Norwegian Government Offers William Browder ‘Safe Passage’ to Pursue Magnitsky Campaign in Norway

April 10, 2014

The Nor­we­gian gov­ern­ment has decid­ed to pro­tect William Brow­der, the leader of the Mag­nit­sky jus­tice cam­paign from Russ­ian per­se­cu­tion on their territory.
In a let­ter sent to Mr Brow­der’s UK lawyers, the Nor­we­gian Min­istry of Jus­tice said that they have con­clud­ed that in light of the polit­i­cal nature of the pro­ceed­ings against Brow­der, Nor­way would not extra­dite or pro­vide legal assis­tance to Rus­sia in rela­tion to Mr Browder.
“The Nor­we­gian Min­istry of Jus­tice and Pub­lic Secu­ri­ty is at present of the view that the cri­te­ria for extra­di­tion and Mutu­al Legal Assis­tance are not ful­filled,” said the Nor­we­gian Jus­tice Min­istry in its letter.
This deter­mi­na­tion by Nor­we­gian author­i­ties fol­lows deci­sions by oth­er Euro­pean coun­tries to refuse assis­tance on Mr Browder’s case. Ear­li­er, the Par­lia­men­tary Assem­bly of the Coun­cil of Europe which unites 47 coun­tries in Europe, high­light­ed the Russ­ian pro­ceed­ings in rela­tion to Mr Brow­der and oth­er Her­mitage rep­re­sen­ta­tives as “emblem­at­ic” of polit­i­cal­ly-moti­vat­ed abuse of the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem, and rec­om­mend­ed that mem­ber states refuse any legal assis­tance to Rus­sia on this ground.
“It is an impor­tant deter­mi­na­tion that comes on the back of sim­i­lar deter­mi­na­tions issued by such inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tions as the Coun­cil of Europe and Inter­pol that Russ­ian author­i­ties have act­ed ille­git­i­mate­ly, and in breach of fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples in this case and it is broad­ly accept­ed now,” said a Her­mitage Cap­i­tal spokesperson.
Last year, Inter­pol has announced that it can­not be used to arrest Mr Brow­der in light of the polit­i­cal nature of the Russ­ian pro­ceed­ing against him.
Mr Brow­der trav­els to Nor­way to speak at the Oslo Free­dom Forum, an annu­al human rights meet­ing. Mr Brow­der spoke at the Oslo Free­dom Forum last year, the top­ic of his speech was “Aveng­ing Magnitsky’s Mur­der” (http://www.oslofreedomforum.com/speakers/Bill-Browder.html).

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