New Magnitsky Sanctions Motion Introduced in the British Parliament
June 3, 2016
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New Magnitsky Sanctions Motion Introduced in the British Parliament
3 June 2016 – A new Magnitsky sanctions motion has been introduced in the British Parliament. The new motion calls for visa sanctions and UK asset freezes for individuals affected by the US Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act.
The UK’s Magnitsky Sanctions motion expresses concern that “many people in Russia have died as a result of uncovering fraud, corruption and human rights’ abuses carried out in that country.”
Themotion names a number of individuals already sanctioned by the US Government in the Magnitsky case, including Russian Interior Ministry officials Pavel Karpov, Artem Kuznetsov, Oleg Silchenko, Natalya Vinogradova, as well Russian tax officials Olga Stepanova and Elena Khimina.
The UK’s early day Magnitsky Sanctions motion has been signed by members of all major UK political parties, including the Conservative Party, Labour Party, Social Democratic and Labour Party, Scottish National Party, and Liberal Democrats.
“The British Government should pursue those linked to Magnitsky’s death,” said Tom Brake, MP, the primary sponsor of the Magnitsky Sanctions motion.
The new Magnitsky Sanctions motion comes at a time when the Russian government is conducting a full-scale assault on Magnitsky sanctions supporters both inside and outside the country. In the last month the Russian authorities opened a criminal case against William Browder and Alexei Navalny for a purported CIA plot to kill Sergei Magnitsky in Russian police custody. They also opened a criminal case against Alexei Navalny for alleged slander against US-sanctioned Russian Interior Ministry officer Pavel Karpov. In the context of that case, this week the Russian Interior Ministry raided Alexei Navalny’s home, seized all his phones, computer and Internet equipment, as well as his daughter’s phone and computer.
U.S. President Obama signed the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2012 into law on December 14, 2012. In February 2016, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry submitted to Congress the third annual report outlining the U.S. Government’s actions to implement the Magnitsky Act, and a new list of persons added to the Magnitsky sanctions list.
For further information please contact:
Justice for Sergei Magnitsky
+44 207 440 1777
e‑mail:info@lawandorderinrussia.org
https://twitter.com/Billbrowder
UK Early Day Magnitsky Sanctions Motion introduced in the Parliament:
https://www.parliament.uk/edm/2015 – 16⁄1344
В британский парламент внесена новая резолюция о санкциях Магнитского
June 3, 2016
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В британский парламент внесена новая резолюция о санкциях Магнитского
3 июня 2016 года – В британский парламент внесена новая резолюция о санкциях Магнитского. Резолюция предусматривает запрет на выдачу английских виз и замораживание активов в Великобритании для лиц, причастных к многомиллиардным хищениям бюджетных средств, раскрытых Сергеем Магнитским, и его убийству, подпадающих под действие Закона Магнитского, одобренного в США.
В новой резолюции о санкциях Магнитского выражена тревога в связи с гибелью и гонениями в России людей, изобличающих мошенничество, коррупцию и нарушения прав человека.
Резолюция о санкциях Магнитского поддержана представителями всех ведущих политических партий Великобритании, включая партии консерваторов, лейбористов, либерал-демократов, социал-демократов и Шотландскую национальную партию.
В резолюцию о санкциях Магнитского включены имена ряда сотрудников МВД России, в том числе Павла Карпова, Артема Кузнецова, Олега Сильченко, Натальи Виноградовой, а также российских налоговых чиновниц Елены Химиной и Ольги Степановой, одобривших мошеннический возврат из бюджета на счета преступников из организации Дмитрия Клюева в общей сложности 5,4 миллиардов рублей – преступления, раскрытого Сергеем Магнитским.
Сергей Магнитский, раскрывший схему хищения 5,4 миллиардов рублей и давший показания против чиновников, был арестован по сфабрикованному обвинению, в течение 358 дней удерживался в заключении и был убит 16 ноября 2009 года в следственном изоляторе «Матросская тишина» в возрасте 37 лет.
В начале мая 2016 г. в Британском парламенте прошли слушания в отношении обнаружения в Великобритании свыше 30 миллионов долларов, отмытых преступным сообществом Дмитрия Клюева. Поступившие средства были потрачены на оплату роскошных яхт, услуг именитых архитекторов, эксклюзивных дизайнеров, ведущих риэлторов элитного жилья, аренду частных самолетов, дорогостоящие покупки в модных бутиках, обучение в элитарном колледже, престижные кредитные карты и т.д.
О подробностях дела Сергея Магнитского читайте в книге Уильяма Браудера «Красный циркуляр», ставшей международным бестселлером. Книга доступна российскому читателю в электронном виде бесплатно: http://www.billbrowder.com/Portals/0/downloads/Browder_Red Notice_RU_FINAL.pdf
Программа «Справедливость для Сергея Магнитского»
+44 207 440 1777
e‑mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org
www.facebook.com/russianuntouchables
Twitter: @Billbrowder
Резолюция о санкциях Магнитского, внесенная в Парламент Великобритании:
https://www.parliament.uk/edm/2015 – 16⁄1344
Hermitage Seeks Money Laundering Investigation In Estonia Into Deputy Mayor of Moscow in Magnitsky Case
June 1, 2016
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Hermitage Seeks Money Laundering Investigation In Estonia Into Deputy Mayor of Moscow in Magnitsky Case
1 June 2016 – Hermitage Capital Management has filed a criminal complaint with the Estonian General Prosecutor seeking an investigation of funds received by an Estonian company, Transgroup Invest AS, which was 50% owned by Maxim Liksutov, who is currently deputy Mayor of Moscow.
In 2012, Transgroup Invest AS received US$336,153 from Zibar Management Inc, an offshore company registered in BVI and used by the Klyuev Organized Crime Group to launder proceeds from the US$230 million fraud uncovered by Sergei Magnitsky.
The funds were wired to Transgroup Invest AS from account of Zibar Management Inc with Cypriot branch of FBME, which had its licence revoked by the Central Bank in December 2015.
Zibar Management’s nominal director, British citizen, Andrew Moray Stuart, served as director of hundreds other companies, including 214 BVI companies, 36 UK companies, 43 Irish and 4 New Zealand companies. While the company was dormant in BVI, it wired from its Cypriot account hundred thousands of dollars, including over $300,000 to Maxim Liksutov’s company in Estonia.
According to investigation of Panama Papers by German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and Russian Novaya Gazeta, Maxim Liksutov had a 50% share in Transgroup Invest, registered in Estonia prior to becoming deputy mayor of Moscow. Several months after the receipt of funds from Zibar Management, Maxim Liksutov transferred his share in Transgroup Invest to his wife, Tatiana, who he soon divorced.
Maxim Liksutov was ranked 157 in the Forbes Russia rich list in 2013, with an estimated fortune of $650 million. In the Moscow City government, Maxim Liksutov is in charge of transportation.
Previously, it was reported that a son of the Transportation Minister and Vice Premier of the Moscow Region Denis Katsyv is facing Swiss and US money laundering investigations into his Cypriot company, Prevezon Holdings, which is alleged to have received proceeds of the US$230 million fraud. His father Petr Katsyv, currently Vice President of Russian state monopoly, Russian Railways, was ranked 65 in the Forbes list of Russia’s richest officials.
A cellist Sergei Roldugin, a close friend of Vladimir Putin, was recently identified as
yet another recipient of funds connected to the US$230 million fraud into his corporate Swiss account, according to “Panama Papers” investigation.
Sergei Magnitsky, Hermitage’s lawyer who uncovered the US$230 million fraud and testified about the complicity of Russian officials in it, was falsely arrested, detained for 358 days without trial, tortured and killed in Russian police custody at the age of 37.
The unprecedented events of this case are described in the New-York Times best-seller “Red Notice. How I Became Putin’s No 1 Enemy” by William Browder, leader of the global Magnitsky justice movement, and in a series of 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
White House Rejects Crude Attempt to Repeal Magnitsky Sanctions
May 31, 2016
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White House Rejects Crude Attempt to Repeal Magnitsky Sanctions
31 May 2016 – The White House has reaffirmed its commitment to the US Magnitsky Act in a strongly-worded response to a petition posted on the White House website in April 2016 by an anonymous “R.T.” calling for the repeal of the US Magnitsky Act.
“More than six years after his [Magnitsky’s] death, we remain disturbed by the impunity for this and other violent crimes against activists, journalists, and the political opposition. We are also concerned by the growing atmosphere of intimidation toward those who work to uncover corruption or human rights violations in the Russian Federation,” said the White House in its statement in response to the petition.
The White House reiterated its position on the Magnitsky Act expressed earlier by the U.S. State Department:
“The Administration intends to carry out and fully implement the Magnitsky Act. It reflects our support for human rights and that those responsible for human rights abuses should be held to account…That’s what the act says; that’s what we intend to do.”
The White House said that individuals added to the U.S. Magnitsky sanctions list in February 2016 “play significant roles in the repressive machinery of Russia’s law enforcement systems,” and their inclusion was effected “after extensive research, including consultations with Russian and/or international civil society.”
“Efforts to implement the Magnitsky Act have so far resulted in a significant list of individuals responsible for Magnitsky’s death and subsequent cover-up, as well as others responsible for gross human rights violations. The list promotes accountability for their actions,” said the White House in its online response to the petition.
The anti-Magnitsky petition was a latest in a series of propaganda and intimidation attempts by the Russian government and its proxies since the beginning of the year to overturn the Magnitsky Act in the US and prevent its passage in Canada and Europe.
These initiatives were launched by Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Sergei Lavrov at a January 2016 press conference where he alluded to new developments in the Magnitsky case. Since then, the Russians set up an anti-Magnitsky Act NGO in Delaware called the Human Rights Accountability Global Initiative Foundation. This new NGO is being represented by Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer for alleged money launderer Denis Katsyv, whose companies are suspected by the US Justice Department and the Swiss General Prosecutor of receiving proceeds from the US$230 million crime Sergei Magnitsky had uncovered.
Another anti-Magnitsky initiative included two anti-Magnitsky propaganda films. The first one was aired in April 2016 in Russian language on the main pro-Kremlin Russian TV station. It claimed the discovery of a CIA plot to murder Sergei Magnitsky in Moscow detention in order to blame his death on the Russian authorities. To authenticate the purported CIA plot, the Russians forged CIA documents and retained Andrew Fulton, a former UK diplomat, who now chairs GPW, a private spy firm in London, to sign a report “verifying” the Russian-produced documents as genuine CIA documents.
The second anti-Magnitsky propaganda film was produced for a Western audience by filmmaker Andrei Nekrasov, who claims Sergei Magnitsky was not beaten in custody and was not a whistleblower despite publicly available evidence to the contrary. Nerkasov’s film bases its assertions on statements from ex-Russian Interior Ministry officers Karpov and Lapshov, both sanctioned by the US Government for their role in the Magnitsky case.
U.S. President Obama signed the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2012 into law on December 14, 2012. In February 2016, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry submitted to Congress the third annual report outlining the U.S. Government’s actions to implement the Magnitsky Act, and a new list of persons added to the Magnitsky sanctions list.
“Despite widely-publicized, compelling evidence of criminal conduct resulting in Sergei Magnitsky’s detention, abuse, and death, Russian authorities have failed to bring to justice those responsible. This law [Magnitsky Act] holds Russians accountable for their roles in the Magnitsky case or their responsibility for certain gross violations of human rights,” said the White House in its statement.
For further information please contact:
Justice for Sergei Magnitsky
+44 207 440 1777
e‑mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org
https://twitter.com/Billbrowder
White House online response to the petition
Sergei Magnitsky’s Widow Requests That Film Slandering Her Murdered Husband is Withdrawn From Norwegian Film Festival
May 30, 2016
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Sergei Magnitsky’s Widow Requests That Film Slandering Her Murdered Husband is Withdrawn From Norwegian Film Festival
30 May 2016 – The widow of Sergei Magnitsky has written to the Norwegian Kortfilmfestivalen requesting the festival to withdraw the film, which posthumously slanders her murdered husband, from its June 2016 program.
“The family of Sergei Magnitsky opposes the distribution of “The Magnitsky Act” film by Russian filmmaker Andrei Nekrasov in any form, given its false and defamatory content, highly degrading of the deceased Sergei Magnitsky and hurtful to the feelings of the Magnitsky mother and widow,” said the Magnitsky family in their statement.
“There is no public interest in publishing and distributing information that is knowingly false, especially when this information causes pain and suffering to the family of the deceased and is degrading to his memory. The knowing distribution of malicious falsehoods about a deceased person will make the festival complicit in it,” said Sergei Magnitsky’s widow.
Russian filmmaker Andrei Nekrasov claimed in his interview in a Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet on 26 May 2016 that he had conducted ”intensive research” on which the film is based.
The Magnitsky family strongly disagrees, saying:
“Had Andrei Nekrasov genuinely conducted the research, he would have come across publicly available evidence that contradicts his assertions, and demonstrates that they are untrue.” “It is clear from the review of the public record on the Magnitsky case, however, that no responsible research was conducted.”
In his film, Andrei Nekrasov claims that Sergei Magnitsky was not a lawyer, when official Russian court records and Magnitsky’s own testimony demonstrates the falsity of this claim, showing that Magnitsky represented clients in courts and identified himself as a lawyer.
Next, Nekrasov falsely claims that Sergei Magnitsky did not blow the whistle on the complicity of Russian police officers in the fraud in his testimony before his arrest, when Sergei Magnitsky named the officers 27 times in his 5 June 2008 testimony.
Nekrasov also falsely claims that Sergei Magnitsky had not been beaten before his death in custody, when this is contradicted by official autopsy photos showing serious injuries. It is also contradicted by: the Russian state death certificate referring to a cerebral cranial injury; the Russian government’s record describing the use of rubber batons on Magnitsky the night he died; and the Russian government’s expert conclusion describing Magnitsky’s injuries coming from blunt force trauma.
In addition, Andrei Nekrasov falsely claims that somebody else, not Sergei Magnitsky, reported the US$230 million fraud, despite the documentary evidence that the first report about the US$230 million fraud was made in July 2008 by Hermitage on the basis of Magnitsky’s investigation into the crime.
Because of the demonstrably false and defamatory content, the screening of the film by Andrei Nekrasov has been cancelled at the European Parliament, by French TV station ARTE and German TV station ZDF.
The false and defamatory information about Sergei Magnitsky presented in this film is contrary to the evidence from Russian government bodies, investigations by independent Russian human rights organisations, findings and conclusions by numerous international organisations including the European Parliament, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the Parliamentary Assembly of the OSCE, the Moscow Helsinki Group, the US Helsinki Commission, the US Congress, the Norwegian Helsinki Committee, the UN Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment, and others.
“In addition to presenting false information about Sergei Magnitsky, degrading his memory and his sacrifice, the film presents a fictionalised portrayal of Sergei Magnitsky as a person, creates a fictitious identity of him and presents his fictitious conversations with others, that are untrue, and removed from reality, that also do not justify and contradict the depiction of this film as ”documentary,” said the Magnitsky family.
Kortfilmfestivalen in Norway has been informed of the Magnitsky family’s concern against displaying or in any other way distributing the film’s content, contrary to the Norwegian Damages Act, which prohibits distribution of false information to cause harm to people’s reputation.
For further information please contact:
Justice for Sergei Magnitsky
+44 207 440 1777
e‑mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org
https://twitter.com/Billbrowder
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