European Lawmakers Call on the EU Foreign Policy Chief to Implement Magnitsky Sanctions

February 13, 2013

Ahead of the upcom­ing posthu­mous tri­al in Rus­sia of Sergei Mag­nit­sky, sched­uled in Moscow for next Mon­day, Euro­pean law­mak­ers called upon the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion Vice-Pres­i­dent Cather­ine Ash­ton to imple­ment EU-wide visa sanc­tions and asset freezes against Russ­ian offi­cials impli­cat­ed in the Mag­nit­sky case. The rec­om­men­da­tion to intro­duce visa sanc­tions and asset freezes was adopt­ed by the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment last Octo­ber in an over­whelm­ing vote in favor.
“The broad par­lia­men­tary sup­port for this rec­om­men­da­tion reflects the wide­spread indig­na­tion, in Rus­sia and around the world, over the arrest of Mr Mag­nit­sky, the inhu­man con­di­tions of his deten­tion and the seri­ous alle­ga­tions sur­round­ing his sub­se­quent death in cus­tody,” said the group of law­mak­ers on behalf of the Alliance of Lib­er­als and Democ­rats for Europe in the Euro­pean Parliament.
“The con­tin­u­ing posthu­mous pros­e­cu­tion of Sergei Mag­nit­sky is a fur­ther vio­la­tion of inter­na­tion­al and Russ­ian law and clear­ly indi­cates the mal­func­tion­ing of the Russ­ian crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem and the sys­temic fail­ure of the Russ­ian state to pro­tect its cit­i­zens,” wrote the Euro­pean par­lia­men­tar­i­ans Guy Ver­hof­s­tadt, Kris­ti­ina Oju­land, Mari­et­je Schaake, Alexan­der Graf Lamb­s­dorff in their for­mal address post­ed on the Euro­pean Parliament’s website.
“While recog­nis­ing that visa restric­tions and oth­er restric­tive mea­sures are not tra­di­tion­al judi­cial sanc­tions per se but con­sti­tute a polit­i­cal sig­nal of the EU’s con­cern to a larg­er tar­get audi­ence and thus remain a nec­es­sary and legit­i­mate for­eign pol­i­cy tool, does the VP/HR [vice-pres­i­dent of the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion] intend to raise this mat­ter at the For­eign Affairs Coun­cil?” asked the Euro­pean par­lia­men­tar­i­ans writ­ing on behalf of the ALDE group in the Euro­pean Parliament.
Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans are call­ing for answers on the posi­tion of Cather­ine Ash­ton, EU’s High Rep­re­sen­ta­tive for For­eign Affairs and Secu­ri­ty Pol­i­cy, on the “need to estab­lish a com­mon EU list of offi­cials respon­si­ble for the death of Sergei Mag­nit­sky and for the sub­se­quent judi­cial cov­er-up, to impose and imple­ment an EU-wide visa ban on these offi­cials and to freeze any finan­cial assets they or their imme­di­ate fam­i­ly may hold inside the Euro­pean Union.”

See Ques­tion from ALDE on Euro­pean Par­lia­ment website:
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=OQ&reference=O‑2013 – 000010&format=XML&language=EN

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