Today the UK Parliament Passed Historic Magnitsky Asset Freezing Sanctions

February 21, 2017

Press Release

For Imme­di­ate Distribution

Today the UK Par­lia­ment Passed His­toric Mag­nit­sky Asset Freez­ing Sanctions 

21 Feb­ru­ary 2017 – Today the UK House of Com­mons unan­i­mous­ly passed the UK Mag­nit­sky Sanc­tions legislation.

The Mag­nit­sky Sanc­tions leg­is­la­tion was vot­ed on as part of the UK Crim­i­nal Finances Bill. It will allow the British gov­ern­ment to freeze assets of human rights abusers in the UK. The Mag­nit­sky Sanc­tions amend­ment which passed was sub­mit­ted by UK Home Sec­re­tary Amber Rudd.

“The new Mag­nit­sky Sanc­tions Leg­is­la­tion is going to cause per­cep­ti­ble fear for klep­to­crats in Rus­sia and oth­er author­i­tar­i­an regimes. They all have expen­sive prop­er­ties in Lon­don and think they are untouch­able,” said William Brow­der, leader of the glob­al Mag­nit­sky Jus­tice Cam­paign and author of “Red Notice: How I Became Putin’s No 1 Ene­my.”

“This effort is the result of sev­en years of advo­ca­cy in the name of the late Sergei Mag­nit­sky who uncov­ered and tes­ti­fied about the US$230 mil­lion cor­rup­tion scheme per­pe­trat­ed by Russ­ian offi­cials and was killed for his whis­tle-blow­ing,” said William Browder.

“Should the House of Lords pass this into law, the UK will be the sec­ond coun­try in Europe to pass Mag­nit­sky sanc­tions and will set a strong exam­ple for the rest of Europe,” said William Browder.

The new UK Mag­nit­sky sanc­tions leg­is­la­tion intro­duces gross human rights abuse as part of the unlaw­ful con­duct, to which civ­il recov­ery pow­ers can now be applied under Part 5 of the Pro­ceeds of Crime Act 2002.

The UK Mag­nit­sky leg­is­la­tion pro­tects those who “have sought to expose the ille­gal activ­i­ty car­ried out by a pub­lic offi­cial or a per­son act­ing in an offi­cial capac­i­ty, or to obtain, exer­cise, defend or pro­mote human rights and fun­da­men­tal free­doms.” (full text here).

Sergei Mag­nit­sky was a Russ­ian lawyer who uncov­ered the mas­sive cor­rup­tion per­pe­trat­ed sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly by Russ­ian offi­cials and orga­nized crim­i­nals, which includ­ed thefts from the Russ­ian trea­sury, includ­ing the theft of US$230 mil­lion in 2007. Instead of pur­su­ing the offi­cials who approved the thefts, the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment arrest­ed Sergei Mag­nit­sky and put him in pre-tri­al deten­tion, where he was tor­tured for 358 days and killed at the age of 37. All offi­cials impli­cat­ed in his tor­ture and the mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar thefts have been exonerated.

In response to the impuni­ty demon­strat­ed by the Mag­nit­sky case in Rus­sia, the US passed the Rus­sia-focused Mag­nit­sky Act enact­ing US asset freezes and visa bans in 2012 and the Glob­al Mag­nit­sky Act which applies to human rights vio­la­tors around the world in 2016. Esto­nia passed its Glob­al Mag­nit­sky Act leg­is­la­tion in 2016. Cur­rent­ly, Cana­da and the EU are con­sid­er­ing their own ver­sions of Mag­nit­sky sanc­tions as well.

“The new UK Mag­nit­sky Leg­is­la­tion deals with asset freez­ing on human rights abusers. We will con­tin­ue to cam­paign for visa sanc­tions on human rights abusers in the UK under sep­a­rate leg­is­la­tion,” said Mag­nit­sky cam­paign leader William Browder.

For more infor­ma­tion, please contact:

Jus­tice for Sergei Magnitsky

+44 207 440 1777

e‑mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org

www.lawandorderinrussia.org

billbrowder.com

twitter.com/Billbrowder

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