US Government Sanctions Further Russian Human Rights Violators Under Magnitsky Act

January 9, 2017

PRESS RELEASE

For Ime­di­ate distribution

 

US Gov­ern­ment Sanc­tions Fur­ther Russ­ian Human Rights Vio­la­tors Under Mag­nit­sky Act

 

9 Jan­u­ary 2017 – The US Gov­ern­ment has sanc­tioned fur­ther indi­vid­u­als in the Mag­nit­sky case, includ­ing its most high-pro­file des­ig­na­tion to date — Alexan­der Bas­trykin, head of the Russ­ian State Inves­tiga­tive Committee.
“The Mag­nit­sky sanc­tions are the most effec­tive tool avail­able today for fight­ing the impuni­ty of cor­rupt offi­cials in Rus­sia. Today’s release of the new names includes the high­est lev­el gov­ern­ment offi­cial to date, Alexan­der Bas­trykin. In addi­tion to the role he played in the Mag­nit­sky case, he has been respon­si­ble for many oth­er shock­ing human rights abuse cas­es. His inclu­sion on this list is a major vic­to­ry in our fight for jus­tice in Rus­sia,” said William Brow­der, leader of glob­al Mag­nit­sky jus­tice campaign.

 

Alexan­der Bas­trykin, in his capac­i­ty as head of the Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee, per­son­al­ly over­saw the inves­ti­ga­tions into the false arrest, tor­ture and death in Russ­ian police cus­tody of Sergei Mag­nit­sky who had uncov­ered the US$230 mil­lion theft by Russ­ian officials.

 

In spite of the con­clu­sions of the Russ­ian President’s Human Rights Coun­cil on the wrong­ful arrest of Sergei Mag­nit­sky and the con­flict of inter­est of impli­cat­ed offi­cials, the Bas­trykin-led Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee closed the death inves­ti­ga­tion, find­ing no crime was com­mit­ted by any Russ­ian officials.

 

Bas­trykin direct­ed and pub­licly jus­ti­fied the exon­er­a­tion of all offi­cials involved. In his inter­view to the Russ­ian state news­pa­per, Rossi­iskaya Gaze­ta, on 7 Sep­tem­ber 2010, Alexan­der Bas­trykin said:

 

“There is no ground to think that his [Mag­nit­sky’s] death was con­nect­ed to actions of offi­cials who pros­e­cut­ed him. There is no objec­tive infor­ma­tion show­ing that he was pros­e­cut­ed ille­gal­ly or that the phys­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal pres­sure was applied to him.”
Anoth­er sanc­tioned offi­cial under today’s des­ig­na­tions is Stanislav Gordievsky from the Russ­ian Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee, to whom Sergei Mag­nit­sky gave tes­ti­mo­ny on 5 June 2008 and 7 Octo­ber 2008 iden­ti­fy­ing the offi­cials and organ­ised crim­i­nals involved in the theft of com­pa­nies and the US$230 mil­lion of tax monies from the Russ­ian government.

 

The names in Mag­nit­sky’s tes­ti­mo­ny includ­ed Lt Col Artem Kuznetsov, Major Pavel Kar­pov, lawyers work­ing for the crim­i­nal group Andrei Pavlov and Yulia Mairo­va and oth­ers. Instead of prop­er­ly inves­ti­gat­ing the fraud and bring­ing the offi­cials exposed by Mag­nit­sky to jus­tice, inves­ti­ga­tor Gordievsky request­ed one of the main named sus­pects — Lt Col Kuznetsov – to inves­ti­gate him­self — and then Gordievsky exon­er­at­ed Kuznetsov from any wrong-doing.

 

In the sub­se­quent tes­ti­mo­ny of 14 Octo­ber 2009 from pre-tri­al deten­tion, Sergei Mag­nit­sky described this cov­er up in great detail:

 

“The same autho­rized oper­a­tive Kuznetsov …pro­vid­ed the oper­a­tional assis­tance on the case …ini­ti­at­ed by the Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee… on the sub­ject of the theft of the com­pa­nies. In addi­tion, he was pro­vid­ing oper­a­tional assis­tance on the crim­i­nal case under which I was accused. I believe that the crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion against me is the above per­son’s revenge against me, because dur­ing my meet­ings with inves­ti­ga­tor S.E. Gordievsky… I …expressed my opin­ion that Kuznetsov .… should be inter­ro­gat­ed about the cir­cum­stances of steal­ing.…, instead of being allowed to per­form oper­a­tional assis­tance on the case inves­ti­gat­ed by S.E. Gordievsky.”

 

A third indi­vid­ual includ­ed today in the US Government’s Mag­nit­sky list is Gen­nady Plaksin. Gen­nady Plaksin was a mem­ber of the Klyuev Organ­ised Crime Group, and chair­man of the board and nom­i­nal share­hold­er of Uni­ver­sal Sav­ings Bank on behalf of Dmit­ry Klyuev, who is already sub­ject to Mag­nit­sky sanc­tions. Mr Plaksin appeared as a nom­i­nal claimant in a col­lu­sive court case orches­trat­ed by the crim­i­nal group to steal US$230 mil­lion from the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment. Plaksin was involved in the cre­ation of US$325 mil­lion of fic­ti­tious lia­bil­i­ties. Despite the evi­dence of his role in the US$230 mil­lion theft uncov­ered by Sergei Mag­nit­sky, Mr Plaksin was exon­er­at­ed in Russia.

 

The US$230 mil­lion fraud was a sophis­ti­cat­ed crim­i­nal con­spir­a­cy per­pe­trat­ed in Rus­sia to steal US$230 mil­lion of tax­es paid by the three Russ­ian com­pa­nies of the Her­mitage Fund, at the time the largest port­fo­lio investor in Rus­sia. The plan­ning of the fraud scheme took place abroad, and mon­ey laun­der­ing of a sub­stan­tial por­tion of the US$230 mil­lion fraud pro­ceeds also took place out­side of Rus­sia and involved mul­ti­ple inter­na­tion­al banks and accounts.

 

Hermitage’s out­side lawyer Sergei Mag­nit­sky uncov­ered the US$230 mil­lion fraud scheme and tes­ti­fied against those involved, includ­ing Andrei Pavlov.

 

Short­ly there­after, the Russ­ian author­i­ties arrest­ed Sergei Mag­nit­sky, and tried to force him to change his tes­ti­mo­ny sub­ject­ing him to cru­el and degrad­ing treat­ment dur­ing 358 days in pre-tri­al deten­tion. When their attempts failed, Sergei Mag­nit­sky was killed in Russ­ian police deten­tion at the age of 37, leav­ing a wife and two children.

 

The events of the Mag­nit­sky case are described in the New-York Times best-sell­er “Red Notice” by William Brow­der and in a series of Mag­nit­sky jus­tice cam­paign videos on Youtube chan­nel “Russ­ian Untouchables.”

 

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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