Russia To Seek Politically-Motivated Interpol Red Notice Against William Browder In Retaliation for the Magnitsky Act

April 22, 2013

Today judge Petr Stupin of the Moscow Tver­skoi Dis­trict Court issued an arrest war­rant in absen­tia for the CEO of Her­mitage Cap­i­tal Man­age­ment, William Brow­der, who has been the leader of a glob­al jus­tice cam­paign for late Sergei Mag­nit­sky. The Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Min­istry stat­ed their pur­pose in issu­ing the war­rant was to use it as a pre-con­di­tion to fil­ing an Inter­pol Red Notice to search for and detain Mr Brow­der wher­ev­er he trav­els in the world.
“The in absen­tia arrest is nec­es­sary for the Inter­pol to con­duct a search,” said Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Min­istry inves­ti­ga­tor Alex­ee­va to the court.
The Moscow court approved the Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Ministry’s request in spite of numer­ous legal vio­la­tions and the alle­ga­tions against Mr Brow­der being com­plete­ly ground­less. The Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Min­istry alleges a vio­la­tion of Gazprom for­eign own­er­ship reg­u­la­tion, which envis­aged no crim­i­nal sanc­tions and was abol­ished more than sev­en years ago.
The Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Min­istry com­menced their case against Mr Brow­der short­ly after the US Con­gress passed the Sergei Mag­nit­sky Rule of Law Account­abil­i­ty Act. The request for an in absen­tia arrest of Mr Brow­der was approved by the Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Min­istry on the day that the U.S. Gov­ern­ment pub­lished the Mag­nit­sky Sanc­tions list, com­pris­ing Inte­ri­or Min­istry offi­cials. The same Inte­ri­or Min­istry gen­er­al Sergei Boro­dulin who ini­ti­at­ed a posthu­mous pros­e­cu­tion against Mr Mag­nit­sky, is now over­see­ing the case against Mr Brow­der. Court doc­u­ments have revealed that to search for Mr Brow­der, the Russ­ian author­i­ties have enlist­ed the Anti-Ter­ror­ist Depart­ment of the Inte­ri­or Ministry.
In their pub­lic state­ments, the Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Min­istry also expressed their deep dis­com­fort with inter­na­tion­al pub­lic expo­sure of their actions in the Mag­nit­sky case. They said:
“Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the affil­i­ate of Her­mitage Cap­i­tal …have no right to give an eval­u­a­tion to the acts of offi­cial bod­ies of pow­er who are con­duct­ing an objec­tive inves­ti­ga­tion.” (http://mvd.ru/news/item/944834/)
“We have no inten­tion of being muz­zled by a group of cor­rupt police offi­cers who are try­ing to cov­er up the grave crimes of tor­ture and extra-judi­cial killing and mas­sive thefts,” said a Her­mitage Cap­i­tal representative. 

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