Magnitsky’s Widow Asks Swiss Jewellery Company Chopard to Disassociate Itself From Moscow Film Festival That Plans to Screen Anti-Magnitsky Propaganda Film
June 22, 2016
PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate distribution
Magnitsky’s Widow Asks Swiss Jewellery Company Chopard to Disassociate Itself From Moscow Film Festival That Plans to Screen Anti-Magnitsky Propaganda Film
21 June 2016 – The widow of Sergei Magnitsky, the Russian lawyer killed in Russian police custody in 2009, has written to Karl-Friedrich Scheufele, CEO of Chopard, a super luxury Swiss watch and jewellery company, asking for Chopard to reconsider its sponsorship of the Moscow Film Festival which recently added Andrei Nekrasov’s anti-Magnitsky propaganda film to its program on 23-30 June 2016.
“I urge you to not associate your fine brand and reputation of your company with the people who killed my husband and benefited from the serious corruption he had uncovered, and to publicly disassociate with the film festival unless its organizers remove this film from the program. This film has been thoroughly discredited and described as propaganda,” said Sergei Magnitsky‘s widow in her letter to Chopard.
No reply from Chopard has been received.
The anti-Magnitsky film by Russian filmmaker Andrei Nekrasov has been endorsed by senior Russian Government officials, including Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian General Prosecutor Yuri Chaika. The film has been promoted by perpetrators and beneficiaries of the US$230 million fraud that Sergei Magnitsky exposed. These include: Pavel Karpov, the former Russian Interior Ministry officer who had custody of the documents used in the crime; Andrei Pavlov, lawyer for the Russian criminal group who took part in sham court proceedings as part of the fraud; and Denis Katsyv, son of a Russian government official, whose assets have been seized in the US and Switzerland for suspicion of laundering the proceeds of the US$230 million fraud.
“It is surprising that Chopard would associate itself with this sordid spectacle. They should withdraw their funding for this effort. It’s one thing for compromised Russians to posthumously defame a Russian hero who gave his life for his principles. It’s entirely another when this is done relying on sponsorship funds from a reputable Western company like Chopard,” said William Browder, leader of the global Magnitsky Justice movement.
The anti-Magnitsky film by Andrei Nekrasov is one in a series of Russian propaganda and intimidation efforts seeking to fight Magnitsky sanctions and to avoid accountability for the torture and murder of Magnitsky and for the US$230 million theft he had uncovered. Prior to this, there has been a series of four propaganda films produced and aired on Russian federal TV stations in which Browder is portrayed as a CIA agent working to destroy Russia. Other methods have included opening new criminal cases against William Browder, as well as Russian anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny who has been vocally supporting justice for Sergei Magnitsky.
For more information, please contact:
Justice for Sergei Magnitsky
+44 207 440 1777
e-mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org
twitter.com/Billbrowder
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