US Government Bans Entry To Russian Officials involved in the Magnitsky Case

July 26, 2011

Today it was con­firmed that US Sec­re­tary of State, Hillary Clin­ton, has imposed visa sanc­tions on Russ­ian gov­ern­ment offi­cials asso­ci­at­ed with the death in police cus­tody of 37-year old anti-cor­rup­tion lawyer Sergei Mag­nit­sky. Amer­i­ca is the first coun­try to offi­cial­ly impose sanc­tions on the Russ­ian offi­cials involved in the Mag­nit­sky case.

“The facts are so shock­ing about the false arrest, tor­ture and death of Sergei Mag­nit­sky that coun­tries are now start­ing the act to pro­hib­it the peo­ple who killed Sergei from com­ing into their ter­ri­to­ries. The first domi­no has fall­en and many more will fol­low soon,” said a Her­mitage Cap­i­tal representative.

This news comes from com­ments by the Oba­ma admin­is­tra­tion on the forth­com­ing Mag­nit­sky leg­is­la­tion, known as the “Sergei Mag­nit­sky Rule of Law Account­abil­i­ty Act of 2011”. This leg­is­la­tion is spon­sored by 19 lead­ing sen­a­tors from both the Demo­c­ra­t­ic and Repub­li­can par­ties. The leg­is­la­tion calls for visa sanc­tions and asset freezes on indi­vid­u­als involved in Magnitsky’s false arrest, tor­ture and death, as well as on per­pe­tra­tors of oth­er gross human rights violations. 

The visa ban is a response by the US State Depart­ment to a request by Sen­a­tor Ben­jamin Cardin (Demo­c­rat, Mary­land) in April 2010 to ban a list of 60 Russ­ian offi­cials who were involved in the false arrest, tor­ture and death of Sergei Mag­nit­sky and the $230 mil­lion cor­rup­tion scheme that he had uncov­ered. The list includes; Alex­ei Anichin, Deputy Inte­ri­or Min­is­ter, Vic­tor Grin, Deputy Gen­er­al Pros­e­cu­tor and Vik­tor Voronin, Head of Depart­ment ‘K’ of the FSB (the suc­ces­sor orga­ni­za­tion to the KGB).
Since the “Cardin list” was first made pub­lic last April, many of the same Russ­ian offi­cials have been report­ed to be engaged in oth­er human rights vio­la­tions, includ­ing unlaw­ful arrests of oppo­si­tion lead­ers and activists, mis­treat­ment of detainees and bribery.

The com­ments from the US admin­is­tra­tion point out that in con­trast to the pub­lic state­ments of warm rela­tions between Rus­sia and the US, the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment threat­ened to “respond asym­met­ri­cal­ly” to the pass­ing of the Mag­nit­sky Act by with­draw­ing sup­port for sanc­tions against Iran, North Korea and Libya and block­ing US mil­i­tary tran­sit to Afghanistan.
“The Russ­ian gov­ern­ment seems more con­cerned about pro­tect­ing Lt Colonel Kuznetsov and tax offi­cer Olga Stepanova’s abil­i­ty to trav­el, than pre­vent­ing nuclear pro­lif­er­a­tion around the world,” said a Her­mitage Cap­i­tal representative.

The visa sanc­tions that have been imposed by the US gov­ern­ment show an esca­lat­ing con­cern about the impuni­ty of Russ­ian offi­cials in the Mag­nit­sky case. In March this year, US Vice-Pres­i­dent Biden speak­ing in Moscow said that Mag­nit­sky case has become a deter­rent to for­eign invest­ment in Rus­sia. Last June, US Sec­re­tary of State Hillary Clin­ton called upon the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment to deliv­er jus­tice in the Mag­nit­sky case. In response, the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment pro­mot­ed Magnitsky’s killers and award­ed them top state honors.
Last week, Physi­cians for Human Rights, an inde­pen­dent non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tion of US physi­cians, that won the Nobel Prize for its use of med­ical and sci­en­tif­ic exper­tise to inves­ti­gate human rights vio­la­tions and advo­cat­ing jus­tice around the world,has called upon the Con­gress to pass, and Pres­i­dent Oba­ma to imme­di­ate­ly sign, the Mag­nit­sky law.

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