UK Foreign Secretary William Hague Weighs In On the Magnitsky Case Prior to Official Russia Visit

September 27, 2010

Pri­or to his first offi­cial vis­it to Rus­sia this Octo­ber, For­eign Sec­re­tary William Hague stepped up the inter­na­tion­al pres­sure on Rus­sia to get jus­tice for Sergei Mag­nit­sky, the mur­dered anti-cor­rup­tion lawyer for UK-based invest­ment firm, Her­mitage Capital. 

On Novem­ber 16, 2009, 37-year old Sergei Mag­nit­sky died in police cus­tody after being tor­tured for his tes­ti­mo­ny about the involve­ment of police offi­cials in the largest tax fraud in Russ­ian his­to­ry. Short­ly after his death, Pres­i­dent Medvedev called for an inves­ti­ga­tion, but ten months lat­er no one has been charged and a num­ber of police offi­cers involved have been promoted.

In response to the lack of progress in the Russ­ian inves­ti­ga­tion of Magnitsky’s death in Russ­ian police cus­tody men­tioned in a let­ter from David Davis MP, the For­eign Sec­re­tary William Hague wrote: 

“The launch of an inves­ti­ga­tion into the death in cus­tody of Mr Mag­nit­sky was a wel­come step. How­ev­er, it is impor­tant that this inves­ti­ga­tion should be thor­ough and trans­par­ent if it is to address both human rights con­cerns and the effect of this case on investor con­fi­dence”.

He con­tin­ued: “Mr Brow­der [CEO of Her­mitage Cap­i­tal Man­age­ment] and his team have been in reg­u­lar con­tact with For­eign and Com­mon­wealth Office offi­cials and we have fol­lowed close­ly the case of Mr Mag­nit­sky and wider issues relat­ing to Mr Browder’s company.”

In a speech giv­en ear­li­er this month, William Hague stat­ed that as For­eign Sec­re­tary he intend­ed to “improve and strength­en [Britain’s] human rights work”.

The inter­ven­tion from Sec­re­tary Hague fol­lows a series of rep­re­sen­ta­tions by the British Gov­ern­ment to their Russ­ian coun­ter­parts over the intim­i­da­tion of Her­mitage, its exec­u­tives and lawyers who blew the whis­tle on the mas­sive Russ­ian cor­rup­tion with involve­ment of Russ­ian police and intel­li­gence ser­vices. Imme­di­ate­ly after Mr Magnitsky’s death, UK Prime Min­is­ter Gor­don Brown expressed his deep con­cern and insist­ed on a full inves­ti­ga­tion. Gor­don Brown stressed that the case of per­se­cu­tion of Her­mitage exec­u­tives and lawyers and the unlaw­ful arrest of Sergei Mag­nit­sky was brought up for­mal­ly by then For­eign Sec­re­tary David Miliband, sev­er­al days before Magnitsky’s death in cus­tody, with Russ­ian For­eign Affairs Min­is­ter Sergei Lavrov and First Deputy Prime Min­is­ter of Rus­sia Igor Shuvalov. 

For­eign Sec­re­tary Hague also com­ment­ed on the pos­si­bil­i­ty of exclud­ing from the UK the Russ­ian offi­cials involved in Magnitsky’s per­se­cu­tion and murder.

Sec­re­tary Hague wrote: “Mr Brow­der was also advised that the Home Sec­re­tary may exclude an indi­vid­ual from com­ing to the UK where she con­sid­ers that the individual’s pres­ence would not be con­ducive to the pub­lic good…This pow­er may be exer­cised even where an indi­vid­ual has not applied to come here. The Home Sec­re­tary would need to be sat­is­fied that exclu­sion was both pro­por­tion­ate and jus­ti­fied in the light of clear, cred­i­ble evidence.”

“These indi­vid­u­als… would need to obtain a visa to vis­it the UK and such an appli­ca­tion could, in prin­ci­ple, be refused if the Entry Clear­ance Offi­cer were sat­is­fied that their pres­ence in the UK would not be con­ducive to the pub­lic good, for exam­ple because of char­ac­ter, con­duct or associations.”

This lat­est com­mu­ni­ca­tion from the UK For­eign Sec­re­tary fur­ther strength­ens the world­wide cam­paign for jus­tice for Sergei Mag­nit­sky which now spans ini­tia­tives of imple­ment­ing visa and bank­ing sanc­tions against the offi­cials impli­cat­ed in Magnitsky’s death. This month, lead­ing Russ­ian civ­il soci­ety activists sent a for­mal appeal to the gov­ern­ments of the US and EU mem­ber states urg­ing to enact per­ma­nent visa ban against the 60 Russ­ian offi­cials on the Cardin List. Among those who signed and sup­port­ed the appeal are Lud­mi­la Alex­ee­va, Chair of the Moscow Helsin­ki Group; Sergei Kovalev, Chair of Memo­r­i­al human rights group; Lev Pono­marev, Direc­tor of For Human Rights group; Alex­ei Simonov, Pres­i­dent of Glas­nost foundation.

Ear­li­er this year, Ben­jamin Cardin, US Sen­a­tor and Chair­man of the US Helsin­ki Com­mis­sion empow­ered to mon­i­tor human rights in accor­dance with OSCE Helsin­ki Accords, urged the US Sec­re­tary of State to intro­duce per­ma­nent trav­el sanc­tions and visa bans on the 60 Russ­ian offi­cials impli­cat­ed in the US$230 mil­lion cor­rup­tion uncov­ered by Sergei Mag­nit­sky, and his repres­sive arrest, tor­ture and death in custody. 

The 60 Russ­ian offi­cials were also put on WorldCheck’s inter­na­tion­al bank­ing blacklist.

In addi­tion to the British For­eign Sec­re­tary, the US Sec­re­tary of State Hillary Clin­ton recent­ly pub­licly demand­ed from Russ­ian author­i­ties that “jus­tice be deliv­ered” in Mag­nit­sky case. 

The Pres­i­dent of the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment Jerzy Buzek raised the Mag­nit­sky case in June direct­ly with Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Medvedev and Chair­man of the Russ­ian Par­lia­ment Gry­zlov and stat­ed that the inves­ti­ga­tion of involved offi­cials will con­tin­ue to be close­ly watched by the Euro­pean Parliament. 

Many of the offi­cials involved in the Sergei Mag­nit­sky case have enriched them­selves and are liv­ing way beyond their offi­cial salaries pur­su­ing lav­ish lifestyles all over the world. For more see Russ­ian Untouch­ables videos on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZB3YoAvEro; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TWhlPqVddc

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