Posts Tagged ‘the independent’
Death of a Russian supergrass: is it too late for new tests to establish truth of Alexander Perepilichnyy’s death?
Toxicology tests have been ordered by police investigating the sudden death of the Russian supergrass Alexander Perepilichnyy, a wealthy businessman who collapsed outside his luxury Surrey mansion two weeks ago.
The revelation came as the Conservative MP who campaigned for sanctions against Russian officials implicated in the death of Sergei Magnitsky – another whistleblower linked to Mr Perepilichnyy – called on the Home Secretary to ensure that every step was taken to uncover whether “foul play” might have been involved.
Mr Perepilichnyy, a seemingly healthy 44-year-old man, was pronounced dead on 10 November outside his home in St George’s Hill, a private estate on the outskirts of Weybridge which is home to dozens of celebrities, footballers, City financiers and Russian tycoons.
The Independent revealed yesterday that the Russian businessman was helping Swiss investigators uncover a series of accounts used by Moscow tax officials who became exceedingly wealthy following a massive tax fraud. Alongside Mr Magnitsky, who originally exposed the fraud in 2008, Mr Perepilichnyy is the fourth person linked to the case to have died in mysterious circumstances.
Although it is possible that the wealthy businessman might have died from natural causes, there is pressure on Surrey Police and local Coroners to ensure a full investigation is carried out, given the role Mr Perepilichnyy played in helping Swiss prosecutors and the growing concern over the murder of Russians on British soil.
This month is the sixth anniversary of the death of Alexander Litvinenko, a former KGB spy turned political dissident who was poisoned by tea laced with radioactive polonium. Russian banker German Gorbuntsov narrowly avoided death earlier this year when he was shot by a hitman outside his home in London’s Isle of Dogs.
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Swiss prosecutors say death of Russian whistle blower will not derail huge fraud investigation
Alexander Perepilichnyy, a 44-year-old businessman who left Russia three years ago, was found dead outside his luxury mansion on an exclusive private estate in Surrey two weeks ago.
Prosecutors in Switzerland say the sudden death of a Russian whistle blower who was helping them uncover a money laundering network will not derail their investigation.
Alexander Perepilichnyy, a 44-year-old businessman who left Russia three years ago, was found dead outside his luxury mansion on an exclusive private estate in Surrey two weeks ago.
The Independent revealed today that he was helping investigators uncover a network of Swiss bank accounts that were used by Moscow tax officials who became incredibly wealthy in the immediate aftermath of an enormous fraud that cost Russian tax payers £230m.
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A $230 million fraud – and a trail of death that just keeps growing
With its sweeping vistas of the Persian Gulf and central location in the Middle East’s glitziest city, Dubai’s Palm Jumeirah is one of the most exclusive patches of real estate in the world. Created in the shape of a palm tree, the artificial archipelago is home to the cream of a city already bulging with the super wealthy. It’s not the kind of place you might expect a lowly Moscow tax official with a declared family annual income of $38,000 to own a $3 million beach front villa. How could someone with a comparatively low-level civil service job become so wealthy?
That is the question Swiss prosecutors are currently probing as part of a complicated investigation into an alleged Russian money laundering scheme through Swiss bank accounts that began when a whistle blower handed them a damning dossier of evidence at the start of this year. The whistle blower, Alexander Perepilichnyy, died two weeks ago suddenly at the age of 44. But the investigation continues.
The origins of this tale, which sounds like a KGB era thriller but is in fact a depressingly real indictment of modern day Russia, can be traced back to a cold jail cell in Burtyrka Prison in November 2009 where Sergei Magnitsky, a pioneering Moscow lawyer lay dying.
Magnitsky, a charismatic and forensically bright father of two, had been hired by the British based investment fund Hermitage Capital Management to investigate a monumental tax fraud which had been carried out against them. Nine months earlier he pointed the finger of blame at a network of Interior Ministry officials and Russian underworld figures expecting his revelation to be the start of a sustained police investigation into how $230million in Russian taxpayers’ money was squirrelled away in one of Russia’s largest declared frauds.
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Vladimir Putin must find it hilarious that David Cameron won’t back Europe on Russia’s abuses
I’m not sure who will pick up the well-deserved Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the EU, but it should be the High Representative Cathy Ashton, who will be dining this Sunday with the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov. Cathy has more steel in her than Corby and Corus put together (albeit wrapped in a paisley shawl), but this will be tough, as the EU is finally beginning to lose patience with Russia.
Successive European leaders used to fly solo to Moscow and do their own little deals with Vladimir Putin, but Russia’s disgraceful intransigence on Syria, together with the departure of Putin’s mate Silvio Berlusconi and arrival of François Hollande in France, has persuaded them that Europe needs to adopt a more united front. All of this puts Cathy firmly in the driving seat in the run-up to the EU-Russia summit later this year.
Sadly, the fly in the ointment is David Cameron, who is trying to play both ends against the middle. British relations with Moscow have been fraught since the murders in Britain of Alexander Litvinenko and in Russia of the lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who worked for a British firm.
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Russian spy agency linked to dead lawyer
JEROME TAYLOR SATURDAY 14 APRIL 2012
Russia’s spy agency authorised a raid on a British investment firm in Moscow that led to a massive tax scam by allegedly corrupt officials and the death of a lawyer who tried to expose the fraud, new papers show. Sergei Magnitsky, a Moscow-based lawyer, died in November 2009 during pre-trial detention after he was arrested by a group of officials who were being investigated for tax fraud. No one has been imprisoned for his death.
Instead prosecutors have begun a posthumous investigation against Mr Magnitsky and Bill Browder, the British founder of the London-based hedge fund Hermitage Capital, which has campaigned to bring to justice those responsible for the lawyer’s death. Mr Browder said the government’s investigation against him for an alleged 2001 tax evasion, which he denies, has resulted in a series of previously undisclosed criminal case files being released to the public for the first time.
Among the 70 evidence files that have been handed to his lawyers are at least three bundles containing memos from the FSB, Russia’s spy agency. Mr Browder says the files show how the agency’s anti-fraud department – known as Department K – played a key role in beginning the investigation into Hermitage, as a result of which the company became the victim of a $230m tax fraud.
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Russia drops charges against jail doctor over death of anti-corruption lawyer
As relatives of Sergei Magnitsky commemorated what would have been the Russian lawyer’s 40th birthday on Sunday, it emerged that authorities had dropped a negligence case against one of the doctors who treated him in prison.
Mr Magnitsky, a lawyer for the investment fund Hermitage Capital, died in a Russian jail in 2009 after he was accused of perpetrating a fraud he claimed to have uncovered. He died after being refused proper treatment for a pancreas condition. An official report suggested he was beaten before he died. But only two medical staff have been charged with any crimes and the Russian authorities have even begun a posthumous prosecution of Mr Magnitsky.
His lawyers say Larisa Litvinova, the doctor in charge of Mr Magnitsky at the Butyrka prison hospital, refused him basic tests and treatment that could have saved his life. She had been charged with negligence, but the case has been dropped, leaving one other prison doctor as the only person facing charges in the case. “Over two years after he died, not a single person has been prosecuted for torture, murder, or the fraud that he uncovered,” William Browder, the head of Hermitage Capital, said.
Mr Browder is pushing for the US and other countries to adopt the Magnitsky Act, which would impose financial sanctions and deny visas to 60 Russian officials believed to be complicit in the case.
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Diary: Russia to put British whistle-blower on trial… except he’s dead
The Russians are defiantly sticking to their plan to have a trial with an empty dock. There will be two accused. One will be absent because he is a British businessman, banned from Russia from 2005. The other cannot be there, because he is dead. The dead man is Sergei Magnitsky, whose case is now an international cause célèbre. While he was working for Hermitage Capital, an investment fund run by the US-born British businessman, William Browder, he gathered evidence that 60 Russian officials had defrauded Russian taxpayers of £147million.
Other members of his legal team fled Russia after receiving threats, but Magnitsky stayed, was arrested in 2008, and died the following year, aged 37, from the ill treatment he had suffered in prison.
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Putin: a Russian housewife’s dream. . . or a preening, power-obsessed tyrant?
As US President Barack Obama’s ineffectual presidency limps on in hope more than glory, Vladimir Putin’s political power seems unstoppable.
The Russian prime minister is to seek a record third presidential term in “elections” next March, which would see him surge past Stalin’s reign at the helm of the Soviet Union.
Unsurprisingly, the current president, Dmitry Medvedev, described in leaked US cables as playing “Robin to Putin’s Batman”, welcomed his master’s announcement.
But while victory is virtually guaranteed, there has been some dissent at the cosy arrangement with a number of government ministers refusing to go along with the script.
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Lawyer beaten in Moscow jail just hours before he died
An investigation into the death of Sergei Magnitsky in custody has suggested that the 37-year-old lawyer was beaten by eight prison guards with truncheons shortly before he died.
Mr Magnitsky claimed to have uncovered a huge tax fraud involving officials at the Russian Interior Ministry but he was then accused of being involved in the fraud himself. He was arrested in November 2008, and died in a Moscow prison in November 2009.
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