Statement in Response to Representative Dana Rohrabacher’s Remarks at the House Foreign Affairs Committee Mark-up on Global Magnitsky

May 19, 2016

PRESS RELEASE

For Imme­di­ate distribution

State­ment in Response to Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Dana Rohrabacher’s Remarks at the House For­eign Affairs Com­mit­tee Mark-up on Glob­al Magnitsky

19 May 2016 – On 18 May 2016, the U.S. House For­eign Rela­tions Com­mit­tee passed the Glob­al Mag­nit­sky bill, which cre­ates con­se­quences for cor­rupt offi­cials and human rights abusers around the world in the form of visa bans and asset freezes.

Dur­ing the mark-up of the bill, Con­gress­man Dana Rohrabach­er, from Orange Coun­ty, Cal­i­for­nia, pro­posed an amend­ment to exclude Magnitsky’s name from the title of the bill. To jus­ti­fy his amend­ment, Con­gress­man Rohrabach­er referred to a “confus­ing sit­u­a­tion” and “seri­ous ques­tions” that “Mag­nit­sky was being held [in Russ­ian deten­tion] because the Russ­ian Gov­ern­ment knew that there was $230 mil­lion of tax lia­bil­i­ty that they did not have the funds, that Mr Brow­der, that was his tax lia­bil­i­ty.”

Con­gress­man Rohrabacher’s remarks imply that Her­mitage did not pay the US$230 mil­lion in tax­es to the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment, and the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment was con­cerned about recov­er­ing these funds from the start. These claims are wrong, and are con­tra­dict­ed by the facts and pub­licly avail­able doc­u­ments, including:

(i) Doc­u­men­tary evi­dence that the US$230 mil­lion in tax­es had been paid by the Her­mitage Fund’s Russ­ian com­pa­nies to the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment in 2006,

ii) Doc­u­men­tary evi­dence that those US$230 mil­lion were stolen a year lat­er through a mas­sive fraud per­pe­trat­ed by a Russ­ian crim­i­nal organ­i­sa­tion com­pris­ing Russ­ian offi­cials, who stole Her­mitage com­pa­nies and then approved in one day the wire trans­fers of US$230 mil­lion away from the Russ­ian trea­sury to accounts opened by known Russ­ian crim­i­nals to a bank owned by a con­vict­ed Russ­ian criminal;

(iii) Doc­u­men­tary evi­dence that Russ­ian author­i­ties ignored Her­mitage’s orig­i­nal reports and com­plaints about the US$230 mil­lion fraud,

(iv) Doc­u­men­tary evi­dence that the Russ­ian author­i­ties did not look for the stolen mon­ey, and instead organ­ised retal­ia­to­ry crim­i­nal cas­es against Hermitage’s Russ­ian lawyers includ­ing Sergei Magnitsky.

The facts of the US$230 mil­lion fraud abet­ted by Russ­ian offi­cials are described in con­tem­po­ra­ne­ous com­plaints filed by Her­mitage, as well as in tes­ti­monies giv­en by Sergey Mag­nit­sky nam­ing the per­pe­tra­tors, bank state­ments pro­vid­ed by whistle­blow­er Alexan­der Perepilich­nyy show­ing the acqui­si­tion of mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar prop­er­ties and cash going to accounts of and for the ben­e­fit of Russ­ian offi­cials involved with the US$230 mil­lion fraud,  mil­lions of dol­lars in assets and lav­ish lifestyles of Russ­ian offi­cials impli­cat­ed in Magnitsky’s tes­ti­mo­ny for their role in the US$230 mil­lion fraud, and, most recent­ly, the Pana­ma Papers’ leak show­ing some of the stolen US$230 mil­lion reach­ing the cor­po­rate account of Sergei Roldug­in, a close friend of Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin.
Con­gress­man Rohrabacher’s remarks are also con­tra­dict­ed by find­ings of inde­pen­dent author­i­ta­tive bod­ies, includ­ing the Coun­cil of Europe, who con­duct­ed a year-long inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tion of the Mag­nit­sky case, and sum­ma­rized its con­clu­sions in a detailed report adopt­ed in Jan­u­ary 2014, called “Refus­ing Impuni­ty for the Killers of Sergei Mag­nit­sky.” The report­found the exis­tence in Rus­sia of a “mas­sive cov­er-up involv­ing senior offi­cials of the com­pe­tent min­istries, the Pros­e­cu­tor General’s Office, the Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee and even cer­tain courts” and urged that “the cov­er-up must be reversed and the true cul­prits must be held to account.”

In sup­port of his remarks against Brow­der, Con­gress­man Rohrabach­er brought up two arti­cles which pre­sent­ed attacks on Brow­der by the legal defense team of Denis Kat­syv, the son of a Russ­ian offi­cial, who is unsuc­cess­ful­ly try­ing to appeal a US court order and unfreeze US$14 mil­lion of his assets seized under the US Government’s mon­ey laun­der­ing and civ­il for­fei­ture action in rela­tion to the Mag­nit­sky case. The U.S. Depart­ment of Jus­tice has described Katsyv’s alle­ga­tions in rela­tion to William Brow­der as “false,”“wild”, and “untrue,” and his con­duct — as “egre­gious” and “inex­cus­able.”

Con­gress­man Rohrabach­er also crit­i­cized Brow­der for threat­en­ing legal action against NBC. The sto­ry he is refer­ring to was an attempt by NBC’s reporter Ken Dilan­ian to repeat alle­ga­tions from Katsyv’s team that Sergei Mag­nit­sky was­n’t beat­en in cus­tody and was nev­er a whis­tle-blow­er. Both claims were in con­tra­dic­tion to pub­licly avail­able evi­dence from the Russ­ian Gov­ern­ment. Promi­nent Russ­ian human rights defend­ers, Lud­mi­la Alex­ee­va and Valery Borschev, who per­son­al­ly inves­ti­gat­ed the Mag­nit­sky case, spoke out against Ken Dilanian’s attempt to mis­rep­re­sent key facts about the Magnitsky’s case in pub­lic state­ments and in an open let­ter to NBC Uni­ver­sal CEO Steve Burke. Ken Dilan­ian had pre­vi­ous­ly allowed his sources to influ­ence or write his con­tent.

After Rohrabacher’s inter­ven­tion, the House For­eign Affairs Com­mit­tee sub­se­quent­ly vot­ed to reject his amend­ment and passed the Glob­al Mag­nit­sky bill, which will now be up for a vote on the House floor. The date of the vote is not known yet.

The Glob­al Mag­nit­sky bill is named after Sergei Mag­nit­sky, Hermitage’s lawyer who in 2007 – 2008 uncov­ered a mas­sive fraud per­pe­trat­ed by Russ­ian offi­cials and organ­ised crim­i­nals to steal US$230 mil­lion that the three com­pa­nies of the Her­mitage Fund had paid to the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment in prof­it tax a year before, in 2006.  Sergei Mag­nit­sky tes­ti­fied about the fraud, named offi­cials involved, was then arrest­ed by impli­cat­ed offi­cials, kept in cus­tody with­out tri­al for 358 days in tor­tur­ous con­di­tions, denied fam­i­ly vis­its and med­ical care, and was killed on 16 Novem­ber 2009 at the age of 37, leav­ing a moth­er, a wife and two children.

In 2010, Sergei Mag­nit­sky was posthu­mous­ly award­ed by Trans­paren­cy Inter­na­tion­al, a glob­al anti-cor­rup­tion organ­i­sa­tion, with ‘Integri­ty Award’ in recog­ni­tion of his stance against Russ­ian cor­rup­tion and offi­cial abuse.

For more infor­ma­tion, please contact:

Jus­tice for Sergei Magnitsky

+44 207 440 1777

e‑mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org

www.lawandorderinrussia.org

http://www.billbrowder.com/

https://twitter.com/Billbrowder

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