publicly naming a number of officials Mr Magnistky was arrested for tax evasion and died nine months later in prison. His family, rights groups and Russian’s own human rights investigation body say there was evidence he was beaten in custody and denied vital medication.
Mr Browder has named Mr Karpov as one of the officials behind the scam. However the former detective has vehemently denied any involvement and has launched a libel case against him in the High Court.
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Family of Sergei Magntisky accuse Russian embassy in London of ‘deliberately disseminating false information’
The mother and the widow of Sergei Magntisky, a whistle-blower who died in a Moscow prison cell after months of torture, have accused the Russian embassy in London of “deliberately disseminating false information” by claiming his family wanted his posthumous trial.
The mother and the widow of Sergei Magntisky, a whistle-blower who died in a Moscow prison cell after months of torture, have accused the Russian embassy in London of “deliberately disseminating false information” by claiming his family wanted his posthumous trial.
Mr Magntisky died three years ago after exposing a massive tax fraud carried out by elements of the Russian Interior Ministry and underground criminal networks. But instead of going after the perpetrators of the fraud, Russian prosecutors have taken the unprecedented step of launching a posthumous prosecution of Mr Magnitsky, blaming him for carrying out the scam he uncovered.
After a series of reports in the British press following the latest court hearing in Moscow earlier this month, the Russian Embassy in London put out a statement stating that the trial was going ahead because Mr Magnitksy’s family “insisted on his posthumous rehabilitation”. The statement added: “According to the information available, this is precisely what the mother of Sergei Magnitsky and his advocates insist on.”
But that claim has been angrily denied in a letter to the embassy by Natalia Magnitskaya and his widow Natalia Zharikova which has been seen by The Independent.
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Russia set for posthumous Magnitsky trial
Russia will press ahead tomorrow with its highly unusual posthumous prosecution of a whistleblowing lawyer who revealed how members of the government’s powerful Interior Ministry were part of a gang that stole £230m from Russian taxpayers.
The trial of Sergei Magnitsky, who died in November 2009 after months of neglect and torture in a Russian jail cell, will begin behind closed doors with the chairs of the two defendants left empty. His co-accused – the British hedge-fund manage William Browder – is banned from entering Russia and has refused to take part in what he has described as a “Stalin show trial”.
The case has become a source of international embarrassment for Moscow with America recently banning any officials involved in the arrest and death of Mr Magnitsky from holding assets in the US or travelling there. Moscow responded with a ban on Americans adopting Russian orphans.
Supporters of Mr Magnitsky say he was jailed and killed for daring to expose how a network of Russian officials and criminal underworld figures used complex tax frauds to steal money from the Russian people. Russian prosecutors admit the frauds occurred but after initially blaming a number of low- level crime figures (some of whom were dead before the scams took place) they have since switched to accusing Mr Magnitsky and Mr Browder of carrying out the crimes they say they uncovered.
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Exclusive: Briton who took on Sergei Magnitsky network faces libel case in UK
A former Moscow police officer is suing a British businessman who exposed how a network of corrupt officials and shadowy criminal underworld figures were behind the largest tax fraud in Russian history.
Lieutenant Colonel Pavel Karpov has launched libel and defamation proceedings in the High Court against William Browder, a millionaire hedge-fund magnate who has campaigned against corruption within the Russian government after his lawyer Sergei Magnitsky was tortured and died in police custody.
The 35-year-old officer, who was until recently a Moscow and Interior Ministry investigator, is one of more than 60 Russian officials who Mr Browder has publicly accused of being behind a scam that led to the theft of $230million from the Russian tax payer. Mr Browder has also accused him of being among a group of police officers who arranged for the arrest and torture of Mr Magnitsky when he uncovered the scam and went public with his allegations.
If the case ends up in the High Court, it will shed a spotlight on a scandal that has become a source of major international embarrassment to the Kremlin because of the mounting evidence that prominent officials within the Interior Ministry, tax offices and the judiciary aided the scam.
Mr Karpov insists he had nothing to do with the fraud or the subsequent cover up – or the arrest, torture and death of Mr M. In court documents obtained by The Independent Lawyers from Olswang, the major London law-firm which represents the former detective, say the allegations made by Mr Browder have caused “serious hurt, embarrassment and distress.”
They insist that while Mr Browder’s quest to pursue those who killed Mr Magnitsky might be legitimate, his campaign has wrongfully made false and highly defamatory claims against their client including that he is complicit in fraud, torture, kidnapping and murder.
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Lithuanian prosecutors open investigation into multi-million dollar tax fraud by Russian organised crime group
Prosecutors in Lithuania have opened an investigation into a multi-million dollar tax fraud carried out by a Russian organised crime group which used the Baltic nation’s banks to launder some of their money.
Lithuania is now the fourth European nation to investigate how millions were stolen from Russian tax-payers in a highly complex scam that involved criminal networks aided by corrupt members of the Russian state and judiciary. Switzerland, Latvia and Cyprus have also begun similar investigations.
The money trail links back to the so-called “Magnitsky case”, a $230 million tax fraud that has become a major source of international embarrassment for the Kremlin because of mounting evidence that prominent officials within the Interior Ministry, tax offices and the judiciary aided the scam.
Sergei Magnitsky, the Moscow based lawyer who uncovered the fraud at the behest of a British hedge fund, died in prison in November 2009 nine months after he was arrested by the same officials he had accused of being behind the heist.
The scandal has led to increasing friction between Russia and the West with the United States recently approving legislation banning a number of officials linked to the scam from entering America or holding assets there. Moscow was infuriated by the moves and responded with a ban on American couples adopting Russian babies.
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Magnitsky affair row grows as Russia threatens to reveal banned US officials
Russia has threatened to unveil a list of American officials who are banned for alleged human rights abuses in the latest in a tit-for-tat row between the two powers.
Moscow is furious that American legislators approved a new law which forbids any Russian officials known to be involved in corruption or criminality of travelling to the United States or holding assets there.
The law, which was passed on Thursday night, is named after Sergei Magnitsky, a Moscow based lawyer who was hired by the British investment fund Hermitage Capital to investigate a multimillion-pound scam and died in prison after he was arrested by the same Russian officials he had accused of being behind the scam.
Alexei Pushkov, one of Russia’s top foreign policy officials, said yesterday that Russia already had a list of US citizens implicated in human rights abuses of Russian citizens banned from entering Russia. Up to now, this list has been secret rather than official policy, in response to the American informal visa ban for those on the “Magnitsky list”. Now that the Magnitsky Act is official policy, however, Russia could well respond in kind.
The passage of an American banned list is a victory for Hermitage’s CEO, William Browder, who has lobbied extensively in the United States, Canada and Europe for such legislation.
“In a world where partisan politics can be so divisive, the moral outrage over what happened to Sergei Magnitsky has caused everybody in Washington to lay down their arms and do something truly historic to honour his sacrifice,” he told The Independent yesterday. “The obvious next step is to implement the same kind of ban across Europe and the UK.”
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US starts a new ‘cold war’ over Magnitsky affair: Furious Russia vows to list Americans blocked from entering country, after US votes to name and shame corrupt officials
The Independent. Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs described ‘biased approach’ as ‘nothing but a vindictive desire to counter Russia in world affairs’
SHAUN WALKER, JEROME TAYLOR MOSCOW FRIDAY 07 DECEMBER 2012
One of Russia’s top foreign policy officials responded furiously and promised that Russia would indeed answer with its own list of Americans to be banned from entry to Russia.
“The reciprocal list will be fairly significant, if we name those behind Guantanamo, Abu-Ghraib, and the CIA secret jails, Mikhail Margelov, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of Russia’s Federation Council.
“The list will include those who have violated human rights [in the Middle East], and that would be according to global opinion, and not just the opinion of this Mr Browder, who some experts feel is simply using the Magnitsky List as a diversion.”
However, according to a poll by the Levada Centre, an independent Russian polling agency, 39 percent of Russians who had heard about the Magnitsky Act approved of it, rising to 45% among Muscovites.
Yesterday the US Senate voted to name and shame Russian officials involved in corruption and to forbid them from travelling to America or investing there.
The overwhelming vote in favour of the new law prompted a furious response from Moscow – as well as demands from two former British Foreign Secretaries, Sir Malcolm Rifkind and David Miliband, for a similar ban to be introduced by the UK.
The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs hit back, describing the “biased approach” as “nothing but a vindictive desire to counter Russia in world affairs”.
The Ministry published a series of furious remarks on its official Twitter feed: “It is perplexing and preposterous to hear human rights complaints from the US, where torture and kidnapping are legal in the 21st century. Apparently, Washington has forgotten what year this is and still thinks the Cold War is going on.
“The US decision to impose visa and financial sanctions on certain Russian citizens is like something out of the theatre of the absurd. Obviously, US passage of the ‘Magnitsky Law’ will adversely affect the prospects of bilateral cooperation.”
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Russian whistleblower Alexander Perepilichnyy was warned his name was on gang hit list
Alexander Perepilichnyy, the businessman who died suddenly outside his Surrey mansion two weeks ago, was warned that his name had been found on a hit list after police in Moscow broke up a criminal gang, The Independent can reveal.
An acquaintance of the 44-year-old Russian said Mr Perepilichnyy had first received the warning in November 2011 from a family member who had been briefed by a police official. According to the acquaintance, the family member was told that his name was one of many on a list that also contained detailed dossiers on some of the targets.
“It was like an order book,” the source told The Independent. “His name was in it.”
After negotiating with the police, the family member was able to view the file. “It was detailed although it contained errors,” the source added. “It had information like the houses he had lived in but it was a year or so out of date.”
Because the details were incorrect, the source said, Mr Perepilichnyy was not overly troubled and he did not speak of any further threats to his safety before his death. Surrey Police today said they had had no previous contact with Mr Perepilichnyy and had no reason to believe he was concerned for his safety.
The new revelations came as a Moscow based lawyer claimed today that the Russian exile wanted to make peace with the group of officials he had accused of being behind a Swiss money laundering scheme in the run up to his death.
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Death of a Russian supergrass: is it too late for new tests to establish truth of Alexander Perepilichnyy’s death?
Toxicology tests have been ordered by police investigating the sudden death of the Russian supergrass Alexander Perepilichnyy, a wealthy businessman who collapsed outside his luxury Surrey mansion two weeks ago.
The revelation came as the Conservative MP who campaigned for sanctions against Russian officials implicated in the death of Sergei Magnitsky – another whistleblower linked to Mr Perepilichnyy – called on the Home Secretary to ensure that every step was taken to uncover whether “foul play” might have been involved.
Mr Perepilichnyy, a seemingly healthy 44-year-old man, was pronounced dead on 10 November outside his home in St George’s Hill, a private estate on the outskirts of Weybridge which is home to dozens of celebrities, footballers, City financiers and Russian tycoons.
The Independent revealed yesterday that the Russian businessman was helping Swiss investigators uncover a series of accounts used by Moscow tax officials who became exceedingly wealthy following a massive tax fraud. Alongside Mr Magnitsky, who originally exposed the fraud in 2008, Mr Perepilichnyy is the fourth person linked to the case to have died in mysterious circumstances.
Although it is possible that the wealthy businessman might have died from natural causes, there is pressure on Surrey Police and local Coroners to ensure a full investigation is carried out, given the role Mr Perepilichnyy played in helping Swiss prosecutors and the growing concern over the murder of Russians on British soil.
This month is the sixth anniversary of the death of Alexander Litvinenko, a former KGB spy turned political dissident who was poisoned by tea laced with radioactive polonium. Russian banker German Gorbuntsov narrowly avoided death earlier this year when he was shot by a hitman outside his home in London’s Isle of Dogs.
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