Stop the Untouchables. Justice for Sergei Magnitsky.

Boss of slain Russian whistleblower to Haaretz: Obama administration trying to appease Putin

Haaretz

Ahead of the Russian President’s visit to Israel, the founder of a company that invested in Russia, and was kicked out, says the U.S. is appeasing Putin for the sake of bilateral trade ties.

While President Vladimir Putin will be heading next week to Israel for a short visit that will include unveiling the Second World War Red Army memorial in Netanya, and meeting with Israeli top officials, – in Capitol Hill, businessman Bill Browder will be lobbying hard to convince Congressmen that Russia under Putin’s third presidential term is not a country that deserves “restart” of relations, not to mention what he calls the “appeasement” of Putin’s regime.

Bill Browder, co-founder and CEO of the British Hermitage Capital Management company, invested in Russia only to be pushed out of the country. In 2009, His Moscow lawyer, 37-year-old Sergei Magnitsky, was arrested after he exposed government corruption. While in prison Magnitsky was apparently beaten to death in his cell.

Congress is currently in the process of replacing the Jackson-Vanik amendment, which linked trade relations between the U.S. and the Soviet Union with the USSR’s treatment of its Jewish population, with a new law, named after Sergei Magnitsky. The Magnitsky Act is supposed to deny visas to Russian officials accused of human rights violations, and is being harshly criticized by the Kremlin, which warned that its passage would hurt relations between the two countries and could even lead to possible retaliatory steps.