Posts Tagged ‘telegraph’
Revealed: Ed Miliband’s dinner with George and Amal Clooney
Ed Miliband shared an intimate dinner with George Clooney and his wife Amal, a human rights lawyer, to discuss fresh sanctions on Vladimir Putin’s regime, The Telegraph can disclose.
Mr Miliband is now considering plans to block a ring of Russian judges and tax officials from entering Britain after discussing the proposals at a dinner with the Clooneys at the London mansion of a leading barrister.
The Labour leader was briefed on proposals to implement a “Magnitsky law” over a private meal with the Hollywood actor and his wife, Amal, the human rights lawyer.
Sergei Magnitsky was a Russian accountant who died after months of brutal beatings in prison after blowing the whistle on a vast fraud perpetrated by corrupt state officials against a Guernsey-based investment fund.
Under measures adopted by the United States, 34 police chiefs, judges and tax officials involved in Mr Magnitsky’s prosecution and death are banned from entering the country.
Campaigners now want to see similar measures imposed in Britain, which could be brought into law as an amendment to Theresa May’s Serious Crime Bill. The proposals are backed by a group of Labour and Tory backbench MPs.
Any amendment would have a far greater chance of success with the Labour leader’s support.
Mr Miliband was briefed on the campaign over dinner at the London home of Geoffrey Robertson QC, the human rights barrister who is campaigning for a Magnitsky Law in Britain.
Mrs Clooney is a barrister at Mr Robertson’s chambers, Doughty Street, and has represented clients at the International Criminal Court.
Bill Browder, whose firm Hermitage Capital Management was the victim of the £150 million fraud after being raided by Russian police, explained the details of the case to the Labour leader.
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Judges dismiss wealthy foreigners’ libel cases
Lawyers have proclaimed the “death knell” of libel tourism after High Court judges threw out two cases brought by wealthy foreigners concerning claims published abroad.
London has been named “the libel capital of the world” due to the number of claims brought by foreign nationals complaining about allegations in non-British publications that have been viewed just a handful of times in the UK.
But two rulings have led lawyers to suggest that judges are seeking to curb such a use of the English courts.
One of the libel claims was brought by a Serbian tobacco distributor, Stanko Subotic. He brought the case over allegations published outside the UK and written in Serbian and Montenegrin, which suggested that he was a criminal mastermind linked to murder.
Mr Justice Dingemans threw out the case, describing the two-year libel claim as an “abuse of process”.
Mr Justice Dingemans rejected Mr Subotic’s claim because the articles had been read by very few people in the UK, adding that it “really has nothing to do with his reputation in England and Wales and everything to do with his reputation in the Balkans”.
The judge said that dismissing a libel case as an abuse of process was a “draconian” step used only in exceptional circumstances. However, he said that allowing the case to proceed risked “disproportionate and unnecessary interference with freedom of expression”.
Mr Subotic was attempting to use London’s High Court to sue Ratko Knezevic, a former Montenegrin trade official, over allegations that appeared in five Serbian or Montenegrin-language publications. Hard copies were not officially circulated in England and Wales.
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Libel claim over Magnitsky death struck out
A British hedge fund manager saw a long-running libel action brought by a former Russian Interior Ministry investigator struck out by a High Court judge on Monday.
Hedge fund chief Bill Browder, had been accused by Pavel Karpov, 36, of ruining his reputation by alleging the Russian was behind a massive fraud on the Russian taxpayer.
Mr Browder was also being sued for allegedly linking Mr Karpov to the brutal death of anti-corruption activist Sergei Magnitsky.
But striking out the action, Mr Justice Simon said: “The claimaint cannot establish a reputation within this jurisdiction sufficient to establish a real and substantial tort… his connection with this country is exiguous.”
Russia was “the natural forum” for the litigation, the judgment read.
“Taking all these matters into account…I have concluded that these proceedings should be struck out as abuse of the process and/or under inherent jurisdiction.”
Mr Browder, 49, the chief executive of Hermitage Capital Management, appeared relieved as the decision was announced today.
Mr Karpov had earlier admitted he did not possess adequate funds to pursue the case, leading Browder’s lawyers to suggest the court “cannot be satisfied that the Russian state is not behind the claims in some way”.
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‘Sheriff of Wall Street’ pursues case linked to death of Russian lawyer
Preet Bharara is the new “Sheriff of Wall Street”. The US district attorney for the southern district of New York has taken down 60 insider dealers, including former McKinsey boss Rajat Gupta and Raj Rajaratnam over the Galleon scandal.
Currently, he has SAC Capital in his sights. He’s charged the giant hedge fund itself with allowing insider trading. Not for nothing has he inherited the populist monicker last claimed by Eliot Spitzer during his post-dotcom crackdown on white-collar crime.
Bharara even claims to eat “raw meat” for breakfast. If true, he’ll need it.
His latest target is far from white collar. Bharara is going after the Russian mafia – an organised crime group whose tentacles stretch throughout the state and, apparently, right into the Kremlin. At least two people connected to the crimes he’s pursuing have died in suspicious circumstances.
Last week, Bharara froze $24m (£15m) of property assets in Manhattan and Brooklyn, including “four luxury residential units and two high-end commercial spaces”, on charges of money-laundering. One 35-storey block boasts a pool, roof terrace, Turkish bath and indoor golf.
“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,” he said. “While New York is a world financial capital, it is not a safe haven for criminals seeking to hide their loot.”
If the court upholds the “civil forfeiture” complaint, the government will seize the assets.
Bharara’s case is the latest instalment in the tragic saga of Sergei Magnitsky, the Russian lawyer who uncovered a $230m tax refund fraud against the Russian people in 2007 while working for UK-based hedge fund Hermitage Capital Management.
Magnitsky blew the whistle hard. He named police officers involved in the crime group, identified tax officials who authorised the illegal payments and had begun tracking the money when he was thrown in jail on trumped-up tax-evasion charges in late 2008.
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New York freezes $24m of Magnitsky fraud assets
A New York district prosecutor has frozen more than $20m of Manhattan property assets following allegations they were used to launder money for Russian criminals linked to a $230m fraud uncovered by dead whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky.
Preet Bharara, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, has filed a “civil forfeiture” complaint against nine companies that own $24m (£15m) of real estate, including “four luxury residential units and two high-end commercial spaces”. If the court upholds the complaint, the state would be able to seize the assets.
Mr Bharara said: “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. While New York is a world financial capital, it is not a safe haven for criminals seeking to hide their loot, no matter how and where their fraud took place.”
The court case is a major escalation in the ongoing diplomatic war between Russia and the US over Mr Magnitsky’s death and the fraud he uncovered. The former lawyer’s plight has become symbolic of state-backed corruption in Russia.
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Magnitsky libel case ‘may be backed by the Kremlin’
The Kremlin has been accused of abusing the British justice system to wage a politically motivated campaign against UK hedge fund boss Bill Browder after libel proceedings were launched against the millionaire in the High Court.
Pavel Karpov, an unemployed former Russian police officer, is suing Mr Browder and his UK-based fund Hermitage Capital for saying he was complicit in the “torture and murder” of anti-corruption whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky four years ago.
Mr Karpov strongly denies the allegations, along with suggestions he was involved in fraud and kidnapping, and is seeking to clear his name.
However, in a pre-trial hearing, Antony White QC for Mr Browder demanded the case be thrown out for “abuse of process” as Mr Karpov had “no connection with England and no reputation to protect here”. He added that the case was politically motivated and possibly funded by the Kremlin.
Mr White drew attention to Mr Karpov’s admission that he does not have the means to pay for litigation, which could come to £6m, as well as the “highly political dimension” of the case. Mr Magnitsky has become an anti-corruption martyr in Russia, and Mr Browder’s relentless campaigning a diplomatic headache for President Vladimir Putin.
According to Mr Karpov’s witness statement, the cost of his libel claim is being covered by a loan from Transnational Bank in Russia and backed by a wealthy entrepreneur friend who has agreed “to stand as a personal guarantor”.
Mr White told the court that if the case went to trial, the costs would be “£3m to £4m on our side alone”. Under UK libel law, Mr Karpov can seek up to a maximum of £240,000 in damages. Even if he wins, lawyers said, his damages would be unlikely to cover his costs.
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Russians linked to Sergei Magnitsky case banned from entering UK
The Home Office has barred 60 Russian nationals linked to the Sergei Magnitsky whistleblower case from travelling to the UK.
Mr Magnitsky, a lawyer who worked for London-based hedge fund Hermitage Capital Management, died in a Moscow jail in 2009 after accusing senior Russian police officers of organising a $230m (£153m) fraud in league with tax officials. He died after being beaten and denied medical treatment for pancreatitis.
The Home Office issued the bans after the Commission on Security and Co-operation in Europe published a list of the 60 officials in June last year, Telegraph.co.uk has learned.
The move is likely to prompt retaliation from the Kremlin, which banned American parents from adopting Russian children in reprisal agaisnt the US issuing visa bans and freezing the assets of some of the officials implicated in the case.
The Home Office’s barring of the Russian was contained in a previously unreported Parliamentary response in April to a written question from Dominic Raab.
Mr Raab, the Conservative MP for Esher & Walton, asked the Home Office if any of the 60 Russians had visited the UK in the last year.
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Magnitsky case: Russian authorities ‘brutally silenced’ critics
Russian authorities have been accused of allowing corrupt officials to “plunder” the state while “brutally silencing” their critics in a damning report by the Council of Europe.
Andreas Gross, a Swiss MP and chair of the Socialist Group of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, made the accusations in an official report into death of the campaigning anti-corruption lawyer Sergei Magnitsky four years ago.
The findings, in which Mr Gross claims “high level” state officials orchestrated a “cover up”, will inflame the diplomatic row over Russia’s handling of Mr Magnitsky’s death. The scandal has become a national embarrassment, damaging business investment and trade relations.
The US has already imposed visa bans and frozen the assets of 60 Russians linked to the alleged crime. In response, Moscow has barred US citizens from adopting Russian children.
Mr Magnitsky was working for UK hedge fund Hermitage Capital Management when he uncovered an alleged $230m fraud against the Russian taxpayer. After publicly naming the police involved, the same officers arrested him and threw him in jail on tax evasion charges. He was held for a year, dying after developing pancreatitis, being denied medical attention, and being beaten with “rubber truncheons”.
The Parliamentary Assembly was “appalled that Mr Magnitsky died in pre-trial detention and none of the persons responsible for his death have yet been held to account”, the report said.
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Is Interpol fighting for truth and justice, or helping the villains?
Most of us take an entirely positive view of Interpol, the cross-border crime-busting organisation, even though we have only the haziest view of what it actually does. This is at least partly thanks to the influence of Biggles, hero of schoolboy fiction, who used to go on perilous missions for Interpol to track down international felons. Agatha Christie was another powerful influence. Her Belgian detective Hercule Poirot might have a discrete word with well-placed Interpol friends when he wanted information on some master criminal.
So far, so good. Unfortunately, Interpol is no longer the virtuous force it was. These days it doesn’t just chase villains. It aids and abets them. Its former president, Jackie Selebi, was recently found guilty of taking bribes from a drugs baron.
More worrying by far, there is now overwhelming evidence that Interpol’s channels are happy to assist secret police from some of the world’s most vicious regimes as they target and then persecute internal dissidents. It may once have been the case that it was the sort of organisation that helped honest citizens sleep more soundly at night. But many of the things Interpol has done over the past few years ought to wake us up at night, screaming.
Let us consider the appalling case of Bill Browder, the former chief executive of Hermitage Capital Management, whose colleague Sergei Magnitsky died four years ago in a Russian prison, almost certainly tortured to death on the orders of the FSB state security service.
Ever since then, Mr Browder, a man of courage and high principle, has demanded posthumous justice for Mr Magnitsky. In return the Russian authorities accuse the financier of corporate theft. Earlier this month, the FSB took its latest retaliatory action. It demanded that Interpol issue an “all points bulletin” to help locate Mr Browder – a move which is presumably intended to lead to his arrest and extradition. Any decent organisation would have dismissed this outrageous demand out of hand. Not Interpol, which is expected to decide whether to comply with the Russian request at a meeting today at its Lyon headquarters. There is every chance it will, if precedent is anything to go by.
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