Posts Tagged ‘lithuania’
Russian opposition leader Yashin calls for Lithuanian support to Magnitsky act
The head of the Solidarity movement, one of opposition leaders Ilya Yashin, maintains he has urged Lithuanian officials and parliamentarians to support the so-called Magnitsky act in Europe.
Yashin described his meetings in Lithuania over the past week in his accounts on Twitter and Facebook on Monday.
“I am having a useful time in Vilnius. Had a meeting with Lithuania’s presidential adviser, foreign vice-minister and a group of parliamentarians. I am persuading them to support the Magnitsky act in Europe and personal sanctions against investigators and judges in the Bolotnoye case (a criminal case on opposition protest rallies on the eve Vladimir Putin’s inauguration as president). We will do our best to bar the defiant bad guys from using their real estate and bank accounts in European countries,” Yashin said on Facebook and Twitter.
Egidijus Vareikis, a member of the Lithuanian parliamentary European Affairs Committee, said the Monday’s meeting with Yashin was informal and, among other matters, addressed the Magnitsky act.
“The meeting was informal, we discussed the political situation in Russia, we had questions, I was a pre-election observer during the presidential elections (in Russia) and said that some in the West deemed it senseless to wait for Russia to become a Western country, as Putin made Russia what he needed it to be. I asked (Yashin) about his opinion on my position, and he agreed that this was what the situation actually was,” Vareikis told BNS on Tuesday.
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MEP who joined Magnitsky group hopes EU draws Russian “black list”
MEP Leonidas Donskis has joined an interparliamentary group, members of which maintain they seek justice for lawyer Sergey Magnitsky who died in a Russian prison in 2009 after revealing a financial fraud scheme of Russian authorities.
Donskis, the first Lithuanian representative in the group, told BNS he expected the European Union (EU) to have enough courage to respond to the case to follow the example set by the United States’ to draw a “black list” of Russian officials.
“The Magnitsky case has bared a sensitive problem one cannot remain indifferent to. We’re talking about a lawyer who chose to stand up to corruption, unveiled horrific facts of corruption and sacrificed his life, which is already obvious,” Donskis told BNS on Wednesday.
He said his joining the group was a demonstration of the position of the European Parliament (EP) and Lithuania.
Set up in Canada in December, the group now includes 16 politicians from 12 countries: Canada, Estonia, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain and Sweden.
Magnitsky died in a Moscow prison in November of 2009. Russian authorities had charged him with tax evasion, however, his colleagues maintain that the case was developed in revenge for his testimony, which said that employees of law-enforcement institutions could be connected with the embezzlement scheme he had exposed.
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Lithuania freezes bank accounts related to Magnitsky case
The Lithuanian authorities have frozen several bank accounts as part of the case of embezzled budget funds, exposed by Hermitage Capital lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who died in the Matrosskaya Tishina prison in 2009.
Prior to his death in a Moscow pre-trial detention center, the Hermitage Capital lawyer claimed that Russian tax officials had stolen $230 million from the company and laundered the funds through various European banks. Russia has refuted the accusations on numerous occasions.
Last summer, Hermitage Capital sent requests to the prosecutor’s offices of six countries to freeze accounts held at banks which are thought to have transferred the embezzled funds in 2008. Hermitage Capital believes that banks in Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Austria, Finland and Cyprus were involved. The Lithuanian Prosecutor General’s Office launched a pretrial investigation the day after receiving Hermitage Capital’s emailed request.
“We have frozen the accounts of all the offshore companies which made transactions through Ukio Bankas. This was done on September 28, when the case was transferred to us from the Prosecutor General’s Office, as the bank is headquartered on our city. The point at issue is a relatively small sum of up to $100,000,” Kaunas Prosecutor Donatas Puzinas told RIA Novosti on Tuesday. He said there are no suspects in the case and that all accounts were managed from Russia and Ukraine, where they were opened at local branches of Ukio Bankas. So far, no Lithuanian nationals are involved in the case.
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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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MEP Donskis: “Sooner or later Russia will start thinking about life without Putin”
On Tuesday, a hearing on Russia was held during the Subcommittee on Human Rights meeting. Several representatives of civil society and human rights defenders from Russia attended the Subcommittee meeting in order to share information about elections, and problems relating to violations of the freedom of association, discrimination and the rule of law.
The European Parliament has adopted more than one resolution concerning Russia which stressed the importance of Russia`s efforts to promote human rights protection, which is important for the development of the EU-Russia relations. Nevertheless, it must be admitted that after the Russian Duma elections and before the upcoming presidential elections the situation in Russia is not improving, as the long-standing problems are not addressed. Furthermore, worrying cases, like that of Sergei Magnitski`s, are not moving forward, and facts brought to light by human rights defenders still frequently remind about the methods used by Russia for the fight against “inconvenient” citizens.
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William Browder speaks to Lithuanian TV about the Magnitsky case
Lyrtas.lt
During a trip to Lithuiania to meet with politicians and journalists, Hermitage Capital CEO, William Browder took time to speak to Lithuanian TV channel about the Sergei Magitsky case.
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