Posts Tagged ‘RIA Novosti’
New Battle Looms in US-Russian ‘War of Blacklists’
The United States and Russia face a potential renewed blacklist war as a deadline looms this week for Washington to report on controversial sanctions against alleged Russian rights abusers.
The US administration has until Saturday to submit to Congress its inaugural annual report on any additions to the so-called “Magnitsky List” of Russians deemed by Washington to be complicit in human rights abuses and subject to US travel and financial sanctions.
The report is almost certain to irritate Moscow if the blacklist is expanded and could prompt Russia to add to its own list of US officials hit with analogous sanctions after Washington published the names of 18 Russians on the Magnitsky List in April, experts said.
“If the administration comes out with a huge list, which I do not expect, the Russians might react more vigorously,” Steven Pifer, former US ambassador to Ukraine, told RIA Novosti. “But I guess it will be such that the Russians will retaliate by announcing that they’ve added some names to their list.”
The US blacklist is authorized under the Magnitsky Act, a US law designed to punish officials believed to be connected to the 2009 death of whistleblowing Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in a Moscow jail and later broadened to include a range of alleged rights abusers.
The law, signed by President Barack Obama on December 14, 2012, was a central factor in the deterioration of ties between the US and Russia over the past 18 months. Moscow has repeatedly portrayed the law as US meddling in its internal affairs and has responded in part by banning Americans from adopting Russian children.
The Magnitsky Act requires the US State and Treasury Departments to report to Congress within one year of the date of the enactment of law, to clarify the number of individuals who were added to or removed from the blacklist and to explain the decisions.
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Tax Official Cleared in Magnitsky Case
Russian investigators cleared a Moscow tax official off the “Magnitsky list” who was implicated in a $230 million swindle.
The Investigative Committee said it found no evidence that Olga Stepanova was involved in the alleged tax return fraud scheme, Novaya Gazeta newspaper reported Friday.
The committee was also cited as saying it could not question two other tax officials linked to the case. It said earlier they have left the country.
Hermitage Capital lawyer Sergei Magnitsky has claimed that Stepanova authorized an illegal tax return in 2007 that robbed companies linked to Hermitage of 5.4 billion rubles ($230 million).
Magnitsky was himself arrested after the exposé on unrelated tax evasion charges he called fabricated.
He died in custody in 2009 of health problems amid claims that he was denied treatment and subjected to physical abuse.
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US Targets Pricey Real Estate in Magnitsky Fraud Claims
US prosecutors said Tuesday they are seeking to seize expensive New York properties purportedly purchased with funds stolen from Russian coffers in an alleged scam detailed by whistleblowing lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, whose 2009 death in a Russian jail has sparked a diplomatic rift between Washington and Moscow.
“As alleged, a Russian criminal enterprise sought to launder some of its billions in ill-gotten rubles through the purchase of pricey Manhattan real estate,” Preet Bharara, the US District Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said Tuesday in announcing the civil action.
The properties, including four luxury residences and two upscale commercial spaces, were used to launder some of the $230 million in Russian government money that Magnitsky alleged were embezzled in a tax fraud involving Russian law enforcement and tax officials, Bharara’s office claimed in a complaint filed in US federal court Tuesday.
Prosecutors say a Cyprus-based company, Prevezon Holdings, purchased the properties in a complex attempt to obscure the origins of the money and are seeking to seize the real estate and impose fines as part of the so-called “civil forfeiture” complaint filed Tuesday.
According to a report last year by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, an international investigative journalism consortium, Prevezon is owned by Denis Katsyv, son of Pyotr Katsyv, an official who oversees the Moscow Region’s cooperation with the Russian federal government.
Denis Katsyv and his spokesman told the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project that he was the owner of Prevezon but denied that he has any connection “with any transactions related to the alleged frauds behind the Magnitsky matter” and that “neither he nor any members of his family” have benefited from the Magnitsky case.
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Russia Seeks Interpol to Explain Rejection of Warrant Request for Browder
Russia’s Interior Ministry said Saturday that Moscow expects Interpol leadership to explain its decision to turn down its request seeking to locate and arrest Hermitage Capital head William Browder.
On Friday Interpol reiterated that it could not be used by Russian to seek the arrest Browder, who was recently convicted in absentia by a Russian court on charges of fraud and tax evasion. The Interpol General Secretariat dismissed the request citing “a predominantly political nature” of the case against Browder.
“Russian Interior Ministry continues to consider Interpol an organization that makes decision in the framework of international law and its Constitution, and doesn’t apply political decision or value judgments,” the ministry said in its statement on Saturday.
“In this connection, the Interior Ministry expects to receive exhaustive explanations of Interpol General Secretariat’s position,” the statement said.
Browder, who heads what was once the largest portfolio investor in Russia, was banned from Russia in 2005, ostensibly for national security reasons, and now lives in Britain.
Russia’s case against Browder alleged that he ran companies that “took part in the purchase of Gazprom shares in 1999-2004 at domestic-market prices, circumventing a ban on their sale to foreigners.” The court also ruled that he tried to get access to the company’s financial reporting documents and to influence decision-making via the board of directors.
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Interpol Turns Down Russia’s Warrant Request for Browder
Interpol reiterated on Friday that it could not be used by the Russian Federation to seek the arrest of Hermitage Capital equity fund head William Browder, who was recently convicted in absentia by a Russian court on charges of fraud and tax evasion.
Moscow had previously requested Interpol to issue a “blue notice” for Browder, requiring all 190 member states to “collect additional information about a person’s identity, location or activities in relation to a crime,” according to the agency’s website. But the Interpol General Secretariat rejected the request, citing “a predominantly political nature” of the case against Browder.
“Today, Friday, July 26, Interpol received another request from the National Central Bureau of Moscow concerning Mr. Browder, this time seeking to locate and arrest Mr. Browder with a view to his extradition on a charge of ‘qualified swindling’ as defined by the Russian Penal Code,” the Interpol General Secretariat said in a statement on its website.
“Interpol considers this charge to be covered by the previous decision of May 2013. Therefore all information related to this request for Mr. Browder’s arrest has been deleted from Interpol’s databases, and all Interpol member countries have been informed accordingly,” the statement said.
Browder was tried in absentia by a Moscow court in July and was sentenced to nine years in prison and banned from doing business in Russia for three years.
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U.S. Slams Posthumous Magnitsky Conviction
The U.S. on Thursday condemned Russia’s conviction of deceased whistleblowing lawyer Sergei Magnitsky on tax evasion charges, calling the case a “discredit” to efforts to bring the officials he accused of a $230 million tax fraud to justice.
“We are disappointed by the unprecedented posthumous criminal conviction against Sergei Magnitsky,” U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters in Washington. “The trial was a discredit to the effort of those who continue to seek justice in his case.”
A Moscow court on Thursday found Magnitsky guilty of tax evasion, a conviction that came more than three years after he died in disputed circumstances while in pretrial custody. His former boss, Hermitage Capital CEO William Browder, was convicted in absentia of tax evasion and handed a nine-year sentence Thursday.
Prior to his detention and subsequent death in a Moscow jail in November 2009, Magnitsky claimed that a group of law enforcement and tax officials had swindled the federal budget out of $230 million in a phony tax scheme. His supporters claim he was jailed and tortured to death in retribution, allegations that the authorities deny.
“Despite widely publicized credible evidence of criminal conduct resulting in Magnitsky’s death, the authorities have failed to prosecute those responsible,” Psaki said.
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Magnitsky-Linked Official is Suspect in Fraud Case – Report
A former tax inspector included on a draft version of the Magnitsky List of Russian officials banned from the United States for human rights abuses has become a suspect for Russian investigators looking into a huge tax scam, Kommersant newspaper reported Friday.
Olga Tsymai, a former employee of the Federal Tax Service, allegedly signed off on documents provided to her by an unidentified group of people in 2009 and 2010 allowing certain companies to fraudulently claim large tax refunds, Kommersant said, citing investigators.
As a result of Tsymai’s actions, investigators allege that 4.4 billion rubles ($134 million) was paid out in tax refunds to fictitious companies, from where the money was moved to personal bank accounts or transferred abroad.
Tsymai, who later worked for the Defense Ministry, was included on a draft US list of Russian officials implicated in the death of auditor Sergei Magnitsky. The draft was compiled by US Senator Benjamin Cardin, one of the authors of the Magnitsky Act passed by the United States last year that punishes Russian officials accused of human rights abuses.
Magnitsky, who worked for British investment fund Hermitage Capital, was arrested on tax evasion charges in November 2008, days after accusing officials of involvement in a $230 million tax refund fraud, and died at the age of 37 following almost a year in Moscow’s Matrosskaya Tishina pre-trial detention center.
No Russian official has been charged in connection with the allegations of tax fraud leveled by Magnitsky, nor has anyone been held responsible for his death in prison. But against the express wishes of his family, Magnitsky himself is the defendant in an ongoing tax fraud trial, the first such trial of a dead person in Russian or Soviet legal history.
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Interpol Rejects Russia’s Bid for Help in Browder Case
The international police agency Interpol has deleted from its database all information in relation to UK-based investor William Browder, the organization said in a statement on Friday.
Browder, who heads the Hermitage Capital equity fund, is a former boss of deceased lawyer Sergei Magnitsky and a prominent campaigner for justice in his case. Magnitsky’s 2009 death in a Moscow jail triggered a furious diplomatic row between Moscow and Washington.
Russia put Browder on an international wanted list following Moscow’s Tverskoi Court arrest warrant issued last month. On Monday Moscow also requested Interpol to issue a “blue notice” for Browder, requiring all 190 member states to “collect additional information about a person’s identity, location or activities in relation to a crime,” The Telegraph reported.
The issue was considered by the independent Commission for the Control of Interpol’s Files (CCF) on Friday.
“The CCF studied a complaint brought before it by Browder and concluded that the case was of a predominantly political nature and recommended that all information be deleted from Interpol’s databases,” Interpol said in a statement posted on its website.
“Immediately upon receipt of the CCF’s decision, the Interpol General Secretariat followed their recommendation,” the statement reads.
The General Secretariat has informed all member countries about the decision.
The Russian Interior Ministry has so far only requested Interpol to gather information on Browder, not to arrest him, a ministry spokesman told RIA Novosti on Saturday.
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Moscow Court Issues Warrant for Magnitsky Boss Browder
Russia put Hermitage Capital equity fund head William Browder on an international wanted list after Moscow’s Tverskoi Court issued an arrest warrant for the UK-based businessman on Monday, the Interior Ministry said in a statement on its website.
The Moscow court upheld a request from investigators who said Browder had failed to respond to a summons from investigators.
UK citizen Browder is, however, unlikely to be arrested. Britain has repeatedly rejected extradition requests from Moscow for businessmen in the past.
Browder’s defense said it will appeal his arrest warrant, a RAPSI legal news agency correspondent reported from the courtroom.
Browder, the ex-boss of Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, whose 2009 death in a Moscow jail triggered a furious diplomatic row between Moscow and Washington, was charged in absentia in March with illegally purchasing shares in Russian energy giant Gazprom.
He was charged with buying Gazprom stock at a time when foreign ownership of the world’s largest natural gas producer was restricted. The Interior Ministry said the charges were filed in absentia because no one had responded to the summons served two days before by diplomatic mail.
On Monday, the Interior Ministry said any comments from Hermitage Capital on the case of the Gazprom stock purchases would be interpreted as an attempt to pressure investigators.
“Representatives of the affiliate of Hermitage Capital are not a competent body to interpret the norms of Russian laws, and are not entitled to assess the actions of official bodies of power who are conducting an objective investigation,” the ministry said in a statement.
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