Magnitsky’s Widow Asks Swiss Jewellery Company Chopard to Disassociate Itself From Moscow Film Festival That Plans to Screen Anti-Magnitsky Propaganda Film

June 22, 2016

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Magnitsky’s Wid­ow Asks Swiss Jew­ellery Com­pa­ny Chopard to Dis­as­so­ci­ate Itself From Moscow Film Fes­ti­val That Plans to Screen Anti-Mag­nit­sky Pro­pa­gan­da Film

 

21 June 2016 – The wid­ow of Sergei Mag­nit­sky, the Russ­ian lawyer killed in Russ­ian police cus­tody in 2009, has writ­ten to Karl-Friedrich Scheufele, CEO of Chopard, a super lux­u­ry Swiss watch and jew­ellery com­pa­ny, ask­ing for Chopard to recon­sid­er its spon­sor­ship of the Moscow Film Fes­ti­val which recent­ly added Andrei Nekrasov’s anti-Mag­nit­sky pro­pa­gan­da film to its pro­gram on 23 – 30 June 2016.

 

“I urge you to not asso­ciate your fine brand and rep­u­ta­tion of your com­pa­ny with the peo­ple who killed my hus­band and ben­e­fit­ed from the seri­ous cor­rup­tion he had uncov­ered, and to pub­licly dis­as­so­ci­ate with the film fes­ti­val unless its orga­niz­ers remove this film from the pro­gram. This film has been thor­ough­ly dis­cred­it­ed and described as pro­pa­gan­da,” said Sergei Mag­nit­sky’s wid­ow in her let­ter to Chopard.

 

No reply from Chopard has been received.

 

The anti-Mag­nit­sky film by Russ­ian film­mak­er Andrei Nekrasov has been endorsed by senior Russ­ian Gov­ern­ment offi­cials, includ­ing Russ­ian For­eign Affairs Min­is­ter Sergei Lavrov and Russ­ian Gen­er­al Pros­e­cu­tor Yuri Chai­ka. The film has been pro­mot­ed by per­pe­tra­tors and ben­e­fi­cia­ries of the US$230 mil­lion fraud that Sergei Mag­nit­sky exposed. These include: Pavel Kar­pov, the for­mer Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Min­istry offi­cer who had cus­tody of the doc­u­ments used in the crime; Andrei Pavlov, lawyer for the Russ­ian crim­i­nal group who took part in sham court pro­ceed­ings as part of the fraud; and Denis Kat­syv, son of a Russ­ian gov­ern­ment offi­cial, whose assets have been seized in the US and Switzer­land for sus­pi­cion of laun­der­ing the pro­ceeds of the US$230 mil­lion fraud.

 

“It is sur­pris­ing that Chopard would asso­ciate itself with this sor­did spec­ta­cle. They should with­draw their fund­ing for this effort. It’s one thing for com­pro­mised Rus­sians to posthu­mous­ly defame a Russ­ian hero who gave his life for his prin­ci­ples. It’s entire­ly anoth­er when this is done rely­ing on spon­sor­ship funds from a rep­utable West­ern com­pa­ny like Chopard,” said William Brow­der, leader of the glob­al Mag­nit­sky Jus­tice movement.

 

The anti-Mag­nit­sky film by Andrei Nekrasov is one in a series of Russ­ian pro­pa­gan­da and intim­i­da­tion efforts seek­ing to fight Mag­nit­sky sanc­tions and to avoid account­abil­i­ty for the tor­ture and mur­der of Mag­nit­sky and for the US$230 mil­lion theft he had uncov­ered. Pri­or to this, there has been a series of four pro­pa­gan­da films pro­duced and aired on Russ­ian fed­er­al TV sta­tions in which Brow­der is por­trayed as a CIA agent work­ing to destroy Rus­sia. Oth­er meth­ods have includ­ed open­ing new crim­i­nal cas­es against William Brow­der, as well as Russ­ian anti-cor­rup­tion blog­ger Alex­ei Naval­ny who has been vocal­ly sup­port­ing jus­tice for Sergei Magnitsky.

 

For more infor­ma­tion, please contact:

 

Jus­tice for Sergei Magnitsky

+44 207 440 1777

e‑mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org

www.lawandorderinrussia.org

www.billbrowder.com

twitter.com/Billbrowder

 

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