Posts Tagged ‘PACE’
Russian Officials Implicated in Death of Sergei Magnitsky Could Face Sanctions
Russian officials implicated in the prosecution and death of corruption whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky could soon face new European sanctions on their travel and financial assets.
U.S. lawmakers overwhelmingly passed the Magnitsky Act in December 2012, which placed visa and asset bans on 18 Russian officials either involved in Magnitsky’s case or accused of human rights abuses.
Magnitsky died in prison in 2009 after uncovering a $230 million tax fraud by Kremlin authorities and was found guilty of tax evasion last year—a posthumous conviction that was widely condemned by human rights advocates.
European governments are now taking steps toward implementing similar sanctions in their own countries.
The Parliamentary Assembly for the Council of Europe (PACE) passed a resolution by a wide margin last week urging Russian officials to fully investigate Magnitsky’s death. It directed member governments to enact “targeted sanctions” if Russia fails to respond adequately.
Immigration authorities in the United Kingdom have also acknowledged those linked to the Magnitsky case in their visa approval instructions.
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Europe Urged To Adopt Russia Sanctions After Brutal Death Of Whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky
European nations could begin imposing tough sanctions on Russia for its failure to investigate the suspicious death of a whistleblowing lawyer, who was exposing official corruption.
The body which advises the Council of Europe has said European nations should adopt “targeted sanctions” against individuals involved in the death of Russian tax lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, unless immediate steps are taken by Russia to investigate his death. Human rights campaigners have greeted the recommendation as a key victory.
Possible sanctions may include more visa bans and the freezing of accounts “if the competent authorities in Russia fail to respond adequately to its demands within a reasonable period of time,” the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE).
The resolution approved on Tuesday, named ‘Refusing impunity for the killers of Sergei Magnitsky’, urged the Russian authorities to fully investigate the circumstances and background of Magnitsky’s death, and the possible criminal responsibility of all officials involved.
PACE does not have the power to enact the sanctions, only recommend that European member states uphold them. Parliamentarians described themselves as “appalled” by Magnitsky’s death in pre-trial detention in Moscow in 2009, and by the fact that none of the persons responsible have yet been punished.
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Political carve-ups
The British Conservatives are managing to sideline themselves and in the process could become embroiled in some political nobbling.
It is easy to mock British Conservatives for their phobias. But their friendships are odd too. In the Council of Europe they are in the oddball European Democrats Group (EDG), along with Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party, the Ukrainian Party of Regions (the party of the Viktor Yanukovych regime), and Turkey’s AK Party. The British Tories cannot link up with their natural and historic allies in the mainstream centre-right parties, because these are Europhiles and therefore unspeakable.
This weakens Britain’s influence in Europe. It also increases Russia’s clout. The Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) may sound like a useless talking-shop, but it elects the body’s president and secretary-general. These positions, both up for election this year, set the tone for the Council’s approach on human rights. As the skies darken, this is ever-more important.
In 2008, Russia nearly succeeded in getting Mikhail Margelov elected as the PACE president. An amiable and eloquent bruiser, he has spearheaded the Kremlin’s counter-attack against its Western critics. He nearly won, because it was the EDG’s turn to have the top job (it rotates between the various groupings) and United Russia had persuaded the Tories to support their candidate.
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PACE Committee urges full investigation of Magnitsky’s death
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe’s (PACE) Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights has urged Russian authorities to fully investigate the circumstances surrounding the death of Hermitage Capital Fund auditor Sergei Magnitsky, PACE announced Wednesday.
The committee approved a report Wednesday entitled, “Refusing impunity for the killers of Sergei Magnitsky.”
PACE announced that Rapporteur Andreas Gross, who prepared the report approved by the Committee Wednesday, said he would propose that the report should be debated by the Plenary Assembly in January 2014.
Measures reminiscent of those enshrined in the controversial US Magnitsky Act were noted in the report’s draft resolutions.
On Dec. 6, 2012, the US Senate approved the Magnitsky Act, to severe criticism from the Russian State Duma, stipulating visa sanctions for Russians who are believed by US authorities to have been involved in human rights violations. The Magnitsky List, which was published in part on April 12, includes the names of 18 Russian officials who are barred from travelling to the United States.
The report stated in a draft resolution: “Regarding the imposition by the United States of targeted sanctions against individuals (visa bans and account freezes, cf. paragraph 11), as well as corresponding European Parliament Resolutions and the above-mentioned law adopted by the Russian State Duma, the Assembly considers these as a means of last resort.”
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European rights body to debate Magnitsky report
The Council of Europe, the Strasbourg-based human rights watchdog, will on Wednesday (4 September) in Paris debate a damning resolution on the Magnitsky affair, with Russian delegates pledging to attack the text.
The resolution, drafted by Swiss centre-left MP Andrea Gross in June, accuses Russian authorities of orchestrating the death in pre-trial detention, of Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian auditor, who exposed a mafia-related scam to embezzle the Russian taxman.
“There is no doubt that some of the causes of Mr Magnitsky’s death were created deliberately, by identifiable persons,” his report says.
It calls for the council’s 47 member states to impose “intelligent sanctions” on Russian officials implicated in his death.
It also urges Moscow to help Europol and financial sleuths from six EU states to investigate the money laundering trail linked to the scam.
Russian MPs on the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) have indicated they will try to water down the text before it is officially adopted, however.
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PACE rapporteur on Magnitsky case very disappointed with today’s judgments
Andreas Gross (Switzerland, SOC), the Rapporteur on “Refusing impunity for the killers of Sergei Magnitsky” for the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), has expressed disappointment at the guilty verdicts pronounced by a Moscow court today.
“Having studied the background of the death of Sergei Magnitsky intensively over the past eight months, I must say that I am very disappointed, though not really surprised by these judgments: they appear to be a continuation of the official cover-up I described in my draft report published in June. I will study the judgments in detail and comment on them in an update to my draft report which will be discussed by the Assembly’s Legal Affairs and Human Rights Committee on 4 September.”
The draft report by Mr Gross on “Refusing impunity for the killers of Sergei Magnitsky” was first discussed at the meeting of the Assembly’s Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights in Strasbourg on 25 June 2013. The committee decided to declassify the draft report and invite further comments. It will be on the agenda of the committee’s next meeting on 4 September 2013 in Paris. срочный займ займы онлайн на карту срочно https://zp-pdl.com/online-payday-loans-in-america.php https://zp-pdl.com/apply-for-payday-loan-online.php быстрые займы онлайн
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Magnitsky affair: Russia has allowed suspected killers of a whistleblowing lawyer to escape with impunity, says damning report
Council of Europe investigation into death of tax specialist who uncovered a $230m fraud against the state rubbishes Russian version of events.
Russia has allowed the suspected killers of a whistleblowing lawyer to escape with impunity and instituted a high-level “cover up” of corruption which the international community must do more to counter, according to a damning report.
A six-month investigation into the death of Sergei Magnitsky by the Council of Europe found that the Moscow authorities had mounted “belated, sluggish and contradictory” investigations into the death of the tax specialist who uncovered a $230m (£149m) fraud against the Russian state.
Mr Magnitsky, who was working for British hedgefund Hermitage Capital Management when he uncovered the fraud in 2008, was arrested by the same tax investigators he had accused and held for a year in Russian prisons before dying from a serious untreated health condition following a beating on the eve of his death.
The 41-page report by a Swiss MP stops short of naming Mr Magnitsky’s alleged killers but in a move which will further heighten diplomatic tensions over the case, it describes that case as “emblematic” of corruption and human rights abuses in Russia and calls on the international community to consider further measures to pressure Moscow into acting on the case.
The United States has already imposed visa restrictions and frozen assets of 60 Russian officials linked to the death of Mr Magnitsky, provoking a retaliatory ban from Moscow on American citizens adopting Russian children.
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Europe may follow U.S. on Magnitsky sanctions
A report prepared on the death of Russian whistle-blowing lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, presented Tuesday to a European body that promotes human rights, severely criticized Russia for failing to hold anyone accountable for his death in pretrial detention.
The report was prepared by Andreas Gross, a member of the Swiss parliament, for the 47 countries making up the Council of Europe and was given to the council’s human rights and legal affairs committee Tuesday. At a news conference in France, Gross said the report would provide material for the council’s Parliamentary Assembly to consider when it debates possible sanctions against Russia at its winter session.
Magnitsky, who died in Moscow in November 2009, accused Russian officials of using documents stolen from the Hermitage Capital investment fund to carry off a $230 million tax fraud. Instead of pursuing the officials, authorities charged Magnitsky with the fraud. Recently, Russia opened a new case against him — in death — and brought charges against Hermitage founder William Browder as well.
Gross, who interviewed numerous witnesses in Russia, told the news conference that high-level officials declined to talk to him. He said the evidence he accumulated, however, persuaded him that Magnitsky was innocent and responsibility lay with “a group of criminals, including the persons he had accused before these persons took him into custody, where he died.”
The report comes six months after the United States passed the Magnitsky law, which places financial and visa sanctions on certain Russian officials. Russia vehemently denounced the U.S. law, and on Tuesday Ilyas Umakhanov, the deputy speaker of Russia’s upper house of parliament, criticized the Gross report. He called it full of “flaws, contradictions and myths.”
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Swiss rapporteur denounces Magnitsky ‘cover-up’
Russian authorities have been accused of covering up the persecution and death of whistle-blower Sergei Magnitsky, who exposed massive tax fraud, in a hard-hitting Council of Europe report by Swiss parliamentarian Andreas Gross.
In the first comprehensive independent report into the case, Gross concluded: “Corrupt officials must not be allowed to plunder State property whilst brutally silencing those standing in their way, with impunity.”
The cover-up surrounding Magnitsky’s death in custody in November 2009 and the crimes he was attempting to expose must be reversed and the true culprits held to account, Gross added.
Elected rapporteur for the case in November 2012, Gross presented the findings of his six-month review of the events linked to the lawyer’s death to the human rights and legal affairs committee of the Council of Europe on Tuesday.
Magnitsky’s former client Bill Browder, who is leading a global campaign for justice for the dead lawyer and who is facing legal action himself in Russia, welcomed the Council of Europe report.
“This report is a detailed and objective analysis which destroys the Russian government’s position on nearly everything they have said about Sergei Magnitsky’s murder on a line-by-line basis,” he told swissinfo.ch.
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