Posts Tagged ‘Magnitsky’
Interpol Said To Eye New Russian Bid For Browder’s Arrest
Britain-based businessman William Browder says the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) will revisit Russia’s request for his arrest on charges linked to whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky, who died in a Moscow jail five years ago this week.
Interpol informed Browder that it will consider the request during a November 20-21 meeting at the organization’s headquarters in Lyon, France, he told RFE/RL.
Interpol has twice rejected earlier Russian requests for a so-called “red notice” against Browder, citing Russia’s “political” goals in the matter.
Russian prosecutors said in June that Interpol had decided to reconsider Russia’s request.
Interpol could not immediately be reached for comment.
Browder has led a global campaign for sanctions against Russian officials implicated in Magnitsky’s death on November 16, 2009.
A Russian court convicted Browder in absentia and Magnitsky posthumously on tax evasion charges last year, decisions slammed by Western governments and rights groups.
Browder told RFE/RL that the basis for Russia’s new push for an Interpol warrant against him is linked to Magnitsky’s posthumous trial, which he called “one of the most scandalous legal proceedings in legal history.”
“It’s surprising that Russia would have the nerve to use this as a basis to have me arrested, and it’s even more surprising that Interpol would even entertain this discussion,” Browder said.
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U.S. HELSINKI COMMISSION MARKS FIVE-YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF SERGEI MAGNITSKY’S DEATH
November 16 marked the five-year anniversary of the death of Sergei Magnitsky, who was arrested by the Russian government following his investigation into fraud involving Russian tax officials. He died in prison after being held for 11 months without trial.
U.S. Senator Ben Cardin (MD), Chairman of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, issued the following statement:
“It is with sadness and respect that we mark the 5th anniversary of the death of Sergei Magnitsky at the hands of Russian government authorities. During the past five years, the crimes that Sergei first exposed have been further documented. Despite credible evidence of criminal conduct resulting in Mr. Magnitsky’s death, Russian government officials have failed to bring those responsible to justice.
“Perhaps worse, the facts of the case – including misappropriation of Russian tax resources and the ensuing cover-up by Russian government officials – have been distorted, to the extent that the Russian government has posthumously prosecuted the late Mr. Magnitsky for the financial crimes perpetrated by those answerable for his death.
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Death of Hermitage Capital Management Tax Consultant Sergei Magnitsky
When a 37-year old auditor Sergei Magnitsky died in a Moscow prison, the incident generated international media attention. This factbox shows a detailed review of the incident and its subsequent development.
MOSCOW, November 16 (Sputnik) — Five years ago, on November 16, 2009, Sergei Magnitsky, a tax and legal consultant of the Hermitage Capital Management investment fund accused of corporate tax evasion, died at the Matrosskaya Tishina pretrial detention facility.
On November 24, 2008, Sergei Magnitsky, also a managing partner at the auditing company Firestone Duncan, was detained by the Moscow Police’s tax crimes division. The Investigative Committee of the Russian Interior Ministry, now the Investigation Department of the Russian Interior Ministry, charged Magnitsky with corporate tax evasion, while investigating the Hermitage Capital criminal case.
On November 26, Moscow’s Tverskoy District Court issued a warrant for Magnitsky’s arrest.
Hermitage Capital Management, a British investment fund, specializes in Russian market operations. In the early 2000s, the fund invested heavily in the Russian market. Hermitage was among the clients of Firestone Duncan, which provides legal services for taxes, auditing and accounting.
Russian law enforcement agencies charged the fund with failure to pay four billion rubles in taxes. In the summer of 2007, investigators conducted the first searches at the Hermitage Capital office and affiliated companies. The fund’s CEO, Bill Browder, claimed that Hermitage Capital had exposed the corruption fraud of the century in Russia, and that the 5.4 billion rubles paid by the fund had been embezzled by raiders.
Magnitsky was charged with committing crimes listed in Articles 33.3, 33.5 and 199.2 of the Russian Criminal Code (organization of and complicity in large-scale corporate tax evasion schemes by a group of persons by prior collusion).
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Obama Administration Should Enforce Magnitsky Act Properly: US Senator
US Senator Jim Risch, co-sponsor of the Magnitsky Act claims that US President Barack Obama should enforce the Act properly.
WASHINGTON, November 14 (Sputnik) – US President Barack Obama should properly enforce the Magnitsky Act and needs to expand the blacklist of alleged Russian human rights abusers, US Senator Jim Risch, co-sponsor of the Magnitsky Act, has told Sputnik.
“The [Obama] Administration has not made enough progress on the Magnitsky Act. It’s the law of the land, and the Administration should enforce it properly and do much more to review cases and people who should be added to the list,” Risch said.
The administration was criticized by senior US Senators in January for not adding more names to the original list and failing to encourage other countries to impose similar targeted measures.
“They have narrowly applied this law when they should be taking a much broader position on it,” Risch added.
The 2012 Magnitsky Act calls for sanctioning Russian officials allegedly complicit in the 2009 death of whistleblowing lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in a Moscow prison.
The bill is being assessed just ahead of the five-year anniversary of lawyer’s death on November 16.
In response to the Magnitsky Act, Russia issued its own blacklist of US officials linked to human rights violations at the infamous prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. займы онлайн на карту срочно payday loan https://zp-pdl.com/online-payday-loans-in-america.php https://www.zp-pdl.com срочный займ
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U.S. Alleges Further Laundering in Magnitsky-Linked Case
A federal judge on Wednesday granted a request from U.S. prosecutors to file an amended complaint alleging further money laundering by a Russian businessman, as well as a forfeiture order narrowing the assets to be seized in the case.
U.S. District Judge Thomas P. Griesa approved the request at a contentious hearing between prosecutors and lawyers for companies owned by Denis Katsyv, who is accused of laundering some of the proceeds of an alleged $230 million tax fraud in Russia exposed by deceased lawyer Sergei Magnitsky. The amended complaint, prosecutors said, provides additional allegations of money laundering and “significantly narrows” the amount of property the U.S. seeks to forfeit.
“It is necessary to have” the amended complaint and forfeiture order for the case to continue, said Judge Griesa.
The civil forfeiture case brought by the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office in September 2013 alleged that Mr. Katsyv used some of the laundered money to buy real estate in New York. Prosecutors say a portion of the funds traveled through several shell companies into Prevezon Holdings, a Cyprus-based real estate company that laundered the money into its real estate holdings, including those subject to the forfeiture action.
Mr. Katsyv and his company, Prevezon Holdings, deny the allegations, having tried to dismiss the case in March, and through its lawyers they denied the new accusations raised Wednesday.
The amended forfeiture order, prosecutors said, seeks about $14 million in assets, including $10 million in property in New York and about $4 million, in euros, at an account in the Netherlands. The original forfeiture action sought all assets, known and unknown, tied to Mr. Katsyv and his partners; Judge Griesa had told prosecutors to restrain the order after hearing from lawyers for the defendants that unrelated assets in Russia and elsewhere were frozen.
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Kremlin Brutality Reined In by Magnitsky Act
The deadly Ebola epidemic and the growing menace of ISIS militants in the Middle East have swept the crisis in Ukraine off the front pages.
But renewed calls for assistance to the Kiev government of President Petro Poroshenko are sure to be heard when Congress returns for a lame duck session following the November elections.
Many Republican lawmakers are already calling for a Lend-Lease-style form of assistance to Ukraine akin to that which the U.S. provided the United Kingdom and China before America itself entered World War II.
Other members of Congress are expected to call for even tougher sanctions against the Putin regime in Moscow. Rep. Robert Pittenger, R.-N.C., chairman of House Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, has even called for sanctions that “will get Mr. Putin’s colleagues in the Kremlin upset enough to convince him to change his policies, or failing that, to depose him.”
But the sanctions that hit hardest at the Kremlin are already on the books in the U.S. in the form of the Magnitsky Act. Enacted by Congress in 2013 with 84 percent of the votes in the House of Representatives and 92 percent of the Senate, and signed into law by President Obama, the Magnitsky Act specifically targets the assets within and visits to the U.S. by key people in and around the Kremlin.
The reason for imposing these sanctions is the fate of the valiant Russian for whom they are named: Sergei Magnitsky, a tax lawyer in Moscow who concluded in 2008 that the government short-changed a private corporation $5.4 billion rubles (roughly $230 million) that he charged went instead to corrupt officials.
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Russian oligarch’s arrest a warning from Putin, says hedge fund boss
The arrest of one of Russia’s richest men last week was an attempt by President Vladimir Putin to protect himself from a palace coup, according to one of his most vocal critics.
Bill Browder, the hedge fund manager who has become a crusader against Russian corruption, said the arrest of Vladimir Yevtushenkov was intended to send a message to any oligarch plotting moves against Putin, as the value of their assets drops in the wake of western sanctions.
Yevtushenkov was released on Friday, after being put under house arrest for three days on charges of money laundering.
As the richest man to fall into the hands of the Russian justice system since Mikhail Khodorkovsky was arrested in 2003, Yevtushenkov’s detention heightened speculation that the Kremlin wanted to take control of his oil company, Bashneft – one of the few Russian energy companies still in private ownership.
Speaking before Yevtushenkov’s release, Browder said the arrest was “more motivated by paranoia than any demand for a particular asset”, because “Putin and his underlings can always steal these assets in any number of ways”.
“I don’t know if Yevtushenkov did anything more or less irritating to Putin than the other oligarchs. I just think [Putin] randomly picked one out to make sure none of the other oligarchs are going to start challenging him or start planning any palace coups.
“Now that their wealth has been diminished by Putin’s actions, they have a big incentive to act against Putin and he knows that.”
Russia’s main stock market, Micex, has lost 6% of its value since the west tightened economic sanctions against Russia in July over its threat to the sovereignty of Ukraine, and the value of the rouble has fallen to all-time lows against the dollar.
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Former New York Prosecutor Faces Confidentiality Breach Hearing
John Moscow, a prominent former New York prosecutor, faces a hearing this week on whether he breached a prior client’s confidentiality when he began defending companies belonging to a Russian accused of buying Manhattan properties with the proceeds of a $230 million tax fraud.
Mr. Moscow is defending companies owned by Denis Katsyv that prosecutors allege funneled laundered money to buy the properties. Mr. Moscow was previously hired as an outside lawyer for London-based hedge-fund manager William Browder, a witness in the U.S. government case against Mr. Katsyv’s companies.
A New York judge will consider at a hearing Thursday whether Mr. Moscow and his law firm, Baker & Hostetler LLP, have information that will give them an advantage in questioning Mr. Browder.
“Our law firm concluded we had no conflict of interest; and our role as counsel is to insist the government prove its case,” Mark Cymrot, a BakerHostetler partner, told The Wall Street Journal.
The stakes are high, according to Lara Bazelon, visiting professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles and co-chair of an American Bar Association ethics committee.
“If the judge finds that Mr. Moscow relied upon information that he learned as a matter of confidence from a past client, that would be a violation of the duty of confidentiality,” Ms. Bazelon said. “That would be a very strong finding, particularly against someone so high-profile and well-respected.”
Mr. Moscow spent three decades at the New York County District Attorney’s Office, serving as chief of the fraud bureau and deputy chief of the investigations division. He led the investigation of money laundering and fraud at the Bank of Credit and Commerce International in the 1990s.
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U.S. Treasury Sanctions 12 More Russians Under ‘Magnitsky Act’
The U.S. Treasury has announced sanctions against 12 more Russians for alleged human rights abuses, including prison officials who allegedly withheld medical care from a man who uncovered tax fraud in Russia.
The visa bans and sanctions under the so-called “Magnitsky Act” freeze any U.S. assets of individuals accused by Washington in the 2009 prison death of whistle-blowing Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, as well as other as well as other human rights abuses.
The list published on May 20 includes four Russian prison officials, a judge, a court official, a law-enforcement investigator, and alleged co-conspirators in the Russian fraud case.
Those alleged co-conspirators are said to have been involved in a massive tax fraud in Russia that Magnitsky disclosed prior to his death.
Most added to the blacklist are accused by Magnitsky’s supporters of complicity in his arrest and subsequent death while in pretrial detention at a Moscow prison in November 2009.
The judge named on May 20 was involved in the criminal proceedings against Magnitsky.
Russian prison officials on the expanded list include medical personnel who treated Magnitsky in prison.
On the list is Dr. Dmitry Kratov, who was charged with negligence in connection with Magnitsky’s death but was acquitted last December by a Russian court.
The expanded sanctions list does not include a top Russian law-enforcement official that senior U.S. lawmakers had tried to get included.
Proponents of the Magnitsky Act had called for Russian Investigative Committee head Aleksandr Bastrykin to be sanctioned under the 2012 law.
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