Canada’s Senate Adopts Magnitsky Sanctions Resolution

May 6, 2015

6 May 2015 – The Cana­di­an Sen­ate has adopt­ed the Mag­nit­sky sanc­tions motion and con­demned those involved in the cov­er up of the $230 mil­lion cor­rup­tion exposed by Sergei Magnitsky.

“Join­ing with par­lia­ments around the world, the Senate’s adop­tion of this motion express­es our com­mit­ment to account­abil­i­ty for for­eign nation­als who com­mit the most seri­ous vio­la­tions of human rights,” said Sen­a­tor Andr­ey­chuk, who intro­duced the motion in the Sen­ate of Canada.

The Cana­di­an res­o­lu­tion con­demns the unprece­dent­ed posthu­mous tri­al of Sergei Mag­nit­sky in Rus­sia, and those who have been involved in cov­er­ing up the crimes he exposed. 

The Res­o­lu­tion encour­ages sanc­tions against any for­eign nation­als who were respon­si­ble for the deten­tion, tor­ture or death of Sergei Mag­nit­sky, or who have been involved in cov­er­ing up the crimes he exposed.

Com­pa­ra­ble res­o­lu­tions, motions and acts have been adopt­ed by the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment, the British House of Com­mons, the Dutch Par­lia­ment, the Orga­ni­za­tion for Secu­ri­ty and Coop­er­a­tion in Europe and others.

Sen­a­tor Lin­da Frum, sup­port­ing the Sen­ate motion, said:
“We in Cana­da and oth­er coun­tries where jus­tice and the rule of law pre­vail must always speak up and take action when pos­si­ble against for­eign nation­als who com­mit crimes and vio­late human rights, and then attempt to cov­er them up. Sergei Magnitsky’s courage, which led to his tor­ture and death, should be rec­og­nized and applaud­ed everywhere.” 

The Senate’s Mag­nit­sky Motion fur­ther calls upon the Cana­di­an gov­ern­ment to explore sanc­tions against any for­eign nation­als respon­si­ble for vio­la­tions of inter­na­tion­al­ly rec­og­nized human rights in a for­eign coun­try, when author­i­ties in that coun­try are unable or unwill­ing to con­duct a thor­ough, inde­pen­dent and objec­tive inves­ti­ga­tion of the violations.

A sim­i­lar motion was adopt­ed unan­i­mous­ly by all par­ties in the House of Com­mons on March 25, 2015. 

“The adop­tion in the Cana­di­an par­lia­ment of the Mag­nit­sky motion is a sig­nif­i­cant step for­ward in bring­ing account­abil­i­ty and con­se­quences for the tor­ture and death of Sergei Mag­nit­sky and the glob­al fight against Russ­ian impuni­ty,” said William Brow­der, leader of the Mag­nisky Jus­tice cam­paign and author of best-sell­ing book ‘Red Notice: How I Became Putin’s Num­ber One Ene­my,’ released in nine lan­guages and thir­teen coun­tries (www.billbrowder.com).

For more infor­ma­tion, please contact:

Mag­nit­sky Jus­tice Campaign
+44 2074401777
e‑mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org
web­site: www.lawandorderinrussia.org
Twit­ter: @KatieFisher__

Home of Russian opposition activist and Magnitsky Justice campaigner Natalia Pelevina is raided in Moscow

April 29, 2015

29 April 2015 – The Moscow home of Russ­ian oppo­si­tion activist Natalia Pelev­ina was raid­ed by police oper­a­tives and inves­tiga­tive com­mit­tee detec­tives on April 17 2015. Pelev­ina is an out­spo­ken sup­port­er of the Mag­nit­sky Jus­tice Cam­paign, who worked close­ly with mur­dered oppo­si­tion leader Boris Nemtsov and cur­rent oppo­si­tion leader Mikhail Kasyanov, seek­ing to have more names added to the US Mag­nit­sky list. 

In a raid sim­i­lar to the 2008 arrest of whistle­blow­er lawyer Sergei Mag­nit­sky, Russ­ian offi­cials stormed Pelevina’s apart­ment with a search war­rant signed by Judge Artur Kar­pov, the same judge who refused law­suits from the fam­i­ly of Sergei Mag­nit­sky to appeal the deci­sion not to inves­ti­gate Magnitsky’s murder. 

Accord­ing to Pelev­ina, “my phone was ripped out of my hand and I wasn’t allowed to call my lawyer. [The search] went on for hours, any­thing tech­ni­cal was con­fis­cat­ed along with mon­ey, pass­ports, and papers.”

Natalia Pelev­ina was then tak­en to the Russ­ian Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee for inter­ro­ga­tion, which was led by Major Gen­er­al of Jus­tice Rus­tam Gab­dullin. She was inter­ro­gat­ed for four hours, dur­ing which time she became a sus­pect accused of orga­niz­ing and financ­ing the Bolot­naya street riots of May 2012, under Arti­cle 212, part 1 of the Russ­ian Constitution. 

“Need­less to say none of it is true and I had noth­ing to do with the 6 of May events, and wasn’t even on Bolot­naya that day,” said Pelevina. 

Pelev­ina was due to fly to Wash­ing­ton DC this week, to join mem­bers of US Con­gress and promi­nent Russ­ian activists in a sym­po­sium hon­our­ing the mem­o­ry of Boris Nemtsov, who was gunned down out­side the Krem­lin in Feb­ru­ary this year. Because her pass­port and mon­ey were seized, she is now unable to leave Moscow, and Bill Brow­der, leader of the Mag­nit­sky Jus­tice Cam­paign, will be tak­ing her place on the panel. 

Bill Brow­der will also be tes­ti­fy­ing at a hear­ing on the Glob­al Mag­nit­sky Act at the House Com­mit­tee on For­eign Affairs today. (http://foreignaffairs.house.gov/hearing/subcommittee-hearing-global-magnitsky-human-rights-accountability-act)

“Natalia Pelev­ina is a long time friend of the Mag­nit­sky Jus­tice cam­paign, whose only ‘crime’ was to speak out against the repres­sion and cor­rup­tion of the Putin regime,” said Bill Brow­der. “That she is now being per­se­cut­ed for a crime she did not com­mit, as Sergei Mag­nit­sky was, is clear and sin­is­ter evi­dence that the Putin regime is a police state, intent on stamp­ing out the voic­es of dissidents.”

Judge Artur Kar­pov has a his­to­ry of per­se­cut­ing dis­si­dents. On 28^th Feb­ru­ary 2014 he sanc­tioned the house arrest of Russ­ian oppo­si­tion leader Alex­ei Naval­ny (http://pravo.ru/news/view/102312/), and he also sanc­tioned the 2012 arrests of Bolot­naya square activists (http://bolotnoedelo.info/participants/butchers/652/karpov-artur).

He is the same judge that refused a law­suit from Magnitsky’s moth­er seek­ing to end the posthu­mous pro­ceed­ing against her son in March 2013, and a law­suit from Magnitsky’s col­league, Jami­son Fire­stone in May 2013, seek­ing to com­pel the Russ­ian Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee to inves­ti­gate the tax offi­cials who approved the fraud­u­lent $230 mil­lion tax refund. In 2011 he also refused the law­suit from Magnitsky’s moth­er seek­ing to com­pel the Russ­ian Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee to inves­ti­gate the tor­ture and mur­der of her son.

Sergei Magnitsky’s house was raid­ed by Inte­ri­or Min­istry offi­cials in 2008, after he uncov­ered a $230 mil­lion fraud com­mit­ted by cor­rupt gov­ern­ment offi­cials and tes­ti­fied against those involved. He was arrest­ed dur­ing the raid, tor­tured in pre-tri­al deten­tion for a year in an effort to get him to retract his tes­ti­mo­ny, and was even­tu­al­ly killed in prison in 2009.

For more infor­ma­tion, please contact:

Mag­nit­sky Jus­tice Campaign
+44 2074401777
info@lawandorderinrussia.org
lawandorderinRussia.org

Hermitage Lawyer Dies in Russian Jail

November 17, 2009

A lawyer for invest­ment fund Her­mitage Cap­i­tal Man­age­ment, jailed on tax charges relat­ed to his work for the fund, has died in cus­tody, Iri­na Duduk­i­na, spokes­woman for the Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee of Rus­si­a’s Inte­ri­or Min­istry said Tuesday.

She pro­vid­ed no fur­ther details, say­ing a release would be issued lat­er. Sergei Mag­nit­sky and his col­leagues had accused author­i­ties of deny­ing him nec­es­sary med­ical treat­ment in prison.

Mr. Mag­nit­sky, a 37-year-old part­ner at Moscow firm Fire­stone Dun­can, was jailed near­ly a year ago on charges of tax eva­sion relat­ed to his work for Her­mitage. At a court hear­ing on extend­ing his deten­tion in Sep­tem­ber, he com­plained that he had been denied med­ical treat­ment for weeks for seri­ous stom­ach pan­cre­at­ic ill­ness­es that he had­n’t suf­fered from before his impris­on­ment. He also com­plained of inhu­mane con­di­tions — includ­ing the absence of toi­let, hot water and win­dows — at the Butyrskaya jail where he was then being held.

“They held him for 11 months, ask­ing him to fab­ri­cate tes­ti­mo­ny against Her­mitage,” said Jami­son Fire­stone, man­ag­ing part­ner of Fire­stone Dun­can. “The more he refused, the worse his con­di­tions became.”

If con­vict­ed of tax fraud, Mr. Mag­nit­sky would have faced up to six years in prison. Russ­ian offi­cials have denied pres­sur­ing Mr. Mag­nit­sky for testimony.

Her­mitage, run by U.S.-born investor William Brow­der, denies the tax-eva­sion charges. The fund has accused offi­cials of the Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Min­istry of using doc­u­ments and seals tak­en from Her­mitage dur­ing a 2007 search to steal com­pa­nies used by the fund and apply for $230 mil­lion in fraud­u­lent tax refunds from the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment. The min­istry denies those charges.

Mr. Brow­der was one of the best-known for­eign investors in Rus­sia, with a rep­u­ta­tion for pub­licly cru­sad­ing against waste and mis­man­age­ment at Rus­sia state-con­trolled com­pa­nies. But Russ­ian author­i­ties stripped him of his visa in 2005 on nation­al-secu­ri­ty grounds and he has­n’t been able to return since. The Inte­ri­or Min­istry says he’s been charged with tax eva­sion, alle­ga­tions he denies.

By GREG WHITE, The Wall Street Journal

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