Magnitsky Sanctions Legislation Introduced in the Lithuanian Parliament

April 20, 2017

Press Release

For Imme­di­ate Distribution

Mag­nit­sky Sanc­tions Leg­is­la­tion Intro­duced in the Lithuan­ian Parliament

20 April 2017 – Today, Mag­nit­sky sanc­tions leg­is­la­tion has been intro­duced in the Lithuan­ian Parliament.

The Lithuania’s Mag­nit­sky bill refus­es entry to Lithua­nia to per­sons who have been involved in human rights abus­es, mon­ey laun­der­ing and corruption.

The bill is the ini­tia­tive of Gabrielius Lands­ber­gis, MP, Chair­man of the Home­land Union-Lithuan­ian Chris­t­ian Democ­rats, and is co-spon­sored by twen­ty oth­er mem­bers of the Lithuan­ian Par­lia­ment from all major polit­i­cal groups, includ­ing Farm­ers and Greens, Social Democ­rats, Home­land Union ‑Chris­t­ian Democ­rats, and the Liberals.

Mr Lands­ber­gis said of the Mag­nit­sky initiative:

“The impuni­ty of for­eign per­sons who per­pe­trate gross human rights vio­la­tions, par­tic­i­pate in mon­ey laun­der­ing or cor­rup­tion should not be tol­er­at­ed just because the jus­tice sys­tem and the rule of law is cor­rupt­ed in an unde­mo­c­ra­t­ic coun­try, as the Mag­nit­sky case has shown. It is impor­tant to let per­pe­tra­tors know in advance that such crimes are not tol­er­at­ed in Lithua­nia and that such peo­ple will not be allowed to enter our coun­try. Our Mag­nit­sky law is uni­ver­sal, just as human rights themselves.”

“I hope that more demo­c­ra­t­ic coun­tries in Europe will fol­low suit, and that final­ly we will have EU-lev­el sanc­tions in this regard, just as the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment has called for,” said Mr Landsbergis.

The pro­posed Mag­nit­sky leg­is­la­tion seeks to amend Arti­cle 133 of the Lithuan­ian Law on the Legal Sta­tus of Aliens.

It would ban an alien from enter­ing the Repub­lic of Lithua­nia if there is infor­ma­tion or good rea­son to believe that the per­son par­tic­i­pat­ed in or con­tributed to large-scale cor­rup­tion or mon­ey laun­der­ing, or to vio­la­tions of human rights, which result­ed in the death or seri­ous injury of a per­son, the unfound­ed con­vic­tion of a per­son based on polit­i­cal motives, or oth­er seri­ous neg­a­tive consequences.

The Mag­nit­sky leg­is­la­tion is pro­posed as a result of the case of Sergei Mag­nit­sky in Rus­sia which has become emblem­at­ic of the human rights abuse for the finan­cial ben­e­fit of cor­rupt gov­ern­ment officials.

In 2008, Sergei Mag­nit­sky uncov­ered a $230 mil­lion tax theft com­mit­ted by Russ­ian state offi­cials, but when he impli­cat­ed the offi­cials involved, he him­self was arrest­ed, unjust­ly impris­oned for 358 days, tor­tured and beat­en to death in deten­tion cen­ter on Novem­ber 16^th, 2009 at the age of 37, leav­ing a wife and two children.

The Cam­paign for Jus­tice for Sergei Mag­nit­sky has been vig­or­ous­ly pur­sued by his for­mer col­leagues, which has led to the US Con­gress pass­ing the Sergei Mag­nit­sky Rule of Account­abil­i­ty Act in 2012, and the Glob­al Mag­nit­sky Human Rights Account­abil­i­ty Act in 2016.

In Decem­ber 2016, the Eston­ian Par­lia­ment unan­i­mous­ly passed its own Mag­nit­sky Law deny­ing entry to Esto­nia to human rights abusers.

This year, the UK Par­lia­ment has begun con­sid­er­a­tion of the Mag­nit­sky leg­is­la­tion impos­ing the finan­cial sanc­tion on human rights abusers in the form of assets for­fei­ture. The UK’s Mag­nit­sky assets sanc­tions leg­is­la­tion has been passed by the House of Com­mons and is being cur­rent­ly con­sid­ered in the House of Lords.

Main spon­sor of the Lithuan­ian Mag­nit­sky bill:

-       Gabrielius Lands­ber­gis, Leader of TS-LKD Group in Seimas, Chair­man of TS-LKD, he also served as Mem­ber of the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment in the Euro­pean People’s Party.

Among oth­er co-spon­sors of the Lithuan­ian Mag­nit­sky bill:

-       Mr Vytau­tas Bakas, Lithuania’s Farm­ers and Greens Union, Chair of the Nation­al Secu­ri­ty and Defence Com­mit­tee, mem­ber of the Anti-Cor­rup­tion Commission.

-       Mr  Juozas Berna­to­nis, Social Democ­rats par­ty, Chair of the of For­eign Affairs Com­mit­tee, he also served as chief advis­er under Prime Min­is­ter Kirk­i­las and as a Min­istry of Extra­or­di­nary and Plenipo­ten­tiary Ambas­sador to the Repub­lic of Estonia.

-       Ms Aušrinė Armon­aitė, Lib­er­als Move­ment par­ty, mem­ber of the For­eign Affairs Committee.

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

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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