Canadian Parliament Introduces Visa Sanctions Legislation for Russian Officials Implicated in Magnitsky Case

October 31, 2011

Press Release

For Imme­di­ate Distribution

Cana­di­an Par­lia­ment Intro­duces Visa Sanc­tions Leg­is­la­tion for Russ­ian Offi­cials Impli­cat­ed in Mag­nit­sky Case 

31 Octo­ber 2011 – Rt. Hon. Irwin Cotler, MP and a for­mer Jus­tice Min­is­ter of Cana­da, has intro­duced a new piece of leg­is­la­tion in the Cana­di­an Par­lia­ment in the high-pro­file case of Sergei Mag­nit­sky, an anti-cor­rup­tion lawyer who was tor­tured to death in Russ­ian custody. 

The new draft leg­is­la­tion would require the Cana­di­an Gov­ern­ment to deny entry to the Russ­ian offi­cials in the Mag­nit­sky case and their fam­i­ly mem­bers. These visa sanc­tions have been trig­gered by the impuni­ty of these offi­cials in Rus­sia two years after the Magnitsky’s death in custody.

Rt. Hon. Irwin Cotler, MP, who pre­vi­ous­ly act­ed as defense lawyer for pris­on­ers of con­science Nel­son Man­dela and Nathan Sha­ran­sky, said at the intro­duc­tion of the Bill:

“The ongo­ing impuni­ty, and indeed, in this instance shock­ing impuni­ty regard­ing Russ­ian offi­cials is as scan­dalous as it is shock­ing. This leg­is­la­tion will uphold the rule of law, will assure Russ­ian human rights defend­ers that they are not alone, will pro­tect Cana­di­an busi­ness inter­ests in Rus­sia, and in par­tic­u­lar will remem­ber and hon­our the hero­ic sac­ri­fice of Sergei Mag­nit­sky. He act­ed on behalf of all of us in his pro­tec­tion of the rule of law.”

The Russ­ian offi­cials in the Mag­nit­sky case have already been banned from entry to the USA by U.S. Sec­re­tary of State Hillary Clin­ton. Sim­i­lar visa sanc­tions are cur­rent­ly under­way across the EU fol­low­ing a res­o­lu­tion adopt­ed last year by the Euro­pean Parliament. 

The Cana­di­an Bill enti­tled “An Act to Con­demn Cor­rup­tion and Impuni­ty in Rus­sia in the Case and Death of Sergei Mag­nit­sky” was intro­duced last Fri­day. (http://www.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?Docid=5209506&file=4)

The Bill bans from enter­ing or remain­ing in Cana­da those Russ­ian offi­cials who were involved in the $230 mil­lion tax rebate fraud that Mr. Mag­nit­sky had uncov­ered, those involved in his wrong­ful arrest, tor­ture and death in deten­tion, and those involved in the sub­se­quent cov­er up of the com­plic­it offi­cials . It impos­es sanc­tions on the list­ed indi­vid­u­als and their fam­i­ly members.

Rt. Hon. Irwin Cotler, MP, said:

“The Bill notes that no objec­tive offi­cial inves­ti­ga­tion has been con­duct­ed by the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment into the Mag­nit­sky case, despite exten­sive doc­u­ment­ed evi­dence incrim­i­nat­ing Russ­ian offi­cials in seri­ous human rights vio­la­tions, in the embez­zle­ment of funds from the Russ­ian trea­sury, and in the retal­i­a­tion against Mr. Mag­nit­sky, nor have the indi­vid­ual per­sons been iden­ti­fied, appre­hend­ed and brought to jus­tice in Rus­sia.” (see speech by Rt. Hon. Cotler at: http://openparliament.ca/bills/41 – 1/C‑339/).

On July 5, 2011, the Russ­ian President’s Human Rights Coun­cil issued its find­ings on the Mag­nit­sky case, which con­clud­ed that Sergei Mag­nit­sky had been arrest­ed and detained in breach of the Euro­pean Human Rights con­ven­tion and pros­e­cut­ed ille­gal­ly by the Inte­ri­or Min­istry offi­cials with a clear con­flict of inter­est. The report high­light­ed that before his arrest, Sergei Mag­nit­sky had giv­en a tes­ti­mo­ny about the involve­ment of his arrest­ing offi­cers in the theft of Her­mitage Fund com­pa­nies and $230 mil­lion that these com­panied had paid in tax­es to the Russ­ian government.

Instead of pros­e­cut­ing the offi­cials named by the Human Rights Coun­cil for the false arrest of Mr. Mag­nit­sky on trumped-up charges and the $230 mil­lion theft he had uncov­ered, Russ­ian author­i­ties respond­ed on 30 July 2011 by open­ing a pros­e­cu­tion against Mr. Mag­nit­sky despite he had been dead for near­ly two years. The same Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Min­istry offi­cials who arrest­ed and pros­e­cut­ed Mr. Mag­nit­sky to silence him, were appoint­ed to the posthu­mous case against him. As part of this case, in August and Sep­tem­ber 2011, Mr. Magnitsky’s rel­a­tives were sum­moned for ques­tion­ing as witnesses. 

On 4 Octo­ber 2011, 53 rep­re­sen­ta­tives at the Par­lia­men­tary Assem­bly of the Coun­cil of Europe from 29 coun­tries have co-signed the “Sergei Mag­nit­sky Case” Dec­la­ra­tion No.49 which urges Rus­sia to imme­di­ate­ly pros­e­cute the killers of Sergei Mag­nit­sky and cease the intim­i­da­tion of his family.

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion please contact:

Her­mitage Capital
Tel: +44 207 440 17 77
Email: info@lawandorderinrussia.org
Web­site: http://lawandorderinrussia.org

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Twit­ter: @KatieFisher__
Live­jour­nal: http://hermitagecap.livejournal.com/

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