Moscow Court Set to Approve Arrest Warrant for William Browder After Death Threats to Coerce Main Government Witness to Testify

March 20, 2017

PRESS RELEASE

For Imme­di­ate distribution

Moscow Court Set to Approve Arrest War­rant for William Brow­der After Death Threats to Coerce Main Gov­ern­ment Wit­ness to Testify

20 March 2017 – The Moscow City Court is expect­ed to approve the repeat arrest war­rant for William Brow­der and his col­league, Ivan Cherkasov on Tues­day, 22 March 2017.

There is cur­rent­ly a Russ­ian arrest war­rant in place for William Brow­der based on his 2013 Russ­ian con­vic­tion in Rus­sia. The new arrest war­rant being request­ed by the Russ­ian author­i­ties is based on the same crim­i­nal case under which Mr Brow­der was pre­vi­ous­ly con­vict­ed in absen­tia and his lawyer, Sergei Mag­nit­sky, posthu­mous­ly in 2013, involv­ing Russ­ian gov­ern­ment tax claims against a Her­mitage Fund sub­sidiary Dal­naya Step.

In order to jus­ti­fy the new arrest war­rant, the Russ­ian author­i­ties have arrest­ed Alexan­der Dolzhenko, a Russ­ian insol­ven­cy prac­ti­tion­er. He was arrest­ed in July 2015 and charged with col­lud­ing with Brow­der to false­ly bank­rupt Dal­naya Step. Accord­ing to Mr Dolzhenko’s state­ment, he was tak­en to FSB head­quar­ters in Stavropol and told:

“If you were a patri­ot of Rus­sia, you would give evi­dence against the lead­ers of Dal­naya Step who had bought up Gazprom shares; it is nec­es­sary to take their for­eign property.”

At the begin­ning of the inter­ro­ga­tion, accord­ing to Dolzhenko, he was told: “Eight peo­ple had died in that case, the last one being Mag­nit­sky, and … if I per­sist, that list would grow.”

Mr Dolzhenko ini­tial­ly tes­ti­fied against Brow­der, but the lat­er retract­ed his tes­ti­mo­ny, stat­ing that he “was forced to sign the inter­ro­ga­tion report by black­mail,” and that he first heard the name of Brow­der from the investigator.

In Novem­ber last year, in court hear­ings on the case against Dolzhenko held in Elista in south­ern Rus­sia, he col­lapsed in court suf­fer­ing a heart attack. He was tak­en to the hos­pi­tal but the case car­ried on. When his lawyer protest­ed dur­ing the pro­ceed­ings, he was forced off the court room and a state lawyer was appoint­ed to Dolzhenko.

It’s expect­ed that Dolzhenko will be con­vict­ed lat­er this month, with the final hear­ing in the case to take place on Tues­day, 22 March in Elista court.

His con­vic­tion is expect­ed to be used by the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment to pur­sue Mr Brow­der in a new in absen­tia tri­al in Rus­sia lat­er this year and a new civ­il case in Lon­don which is ongoing.

“The arrest war­rant decree does not cor­re­spond to the pur­pose of the crim­i­nal jus­tice and demon­strates the denial of access to jus­tice,” said Russ­ian lawyer for William Brow­der and Ivan Cherkasov, Alexan­der Antipov.

For more infor­ma­tion, please contact:

Jus­tice for Sergei Magnitsky

+44 207 440 1777
info@lawandorderinrussia.org
www.lawandorderinrussia.org
billbrowder.com
twitter.com/Billbrowder

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