Posts Tagged ‘reuters’
Russia set to start posthumous trial of whistleblower Magnitsky
Russia prepared to put whistleblowing lawyer Sergei Magnitsky on trial more than three years after his death, with a preliminary hearing set for Monday in a move relatives and rights groups called politically motivated and a travesty of justice.
Magnitsky’s death in a Moscow jail has harmed Russia’s image abroad and badly strained relations with the United States.
His mother and her lawyer said they refused to participate.
“I think it is inhuman to try a dead man,” Magnitsky’s mother Natalya told Reuters by telephone. “This is not a court case but some kind of farce, and I will not take part in it.”
Magnitsky was 37 when he died after 358 days in jail on suspicion of tax evasion and fraud, during which he said he was denied treatment as his health declined. The Kremlin’s own human rights council aired suspicions he was beaten to death.
Russian authorities said he died of a heart attack, but his former employer, investment fund Hermitage Capital, says he was killed because he was investigating a $230 million theft by law enforcement and tax officials through fraudulent tax refunds.
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Russia set to start posthumous trial of whistleblower Magnitsky
Russia prepared to put whistleblowing lawyer Sergei Magnitsky on trial more than three years after his death, with a preliminary hearing set for Monday in a move relatives and rights groups called politically motivated and a travesty of justice.
Magnitsky’s death in a Moscow jail has harmed Russia’s image abroad and badly strained relations with the United States.
His mother and her lawyer said they refused to participate.
“I think it is inhuman to try a dead man,” Magnitsky’s mother Natalya told Reuters by telephone. “This is not a court case but some kind of farce, and I will not take part in it.”
Magnitsky was 37 when he died after 358 days in jail on suspicion of tax evasion and fraud, during which he said he was denied treatment as his health declined. The Kremlin’s own human rights council aired suspicions he was beaten to death.
Russian authorities said he died of a heart attack, but his former employer, investment fund Hermitage Capital, says he was killed because he was investigating a $230 million (145 million pounds) theft by law enforcement and tax officials through fraudulent tax refunds.
Relatives and former colleagues including Hermitage owner William Browder, who also faces trial in absentia, say Magnitsky was investigated and jailed by some of the same mid-level officials he told authorities had defrauded the state.
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Russian tycoons concerned as Magnitsky fallout spreads
Reuters
* Death of anti-corruption lawyer creates intl tensions
* Executives concerned about impact of standoff with U.S.
* Investigations have taken place in 3 European countries
* Swiss and others have been conduits for Russian funds
* Magnitsky case seen adding to negative view of Russia
By Dmitry Zhdannikov and Darya Korsunskaya
DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan 25 (Reuters) – It began with the death of an anti-corruption lawyer in a Moscow jail and grew into a row between Russia and the United States. Now Russia’s business elite are worried their interests could be harmed by fallout from the Magnitsky affair.
With international concern spreading after the 2009 death of Sergei Magnitsky, some Russian tycoons are worried their legitimate cross-border money transfers involving anything from industrial investments to luxury properties will get hit by red tape.
And they complain that the Kremlin’s hard-line stance on Magnitsky is not doing them any favours.
“The Russian business (community) is absolutely united. The situation is more than bad and things may well spread to the EU and UK and God knows who could be sucked in,” said a Russian billionaire, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
The billionaire asked not to be named as he said the Russian business establishment was still afraid of bringing up the matter with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Russian business has tried to stay out of politics since the country’s then richest man Mikhail Khodorkovsky was jailed for tax evasion in the last decade, a move Putin’s critics say was revenge for Khodorkovsky’s political ambitions.
Magnitsky died in a Moscow prison while in pre-trial custody on tax evasion changes.
Authorities said the 37-year-old died of a heart attack, but his former employer, investment fund Hermitage Capital, says he was killed because he was investigating a $230 million theft by mid-ranking interior and tax officials.
The Russian business elite was at first broadly indifferent to the case, but that changed last year when the United States introduced its “Magnitsky Act”, imposing sanctions on dozens of Russians, whom Hermitage and its owner Bill Browder accused of being involved in money laundering and the lawyer’s death.
Russia responded by banning the adoption of Russian children by Americans. And subsequently the fallout from the affair has increased.
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Anti-Putin jibe wins applause at Russian awards ceremony
A prominent Russian cartoonist won loud applause at a usually politics-free awards ceremony when he suggested President Vladimir Putin shared responsibility for the death of an anti-corruption campaigner in a Moscow jail.
Putin’s opponents frequently lambast him during protests and on the Internet, but criticism of the president is rare at mainstream cultural events and in most broadcast media.
Cartoonist Yuri Norshteyn broke that taboo when he took the stage on Saturday and criticized Putin over the jailed lawyer’s death in 2009 that prompted the U.S. Congress to impose sanctions on Russian officials.
Commenting on a previous speaker who had said Russia did not have enough doctors, Norshteyn said: “Immediately, I linked this … with when Putin said Magnitsky died of heart failure.”
“I think he died of a failure of heart on Putin’s part and on the part of the prison boss,” he said.
The comment was a reference to Putin’s statement, at a news conference in December, that Magnitsky had “died not from torture, nobody tortured him, but from a heart attack.” The Kremlin’s own human rights council has said he was probably beaten to death.
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Russian court clears prison official in Magnitsky case
A Moscow court has acquitted the only official charged with the death of whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky. Meanwhile, Russia’s president has signed a bill banning Americans from adopting Russian children.
A court in Moscow on Friday found prison doctor Dmitry Kratov not guilty of negligence causing Magnitsky’s death.
Magnitsky blew the whistle on what he claimed was a scheme in which police investigators had stolen hundreds of millions of dollars from the state through fraudulent tax refunds. He was imprisoned on tax evasion charges.
The lawyer, whose family denounced the result as a sham, died in jail in 2009 after his pancreatitis went untreated.
An investigation by Russia’s Presidential Council on Human Rights had found that Magnitsky was brutally beaten and denied medical treatment. The council accused the government of failing to prosecute those responsible.
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Russian lawmakers back adoption ban in row with U.S.
Russia’s lower house of parliament approved a law banning Americans from adopting Russian children on Friday, in retaliation for U.S. human rights legislation which Vladimir Putin says is poisoning relations.
The State Duma overwhelmingly backed a bill which also outlaws U.S.-funded “non-profit organizations that engage in political activity”, extending what critics say is a clampdown on Putin’s opponents since he returned to the presidency in May.
The law responds to U.S. legislation known as the Magnitsky Act, passed by the U.S. Congress to impose visa bans and asset freezes on Russian officials accused of involvement in the death in custody of anti-corruption lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in 2009.
Washington’s ambassador to Moscow, Michael McFaul, said the Russian bill unfairly “linked the fate of orphaned children to unrelated political issues”.
Putin hinted at a news conference on Thursday that he would sign it into law once the Senate votes on it next week, describing it as an emotional but appropriate response to an unfriendly move by the United States.
“It is a myth that all children who land in American families are happy and surrounded by love,” Olga Batalina, a deputy with Putin’s ruling United Russia party, said in defense of the new measures.
In a pointed echo of the Magnitsky Act, the Russian legislation has become known as the Dima Yakovlev law, after a Russian-born toddler who died after his American adoptive father left him in locked in a sweltering car.
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Latvia to check for bank links with Magnitsky case
Latvia is to investigate whether the country’s banks played any part in an alleged multi-million dollar Russian tax fraud made public by Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer who died in detention in Russia in 2009.
The state prosecutor’s office said on Wednesday it had reversed a decision by police to reject a complaint from British law firm Brown Rudnick alleging Latvian banks were used to launder $19 million.
Prosecutors have checked material linked to the case and sent the complaint back to the police for further investigation as it was rejected without considering the facts presented.
In July, Latvian authorities received a letter from Brown Rudnick, acting on behalf of London-based Hermitage, once the largest foreign investor in Russia and for whom Magnitsky worked, alleging six Latvian banks had been involved in laundering $19 million.
The case stems from whistleblowing by Magnitsky, who died just under a year after being held on tax evasion and fraud charges which, former colleagues said, were fabricated by police investigators he had accused of stealing $230 million from the Russian state through fraudulent tax refunds.
While Magnitsky’s death was officially attributed to an undetected illness, the Kremlin’s own human rights council has said he was probably beaten to death.
U.S. lawmakers have drafted legislation named after Magnitsky that would impose sanctions on Russian officials involved in human rights violations.
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Clinton sees Congress moving on Russia trade measure
The U.S. Congress may move this month to upgrade trade relations with Russia, a key part of the Obama administration’s effort to bolster sometimes strained ties with Moscow and open the Russian market to more U.S. companies, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Saturday.
Clinton, addressing the Asia Pacific Economic Forum (APEC) meeting in Vladivostok, said the Obama administration was working closely with Congress on lifting the 1974 Jackson-Vanik amendment, Cold War-era legislation which has blocked normal trade privileges for Russia.
“To make sure our companies get to compete here in Russia, we are working closely with the United States congress to terminate the application to Jackson-Vanik to Russia and grant Russia permanent normalized trade relations,” Clinton said.
“We hope that the Congress will act on this important piece of legislation this month.”
Congress is under pressure to approve the permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) bill because of Russia’s entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) last month, a move the United States strongly supported.
U.S. business groups hope the House of Representatives and Senate will pass the legislation in September before lawmakers return home to campaign. Businesses worry that without it U.S. firms may not get access to newly opened services markets and be subject to potential arbitrary Russian trade reprisals.
But with concerns in Congress about Moscow’s support for Iran and Syria, as well as its broader human rights record, the timing of a vote remains unclear.
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Romney backs Russia trade bill only with human rights added
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney would support legislation to upgrade U.S. trade relations with Russia only if Congress also passes a measure to go after Russian human rights violators, his campaign said on Thursday.
“Gov. Romney believes that permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) should only be granted to Russia on the condition that the Magnitsky human rights bill be passed,” Lanhee Chen, policy director for the Romney campaign, said in a statement.
Chen was referring to legislation being considered in Congress that would require the U.S. government to impose sanctions on people believed responsible for the death of Sergei Magnitsky, an anti-corruption lawyer who died in a Russian prison, and other human rights violators.
“(Romney) disagrees with the Obama administration’s attempts to scuttle the Magnitsky bill and its overall reluctance to shine a light on human rights abuses in Russia and the Putin government’s backsliding on democratic principles,” Chen said.
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