Posts Tagged ‘malkin’
Russian oligarch resigns from parliament after National Post investigation reveals Israeli citizenship, Canadian assets
A Russian oligarch who has maintained high-level influence in Moscow since the close of the Cold War resigned his seat in Russian parliament Tuesday after the National Post revealed he held dual citizenship and had extensive assets in Canada.
Vitaly Malkin tried for almost 20 years to relocate to Canada, investing millions in Toronto, but had been turned away over alleged ties to organized crime. During his failed immigration process he told Canadian officials he had Israeli citizenship and extensive foreign investments.
The Post revealed his past on March 5 and the news ignited a storm of controversy in Moscow because Russian law bars lawmakers from holding dual citizenship and owning undeclared foreign investments.
Mr. Malkin, once listed as one of the world’s wealthiest men, held a seat in the Russian upper house since 2004.
In announcing his resignation from the senate, Mr. Malkin said he has done nothing wrong. He told Russian media he no longer holds Israeli citizenship and was resigning to protect the image of the senate.
“The main accusation is that I was an Israeli citizen in the capacity of the senator,” Mr. Malkin said, according to Itar-Tass, a Russian state news agency. He said he renounced his Israeli citizenship after the rules on holding foreign citizenship changed and before he embarked on another term in senate.
“As far as I understand, I am not an Israeli citizen since August 2007,” he said.
Mr. Malkin said he was the victim of a smear campaign by foreigners motivated by his controversial lobbying in Washington, D.C., this summer against the Magnitsky Act, a U.S. law imposing sanctions against Russian officials involved in the 2009 death of Sergei Magnitsky.
(Mr. Magnitsky was a Russian lawyer who accused government officials of corruption on behalf of American investor Bill Browder, head of Hermitage Capital Management. His death in Russian custody is a source of significant friction between the U.S. and Russia.)
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Russian businessman’s 20-year bid to enter Canada spawned top secret spy agency probes, but never citizenship
One evening last fall in the Parliament Hill office of a Canadian senator, a group of influential Canadians met with a controversial Russian oligarch bearing an intriguing offer: to help reveal the fate of Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat hailed as a hero for saving tens of thousands of Jews during the Holocaust, before he disappeared in Soviet custody.
Two bodyguards stood outside Conservative Senator Linda Frum’s office watching over Vitaly Malkin, founder of a private national bank, once listed as one of the world’s wealthiest people and a member of the Russian senate.
Inside, Mr. Malkin and Ms. Frum were joined by Liberal MP and former justice minister Irwin Cotler, who brought with him Mr. Wallenberg’s niece, Louise von Dardel. Charles Wagner, Mr. Malkin’s Toronto lawyer, and Moshe Ronen, vice-president of the World Jewish Congress, were also there, all of them looking to Mr. Malkin to pry the Wallenberg secret from KGB archives.
Despite a whiff of Hollywood thriller about the after-hours gathering, it likely seemed entirely normal to Mr. Malkin, whose life is writ against a backdrop of international intrigue, precipitous geopolitics, high-level access and massive financial deals.
For 20 years, Mr. Malkin has eyed Canada, applying to live here and seek citizenship, investing millions in Toronto real estate.
Immigration rejection, RCMP probes, secret notations about him with Canada’s spy agency, accusations of organized crime ties, court battles with the government and lawsuits with former business partners have been his reward.
His November visit can be seen as something of a triumph, as it meant overcoming a 19-year ban on entering Canada for alleged involvement in organized crime, an accusation he steadfastly fought as unfair and baseless. Mr. Malkin, never charged with a crime, says he is a victim of Western prejudice against Russia’s business elites, with an assumption that their wealth comes from mobsters or corruption.
However, Mr. Malkin also found that not everything about his past was forgotten when he again crossed the Canadian border.
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Why Russia’s Patriots Love to Buy U.S. Real Estate
Imagine a newspaper exposé about several members of the U.S. Congress who didn’t declare on their tax forms luxury villas on the Iranian Persian Gulf coast. This would be a scandal of Watergate proportions and most likely produce a couple of best-sellers and a made-for-TV movie. Now imagine an analogous situation in Russia. What happens? Almost nothing. There is no scandal, no movie, only a lot of talk on the Internet.
The story began when a group of Russian senators went to the U.S. last summer to persuade their U.S. counterparts to vote against the Magnitsky Act. One of the most vocal opponents of the act was Senator Vitaly Malkin, who said Magnitsky had died in prison from consequences of alcoholism. The senators’ “anti-Magnitsky road show” in Washington raised suspicions that their actions not only were not just political but also that their personal interests might have been threatened by the act’s ban on visas and asset holdings for some Russian officials.
Journalist Andrei Malgin decided to get to the bottom of the mystery. Using just his computer and the Internet, he dug up some very interesting facts. It turned out that Malkin has real estate in North America. Furthermore, since 1994 he has been trying to get a residence permit in Canada, justifying his request by his business interests. In his application, he openly declared that he owns 111 — yes, 111 — apartments in Toronto. The Canadian authorities turned down his request, and Malkin even tried to take them to court. Unfortunately for him, the court refused to hear his suit.
But as Malgin discovered, those aren’t the only properties in the Western Hemisphere belonging to Malkin, who is from far-away Buryatia. Public documents show that Malkin’s company, which has the mysterious name 25 СС ST74B LLC, owns a duplex worth $15.6 million in the Time Warner Center in New York City. Malkin’s lawyers denied that he is the owner, but public documents from a suit the company brought against its construction manager show that Malkin owns the apartment. They also solved the mystery of his company name, which is an abbreviation of the address: 25 Columbus Circle, apartment 74B.
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Why Does the Kremlin Defend the Suspects in the Magnitsky Case?
Many countries have mafias. I’ve reported on gangsters in Colombia, Mexico, and Brazil. I’ve spent time mulling the human landscapes in Sicily and in the United States.
In those countries, if credible, outside investigators produce an exhaustive report alleging the theft of nearly $1 billion in government money and the murders of five people, the governments would respond in two ways.
One: Say, “Thank you very much” and find an honest prosecutor and give the political and financial backing to take the cases to trial.
Two: Say, “Thank you very much” and then quietly do nothing.
Russia is taking a radically new strategy.
Here’s what’s going on:
Over the course of the last two years, investigators with Hermitage Capital have compiled highly detailed reports on the alleged theft of $800 million in Russian tax money and the cover-up murders of five people, including Hermitage lawyer Sergei Magnitsky. The most recent report drills down to the detail of showing receipts for vacations that alleged gang leaders and Russian government accomplices took together in Cyprus and Dubai.
Hermitage recently released a powerful 17-minute video that is now moving minds across the world. Posted on YouTube, it’s called: “The Magnitsky Files: Organized Crime Inside the Russian Government.”
At last count, about 20 parliaments, starting with the United States Congress and the British Parliament, are drawing up legislation to ban visas and freeze assets of suspects in the Magnitsky case.
Facing this international PR disaster, what is Russia doing?
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Senators Bungled Anti-Magnitsky Road Show
Last week, a delegation of Russian senators traveled to Washington to make a last-ditch attempt to derail the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act. By the time they were finished, the trip had turned into a fiasco, highlighting the need for the law they so vehemently oppose.
The Magnitsky act seeks in part to ban entry to the United States and freeze the U.S. assets of the people responsible for the illegal arrest, torture and murder of my former law partner, Sergei Magnitsky. It also seeks to do the same to any Russian government official who abuses his position to attack anti-corruption activists, journalists and people who defend fundamental human freedoms.
The Kremlin is categorically opposed to the Magnitsky act and argues that punishment of corrupt Russian officials must be left to the Russian government. It is adamant in asserting that its criminal justice system works and should be trusted by other nations. To demonstrate why there is no need for the Magnitsky act, the senators said the purpose of the trip to Washington was to present findings of a new and independent Federation Council investigation of the Magnitsky affair.
The timing of the announcement was not coincidental. The Magnitsky act is sailing through hearing after hearing on Capital Hill. There is huge inertia to pass it before the summer recess. Just about the only thing that could derail the act is if the Russians carried out a legitimate investigation and started prosecuting their own corrupt officials.
But the composition of the Russian delegation was disquieting. It was headed by Vitaly Malkin, whose net worth is estimated to be more than $10 million and who was previously named by the Canadian government in court proceedings as “a member of a group engaging in organized or transnational crime.” Malkin has been banned from entering Canada. A politician accused of skimming $48 million off a debt-reduction deal with Angola and who enjoys immunity from prosecution in Russia was probably not the best choice to head a delegation determined to prove that the Russian government is capable of punishing its own corrupt officials.
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U.S., Russia try to reset and retrench relations, but Magnitsky bill threatens process
The visit of a multimillionaire Russian senator to the United States last week was difficult, upbeat and contradictory — the very image of the reset-retrench relationship between the two countries.
Vitaly Malkin was in Washington to confront Congress over the Magnitsky bill, which would put Russians connected with human rights abuses on a blacklist, denying them U.S. visas and freezing their assets.
The bill has infuriated Russian officials, and they speak about it often and with vehemence. “We really don’t want the U.S. Congress to adopt this bill, which has the potential to deteriorate U.S.-Russia relations for years, or even for decades, to come,” Malkin said at a news conference last Wednesday.
But the day before found him at the Open World office at the Library of Congress, posing for a friendly photo with James H. Billington, the librarian of Congress, and discussing his commitment of more than $1 million to the U.S. government-run Open World program. Malkin’s money helps send prospective leaders from his constituency on exchanges to the United States to learn about good governance, rule of law and other highlights of democracy.
While Malkin and three colleagues from the upper house of parliament were in the United States, Russia’s lower house was adopting a law requiring non-governmental organizations that accept foreign money and engage in election monitoring, human rights advocacy and corruption fighting to declare themselves as foreign agents.
Russian activists say the foreign agent law, which the upper house, the Federation Council, is expected to rubber-stamp this week, was pushed along in retaliation for the Magnitsky bill.
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Last-ditch effort backfires on Magnitsky
Russian lawmakers urged Congress last week to reconsider the Magnitsky bill, but so far have gotten the opposite result. If passed, the Magnitsky bill could derail US-Russian relations for years Russian Senators said.
Several members of Russia’s Senate, called the Federation Council, made a rare appearance in Washington, D.C., this past week in a last-ditch effort to convince their American peers to reconsider the controversial Magnitsky Bill—a piece of legislation that Moscow considers to be explicit interference in the internal affairs of the country.
Russia’s Ministry of Foreign affairs has repeatedly warned Washington about the consequences of this legislation. The Magnitsky Bill sanctions a number of the Russian officials that the U.S. Congress has deemed responsible for or are connected to the case.
In 2008, Sergei Magnitsky said that he had uncovered a scheme that top officials from Russia’s Interior Ministry and other agencies had created a plan to defraud the Russian government. Two of the officials turned around and implicated him for tax evasion on behalf of his client, the investment firm Hermitage Capital headed by William Browder, then a longtime cheerleader for President Vladimir Putin.
Magnitsky died after a year in pre-trial detention, during which his health deteriorated dramatically; Russian investigators found he had been beaten while in prison. While the Russian government has stressed that any human rights investigations should be conducted internally, Browder has headed an international investigation of his own and become one of Putin’s fiercest critics.
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Magnistkiy’s mother demands explanations about senators’ US visit
The mother of Hermitage Capital legal consultant Sergey Magnitskiy, who died in pre-trial detention in Moscow, has accused Federation Council members who visited Washington last week of defaming her son.
According to a Hermitage Capital press release received by Interfax on Monday [16 June], Natalya Magnitskaya has written an open letter to Federation Council chairwoman Valentina Matviyenko “demanding an objective assessment of the defamation campaign against the slain lawyer, executed by four Russian senators last week in Washington who were trying to stop the adoption of the Magnitskiy law by US Congress where the bill will be discussed this Wednesday, 18 July, at the Senate finance committee”.
“I believe that this attempt to posthumously besmirch the good name of my son looks shameful and is not worthy of the high title of a people’s representative. Abusing their status, these people permitted themselves to insult the memory of my son. They used the fact that my son is not able to defend himself,” the fund’s press service quoted the text of the letter as saying.
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U.S. Congressmen Unmoved By Russian Visit To Protest Magnitsky Bill
U.S. congressmen appear to be unmoved following the visit of a Russian delegation to Washington this week aimed at protesting pending U.S. sanctions over the death of Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.
Describing the Russian initiative as “too late,” the congressmen told RFE/RL that they expected the legislation to be signed into law. The move would deny visas to dozens of Russian officials implicated in Magnitsky’s death and also freeze any U.S. assets they may hold.
Senator Roger Wicker (Republican-Mississippi) is a member of the U.S. Helsinki Commission, where the Magnitsky legislation was first initiated.
“The reports about this tragedy are not isolated,” he said. “There have been two independent reports inside Russia that indicated this was a violation of Mr. Magnitsky’s rights and an abusive process.
“So it’s going to be very difficult, I think, for one packet of information provided by a group of Russian [lawmakers] to overcome the huge body of information.”
Wicker was one of several U.S. lawmakers who met with Aleksei Chernyshev, Vitaly Malkin, Aleksandr Savenkov, and Valery Shnyakin — all members of Russia’s upper house of parliament, the Federation Council.
The delegation was in the U.S. capital to present the findings of a “preliminary parliamentary investigation” into the case of the deceased lawyer.
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