British Politician Calls on UK Parliament to Categorize Magnitsky Killers as “Economic Terrorists” and Impose UK Visa Bans

January 21, 2011

Chris Bryant MP, a Shad­ow Jus­tice Min­is­ter and for­mer Min­ster for Europe, has called upon the UK Home Sec­re­tary There­sa May to ban entry into the UK for the 60 Russ­ian offi­cials who were involved in the arrest, tor­ture and death in police cus­tody of Sergei Mag­nit­sky, 37-year old anti-cor­rup­tion lawyer rep­re­sent­ing UK invest­ment firm, Her­mitage Capital.

An exten­sive 1,000-page dossier which had been put togeth­er with evi­dence of their involve­ment and col­lu­sion in the crimes, was sub­mit­ted by Mr Bryant to Her Majesty’s Gov­ern­ment today. The sug­ges­tion to add these cor­rupt Russ­ian offi­cials was made in the House of Com­mons as part of the dis­cus­sion on the updat­ing of the ‘Pre­ven­tion and Sup­pres­sion of Ter­ror­ism Act of 2000’ on Wednes­day 19^th Jan­u­ary. The debate focused on amend­ments to the act which would involve adding organ­i­sa­tions groups and indi­vid­u­als respon­si­ble for extrem­ist activ­i­ty and eco­nom­ic ter­ror­ism to the list of cur­rent­ly “pro­scribed organ­i­sa­tions”. A pro­scribed organ­i­sa­tion is banned from oper­at­ing, fundrais­ing and pro­mot­ing itself in the UK and it is a crim­i­nal offence to be con­nect­ed with such pro­scribed per­sons in the UK.

Chris Bryant MP said:

“Sergei Mag­nit­sky was work­ing for a British com­pa­ny in Rus­sia. He unveiled a vast nexus of cor­rup­tion in the Russ­ian system-$230 mil­lion-worth-and he was mur­dered in prison, hav­ing been put there with­out tri­al, and there has been absolute­ly no inves­ti­ga­tion since his death.”

“Those involved in the arrest, tor­ture and mur­der of Sergei Mag­nit­sky, and all those involved in the cor­rup­tion that he unveiled in Rus­sia, are and have been engaged in a form of eco­nom­ic ter­ror­ism against this coun­try. I hope that the Home Office will there­fore look at whether such an order is pre­cise­ly the right vehi­cle to use to seize any of those peo­ple’s assets in this coun­try, or to pro­scribe them from com­ing to this country.”

In a prompt answer to the Chris Bryant’s pro­pos­al, the UK Immi­gra­tion Min­is­ter Dami­an Green said in the House of Com­mons indi­cat­ed that the UK gov­ern­ment has in gen­er­al at its dis­pos­al sev­er­al ways to pro­tect the UK busi­ness­es and pub­lic from the reach of cor­rupt Russ­ian offi­cials respon­si­ble for the tor­ture and mur­der; same Russ­ian offi­cials have made threats to the Her­mitage Cap­i­tal lawyers in the UK.

Damien Green MP stat­ed that:

“The Gov­ern­ment have a wide range of counter-ter­ror­ism tools at their dis­pos­al, includ­ing asset freez­ing, exclu­sion and so forth.”

As of May 2009, a total of 46 groups were pro­scribed under Sched­ule 2 of the Ter­ror­ism Act 2000, includ­ing Al-Qa’i­da, Hizbol­lah and the People’s Mujahid­din of Iran.

Damien Green MP also told me Bryant that he would be “hap­py” to meet Chris Bryant per­son­al­ly to dis­cuss the details of the Sergei Mag­nit­sky case.

At the end of last year, the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment adopt­ed with an over­whelm­ing major­i­ty a res­o­lu­tion call­ing for “an EU entry ban for Russ­ian offi­cials involved in this [Magnitsky’s] case, and encour­ages EU law enforce­ment agen­cies to coop­er­ate in freez­ing bank accounts and oth­er assets of these Russ­ian offi­cials in all EU Mem­ber States”.

The leg­is­la­tion ban­ning entry and freez­ing assets of Russ­ian offi­cials respon­si­ble for cor­rup­tion uncov­ered by Mr Mag­nit­sky and his per­se­cu­tion in cus­tody was cre­at­ed last year in the US Con­gress and Cana­di­an Par­lia­ment. Ear­li­er, the pow­er­ful US Gov­ern­ment Helsin­ki Com­mis­sion man­dat­ed to mon­i­tor com­pli­ance with OSCE accords in the area of human rights com­piled a list of 60 com­plic­it Russ­ian offi­cials detail­ing their role in the theft of US$230 mil­lion of pub­lic funds, unlaw­ful arrest, tor­ture and death of 37-year old Sergei Mag­nit­sky. The list trig­gered a world­wide cam­paign for jus­tice around the world. Yet, in Rus­sia, respon­si­ble offi­cials were pro­mot­ed and giv­en top state hon­ors on the eve of one-year anniver­sary of Magnitsky’s death. In response to the on-going impuni­ty of Magnitsky’s tor­tur­ers in Rus­sia, lead­ing Russ­ian human rights activists have called upon the EU and US gov­ern­ments to take robust legal steps to cre­ate con­se­quences for Russ­ian offi­cials in Magnitsky’s case on their territories.

Watch a doc­u­men­tary about the life and death of Sergei Mag­nit­sky in Russ­ian custody:

www.justiceforsergei.com

For the full tran­script of the House of Com­mons debate on the Ter­ror­ism Act 2000 see this link:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmhansrd/cm110119/debtext/110119 – 0004.htm#11011978000001

Back­ground Information:

Under the UK Ter­ror­ism Act 2000, ‘ter­ror­ism’ is defined as

the use or threat designed to influ­ence the gov­ern­ment for the pur­pose of advanc­ing a polit­i­cal, reli­gious or ide­o­log­i­cal cause, when it involves seri­ous vio­lence against a per­son, seri­ous dam­age to prop­er­ty, endan­gers a person’s life, cre­ates a seri­ous risk to the health or safe­ty of the pub­lic or a sec­tion of the pub­lic. ‘Organ­i­sa­tion’ is defined as includ­ing ‘any asso­ci­a­tion or com­bi­na­tion of per­sons’. In decid­ing on the sta­tus of pro­scribed per­sons, the Home Sec­re­tary takes into account the spe­cif­ic threat that they pose to the UK and to British nation­als overseas.

Christo­pher Bryant, a British Labour Par­ty politi­cian, has been the Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment (MP) since 2001. He is the for­mer Min­is­ter of State for Europe and Par­lia­men­tary Under-Sec­re­tary of State at the For­eign and Com­mon­wealth Office. He is cur­rent­ly a shad­ow Jus­tice Min­is­ter, with respon­si­bil­i­ty for polit­i­cal and con­sti­tu­tion­al reform.

Sergei Mag­nit­sky (8 April 1972 – 16 Novem­ber 2009), an out­side lawyer for the Her­mitage Fund, blew the whis­tle on wide­spread Russ­ian gov­ern­ment cor­rup­tion, involv­ing offi­cials from Russ­ian law enforce­ment and secu­ri­ty ser­vices. The offi­cials he tes­ti­fied against arrest­ed and detained him, begin­ning a night­mare in which he was thrown into cus­tody with­out bail or tri­al, and sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly tor­tured for one year in an attempt to force him to retract his tes­ti­mo­ny. Despite the phys­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal pain Sergei Mag­nit­sky endured from his cap­tors, he refused to per­jure him­self, even as his health dete­ri­o­rat­ed. Denied med­ical care for the last four months of his deten­tion, he died in excru­ci­at­ing cir­cum­stances at the age of 37, hav­ing devel­oped a severe pan­cre­at­ic con­di­tion while being held in the Butyr­ka remand cen­ter — a noto­ri­ous Czarist-era jail that also that also held Alexan­der Solzhen­it­syn and Raoul Wallenberg.

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