// Press Releases (in English)

ECHR Court Finds Multiple Convention Violations by Russia in the Magnitsky Case

August 27, 2019

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ECHR Court Finds Mul­ti­ple Con­ven­tion Vio­la­tions by Rus­sia in the Mag­nit­sky Case

27 August 2019 – Today, the Euro­pean Court of Human Rights (‘ECHR’) issued an award to the Mag­nit­sky fam­i­ly, hav­ing found mul­ti­ple vio­la­tions of the Human Rights Con­ven­tion by the Russ­ian state.

“The Mag­nit­sky fam­i­ly has had to wait for this deci­sion for ten years after the loss of their son, hus­band and father. In the mean­time, the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment has lied at every domes­tic and inter­na­tion­al forum about the cir­cum­stances of the deten­tion and death of Sergei Mag­nit­sky, and attempt­ed to defame his name and belit­tle his courage and his sac­ri­fice in uncov­er­ing and tes­ti­fy­ing about the largest pub­licly known cor­rup­tion and fraud by Russ­ian offi­cials and crim­i­nals. Most notably, imme­di­ate­ly after Sergei Mag­nit­sky died in cus­tody, the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment claimed that there were ‘no signs of vio­lence’ on his body, despite vis­i­ble injuries seen by his fam­i­ly at the funer­al. When the fam­i­ly obtained state autop­sy pho­tos show­ing obvi­ous injuries, the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment claimed that Sergei ’caused his own injuries’  — this is despite Russ­ian state experts find­ing his injuries to be con­sis­tent with the use of rub­ber batons. The Russ­ian author­i­ties repeat­ed this absurd and cyn­i­cal expla­na­tion to the Euro­pean Court of Human Rights, who has now ful­ly reject­ed it,” said William Brow­der, leader of the Glob­al Mag­nit­sky Jus­tice movement.

The court has found that the Russ­ian state vio­lat­ed Arti­cle 2 (Right to life); Arti­cle 3 (Pro­hi­bi­tion of tor­ture and degrad­ing treat­ment); Arti­cle 5 (Right to lib­er­ty); and Arti­cle 6 (Right to fair tri­al) and ordered a com­pen­sa­tion of €34,000.

The orig­i­nal com­plaint to the ECHR had been filed by Sergei Mag­nit­sky in 2009 — sev­er­al months before he was killed in cus­tody at the age of 37. After Sergei’s death, his wid­ow took over the case. In 2012, Sergei’s moth­er, Natalia Mag­nit­skaya, applied to the ECHR with an expand­ed com­plaint, sub­mit­ting infor­ma­tion avail­able at the time about Sergei’s arrest, deten­tion, death and the sub­se­quent fail­ure by Russ­ian author­i­ties to con­duct a prop­er inves­ti­ga­tion and bring to jus­tice those involved in the fraud Sergei had uncov­ered and in his sub­se­quent persecution.

In Decem­ber 2014, the Euro­pean court had list­ed the Mag­nit­sky com­plaint as a pri­or­i­ty case, and sought a response from the Russ­ian government.

In March 2015, the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment replied to the court, fail­ing to address the con­flict of inter­est of police offi­cers who were exposed by Mag­nit­sky for their role in the fraud against his client, Her­mitage, and were then involved in his retal­ia­to­ry arrest and deten­tion on fab­ri­cat­ed evidence.

The Russ­ian gov­ern­ment failed to address the wit­ness evi­dence that in the last moments of his life Sergei Mag­nit­sky had in fact repeat­ed his accu­sa­tion of police offi­cers’ embez­zling mil­lions in funds, and demand­ed to see his lawyer and pros­e­cu­tor to pro­tect him­self, before he was found dead in an iso­la­tion cell by civil­ian doc­tors, who had been kept out­side and not allowed to enter the deten­tion cen­ter for more than an hour.

The Russ­ian gov­ern­ment admit­ted that hand­cuffs had been applied to Sergei Mag­nit­sky in the last hour before his death, at the time when he was expe­ri­enc­ing severe pain and had been ordered to be moved to a prison hos­pi­tal for urgent med­ical treat­ment. The Russ­ian gov­ern­ment pur­port­ed to explain Sergei’s injuries by ‘the need to stop his [Sergei’s] unlaw­ful actions’, his alleged ‘obstruc­tion of demands from deten­tion cen­ter offi­cials’, and alleged ‘attempts to cause harm to him­self and oth­ers’ and ‘inad­e­quate con­duct’, and claimed to the court that Sergei Mag­nit­sky caused his own injuries.

The Russ­ian gov­ern­ment sought to explain away the last Mag­nit­sky’s state­ments record­ed in cus­tody that he was about to be killed — which were heard by mul­ti­ple eye­wit­ness­es — as his ‘hal­lu­ci­na­tions.’

In respect of con­di­tions of Sergei’s deten­tion, the Russ­ian author­i­ties claimed to the court that key deten­tion records were destroyed despite the repeat­ed requests from the Mag­nit­sky fam­i­ly to pre­serve evidence.

The Russ­ian state also failed to explain the U‑turn by Russ­ian state pros­e­cu­tors who with­in four days of Pres­i­dent Putin’s pub­lic state­ment that Sergei Mag­nit­sky did not die of tor­ture, but from “nat­ur­al” caus­es, dropped charges and asked for the acquit­tal of a sin­gle deten­tion offi­cial brought to tri­al in Mag­nit­sky case.

The Russ­ian gov­ern­ment also failed to address the fact that three years after Mag­nit­sky’s death, the same inves­ti­ga­tors who were respon­si­ble for his arrest and per­se­cu­tion, were appoint­ed to the posthu­mous case against him, and tried to intim­i­date Mag­nit­sky rel­a­tives with sum­mons­es and appoint­ment of state lawyer in an attempt to try them in their son’s and hus­band’s stead — in the first ever posthu­mous pro­ceed­ing in mod­ern Russ­ian history.

Sergei Mag­nit­sky was killed on 16 Novem­ber 2009. The Russ­ian gov­ern­ment pro­mot­ed and gave state hon­ors to those involved in his per­se­cu­tion. Russ­ian offi­cials who were shown to have ben­e­fit­ed from the largest known fraud in mod­ern Russ­ian his­to­ry and kept for­eign accounts and for­eign prop­er­ties — were exon­er­at­ed and not brought to justice.

In 2012, the US Con­gress passed leg­is­la­tion, known as the Sergei Mag­nit­sky Rule of Law Account­abil­i­ty Act, which impos­es visa bans and asset freezes on those involved in the Mag­nit­sky case. Since then, sim­i­lar leg­is­la­tion has been passed in five more coun­tries, includ­ing the UK, Cana­da, Esto­nia, Latvia, and Lithua­nia. Inves­ti­ga­tions into the mon­ey laun­der­ing of funds from the crim­i­nal con­spir­a­cy uncov­ered by Sergei Mag­nit­sky are ongo­ing in mul­ti­ple countries.

In 2018, the US gov­ern­ment obtained over US$6 mil­lion in set­tle­ment from the fam­i­ly of Russ­ian gov­ern­ment offi­cial who was iden­ti­fied by the US Depart­ment of Jus­tice as one of the ben­e­fi­cia­ries of the $230 Mil­lion fraud uncov­ered by Sergei Magnitsky.

For fur­ther details, please contact:

Mag­nit­sky Jus­tice Campaign

https://www.russian-untouchables.com/eng/

Phone: +44 207 440 1777

Email: contact@russian-untouchables.com

British High Court Judge Delivers Seminal Ruling Voiding the UK Recognition of a Russian Bankruptcy in the Magnitsky Case; Russian Liquidator to Pay William Browder and His Colleagues £1.6 Million

December 5, 2017

Press Release

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British High Court Judge Deliv­ers Sem­i­nal Rul­ing Void­ing the UK Recog­ni­tion of a Russ­ian Bank­rupt­cy in the Mag­nit­sky Case; Russ­ian Liq­uida­tor to Pay William Brow­der and His Col­leagues £1.6 Million

5 Decem­ber 2017 – Today, the Chan­cel­lor of the High Court of Eng­land and Wales has void­ed the recog­ni­tion of a Russ­ian bank­rupt­cy at the cen­tre of the Mag­nit­sky case, which tar­get­ed William Brow­der and his colleagues.

The Chan­cel­lor ruled that the Russ­ian liq­uida­tor, Kir­ill Nogotkov, was in breach of his duty to the court, find­ing his con­duct “inex­cus­able,” and “quite unthink­able” for an Eng­lish insol­ven­cy practitioner.

The judg­ment was hand­ed down by the Chan­cel­lor of the High Court, Sir Geof­frey Vos, who is the head of the Busi­ness and Prop­er­ty Courts of Eng­land and Wales.

Mr Nogotkov has agreed to pay £1.6 mil­lion in legal costs to William Brow­der and his col­leagues on an indem­ni­ty basis.

“The action by Mr Nogotkov was one of many attempts by the Russ­ian author­i­ties to attack Mr Brow­der and his col­leagues out­side Rus­sia and to seek legal assis­tance from oth­er coun­tries. Today’s deci­sion from the UK High Court brings a wel­comed end to this lat­est attempt,” said a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Glob­al Mag­nit­sky Jus­tice movement.

The pro­ceed­ings in the UK began in July 2016 when Mr Nogotkov obtained a UK court order recog­nis­ing the Russ­ian bank­rupt­cy of Dal­nyaya Step, a for­mer Russ­ian com­pa­ny of the Her­mitage Fund, which was at the cen­tre of the posthu­mous tri­al of Sergei Mag­nit­sky and the in absen­tia tri­al of Mr Brow­der four years ago in Rus­sia. The Russ­ian author­i­ties have since revived Dal­nyaya Step, eight years after it had been dis­solved, to con­tin­ue to tar­get William Brow­der and his colleagues.

To obtain recog­ni­tion in the UK, Mr Nogotkov relied on the inter­na­tion­al Cross-Bor­der Insol­ven­cy Reg­u­la­tions (CBIR) which allow for the recog­ni­tion of a for­eign bank­rupt­cy in the UK, except in cas­es which raise pub­lic pol­i­cy considerations.

In his 2016 appli­ca­tion to the UK court, how­ev­er, Mr Nogotkov did not tell the UK court about any pub­lic pol­i­cy con­sid­er­a­tions or the con­nec­tion of the case to Mr Mag­nit­sky and Mr Browder.

Lord Jus­tice Vos found that the case involved seri­ous pub­lic pol­i­cy issues which should have been dis­closed and made his rul­ing necessary.

“In my judg­ment, where there are seri­ous alle­ga­tions of wrong­do­ing, as there are here, and where the UK Gov­ern­ment has already made clear its views about con­nect­ed aspects of the case, this court can­not stand by with­out decid­ing whether or not there has indeed been inap­pro­pri­ate con­duct.”

Short­ly before the High Court hear­ing, Mr Nogotkov had agreed to pay the legal costs of Mr Brow­der and his col­leagues on an indem­ni­ty basis, in the sum of £1.6 mil­lion. Courts in the UK rarely award indem­ni­ty costs as a puni­tive sanc­tion in excep­tion­al cas­es involv­ing abnor­mal and unrea­son­able con­duct by a party.

Lord Jus­tice Vos said in the judg­ment that Mr Nogotkov had appeared to try to “buy off” judi­cial scruti­ny of his con­duct with the offer of a sub­stan­tial cost pay­ment to Mr Brow­der. The Chan­cel­lor said such con­duct would be “unthink­able” for an Eng­lish insol­ven­cy practitioner.

“Mr Nogotkov has indeed attempt­ed to buy off the deter­mi­na­tion of the FFD [Full and Frank Dis­clo­sure] issue, by pay­ing a large amount in costs in some­what dubi­ous cir­cum­stances,” the Chan­cel­lor says in the judgment.

“Mr Nogotkov’s agree­ment to pay indem­ni­ty costs out of the estate (as he orig­i­nal­ly intend­ed) smacked of an attempt to pro­tect his own rep­u­ta­tion at the expense of the bank­rupt estate. Such a course would be quite unthink­able for an Eng­lish insol­ven­cy prac­ti­tion­er in an Eng­lish insol­ven­cy,” the judg­ment says.

In a 28-page judg­ment hand­ed down today, the Chan­cel­lor found that the Russ­ian liq­uida­tor breached the duty of full and frank dis­clo­sure owed to the court, by fail­ing to tell the court that the Russ­ian bank­rupt­cy of Dal­nyaya Step was con­nect­ed to the Russ­ian state cam­paign against Mr Brow­der and Mr Mag­nit­sky, includ­ing the posthu­mous tri­al of Mr Magnitsky.

“The his­to­ry of the Russ­ian state’s actions against the Her­mitage Par­ties were mate­r­i­al facts of which the Eng­lish court need­ed to be ful­ly and fair­ly informed,” says the judgment.

“My sum­ma­ry of the facts makes it abun­dant­ly clear that the Eng­lish court ought to have been told that pub­lic pol­i­cy issues might be engaged as a result of the polit­i­cal back­ground I have described. In any event, Mr Nogotkov’s inquiries about the Russ­ian crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings meant that he ought to have been aware of the UK Government’s respons­es to pre­vi­ous requests for assis­tance in rela­tion to the same tax lia­bil­i­ties of [Dal­nyayaStep], the same Her­mitage Par­ties and Mr Mag­nit­sky. His fail­ure to alert the court to the pub­lic pol­i­cy issues and the polit­i­cal back­ground was inex­cus­able,” says The Right Hon­ourable Lord Jus­tice Vos in the judgment.

“Today’s judg­ment is a demon­stra­tion of the strength of the rule of law in the face of the repeat­ed abuse from the Russ­ian state and its agents,” said William Brow­der, leader of the Mag­nit­skyJus­tice movement.

Mr Nogotkov is a Russ­ian insol­ven­cy prac­ti­tion­er appoint­ed at the end of 2015 by the Russ­ian author­i­ties to Dal­nyaya Step, which itself was res­ur­rect­ed eight years after it ceased to exist, on the orders of the Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Min­istry as part of the Russ­ian state-spon­sored attack and in absen­tia  crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings in Rus­sia against Mr Brow­der and his colleagues.

Last year, Mr Nogotkov applied to reg­is­ter the Dal­nyaya Step bank­rupt­cy pro­ceed­ing in the UK. Mr Nogotkov did not dis­close to the court the con­nec­tion of the bank­rupt­cy case to Mr Brow­der and Mr Mag­nit­sky and pos­si­ble pub­lic pol­i­cy issues.

Bill Brow­der is the leader of the Glob­al Mag­nit­sky Jus­tice move­ment. Sergei Mag­nit­sky tes­ti­fied about the com­plic­i­ty of Russ­ian offi­cials in a sophis­ti­cat­ed US$230 mil­lion fraud. He was then arrest­ed by some of the impli­cat­ed offi­cials and killed in Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Min­istry cus­tody at the age of 37. Since then Mr Brow­der has been advo­cat­ing for new leg­is­la­tion around the world to sanc­tion those involved in Mr Magnitsky’s death and the US$230 mil­lion fraud he had exposed. The USA was the first coun­try to pass the leg­is­la­tion in Decem­ber 2012. The UK, Cana­da, Esto­nia and Lithua­nia have all passed Mag­nit­sky-style legislation.

Sir Geof­frey Vos was appoint­ed Chan­cel­lor of the High Court of Eng­land and Wales on 24 Octo­ber 2016. He holds respon­si­bil­i­ty for the con­duct of busi­ness in the Busi­ness and Prop­er­ty Courts. Pri­or to this role, he was appoint­ed a Lord Jus­tice of Appeal in 2013 and act­ed as Pres­i­dent of the Euro­pean Net­work of Coun­cils for the Judi­cia­ry from June 2014 to June 2016.

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

Sum­ma­ry of the judg­ment by SIR GEOFFREY VOS, CHANCELLOR OF THE HIGH COURT in In Re Dal­nyaya Step LLC:

http://russian-untouchables.com/docs/DSL%20approved%20Summary%20F.pdf

This sum­ma­ry is pro­vid­ed to assist in under­stand­ing the Court’s decision.

The full judg­ment of the Court is the only author­i­ta­tive document.

Six UK and International Activists Celebrated Today at Magnitsky Awards on the 8^th Anniversary of the Murder of Sergei Magnitsky

November 17, 2017

Press Release

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Six UK and Inter­na­tion­al Activists Cel­e­brat­ed Today at Mag­nit­sky Awards on the 8^th Anniver­sary of the Mur­der of Sergei Magnitsky

17 Novem­ber 2017 – Yes­ter­day, six promi­nent politi­cians and activists were hon­oured at the Mag­nit­sky Awards which were held on the eighth anniver­sary of the Mur­der of Russ­ian lawyer, Sergei Mag­nit­sky, who exposed a US$230 mil­lion fraud per­pe­trat­ed by cor­rupt Russ­ian offi­cials and orga­nized criminals.

The event, which was held in the pres­ence of the Mag­nit­sky fam­i­ly, cel­e­brat­ed the brav­ery of activists from across the world and offered sup­port to all those who fight injustice.

“Today we’ve hon­oured the bravest and the most effec­tive indi­vid­u­als who have made per­son­al sac­ri­fices and have shown them­selves to be stead­fast believ­ers in the cause of jus­tice,” said William Brow­der, leader of the Glob­al Mag­nit­sky Jus­tice move­ment. “It is tru­ly uplift­ing to be in the pres­ence of such out­stand­ing peo­ple who believe in and act for the com­mon good every day.”

Baroness Hele­na Kennedy pre­sent­ed the Mag­nit­sky Award for Cam­paign­ing Politi­cian to Dominic Raab MP in recog­ni­tion of his work spear­head­ing the UK Mag­nit­sky amend­ment which was passed ear­li­er this year.

Geof­frey Robert­son QC, a renowned human rights bar­ris­ter, pre­sent­ed the Mag­nit­sky Award for Out­stand­ing Con­tri­bu­tion to Human Rights Law to Niko­lai Gorokhov, lawyer for the Mag­nit­sky fam­i­ly, for his fear­less legal work seek­ing jus­tice in Rus­sia in spite of the grave risks to his safety.

Cana­di­an MP James Bezan pre­sent­ed the Mag­nit­sky Award for Out­stand­ing Con­tri­bu­tion to the Glob­al Mag­nit­sky Cam­paign Award to Mar­cus Kol­ga. Both Kol­ga and Bezan were suc­cess­ful in advanc­ing and pro­mot­ing the pas­sage of the Mag­nit­sky law in Cana­da this October.

Head of the Nor­we­gian Helsin­ki Com­mit­tee Bjorn Enges­land pre­sent­ed the Mag­nit­sky Award for Out­stand­ing Inves­tiga­tive Jour­nal­ism to Khadi­ja Ismay­ilo­va, an inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ist who has worked tire­less­ly to expose cor­rup­tion in her home coun­try of Azerbaijan.

For­mer polit­i­cal pris­on­er Mikhail Khodor­kovsky pre­sent­ed the Mag­nit­sky Award for Out­stand­ing Russ­ian Oppo­si­tion Activist to Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Russ­ian polit­i­cal activist who has been the sub­ject of two attempts on his life. Kara-Murza has been instru­men­tal in pro­mot­ing Mag­nit­sky Acts around the world.

Thor Halvorssen, Pres­i­dent of the Human Rights Foun­da­tion, pre­sent­ed the Mag­nit­sky Award for Out­stand­ing Human Rights Activist to Valery Borschev, for­mer head of the Moscow Pub­lic Over­sight Com­mis­sion, who was instru­men­tal in inves­ti­gat­ing the details of Sergei Magnitsky’s deten­tion and tor­ture in cus­tody in the first six weeks after his death in custody.

The awards com­mit­tee this year com­prised rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the Hen­ry Jack­son Soci­ety, Fair Tri­als Inter­na­tion­al, the Inter­na­tion­al Bar Asso­ci­a­tion, Her­mitage Cap­i­tal Man­age­ment Ltd, the Nor­we­gian Helsin­ki Com­mit­tee, the Mac­Don­ald-Lau­ri­er Insti­tute and the Oslo Free­dom Forum.

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

US Congressman Rohrabacher and Congressional Staffer Behrends Named for Violations of US Treasury Sanctions Under Magnitsky Act

July 24, 2017

Press Release

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US Con­gress­man Rohrabach­er and Con­gres­sion­al Staffer Behrends Named for Vio­la­tions of US Trea­sury Sanc­tions Under Mag­nit­sky Act

24 July 2017 – A new com­plaint has been filed with the US Treasury’s Office of For­eign Assets Con­trol (OFAC) nam­ing US Con­gress­man Rohrabach­er and his senior staffer Paul Behrends for vio­la­tions of Mag­nit­sky sanctions.

The com­plaint filed with the Direc­tor of the Office of For­eign Assets Con­trol at the US Trea­sury alleges that both indi­vid­u­als pro­vid­ed ser­vices to Russ­ian Deputy Gen­er­al Pros­e­cu­tor Vic­tor Grin, a sanc­tioned indi­vid­ual under the Mag­nit­sky Act.

“Rohrabach­er and Behrends met with Grin [a Russ­ian offi­cial sanc­tioned under the Mag­nit­sky Act] in Moscow in April 2016, and accept­ed mate­r­i­al from Grin which Grin sought to have Rohrabach­er use to under­mine the Mag­nit­sky Act… Rohrabach­er and Behrends then repeat­ed­ly under­took a series of actions to under­mine the Mag­nit­sky Act …rely­ing on talk­ing points pro­vid­ed to them by Grin, with the appar­ent goal of secur­ing the removal of Grin as an SDN [Sanc­tions Des­ig­nat­ed Nation­al] through means out­side of the des­ig­nat­ed OFAC licens­ing process,” says the com­plaint filed with OFAC by Her­mitage Cap­i­tal Man­age­ment on Fri­day, 21 July 2017.

The com­plaint states that Rohrabach­er and Behrends met with Grin in April 2016 in Moscow to dis­cuss his prob­lems as a Sanc­tions Des­ig­nat­ed Nation­al (“SDN”) under the Mag­nit­sky Act and agreed to take action to help him. Since that meet­ing, accord­ing to the com­plaint, Rohrabach­er and Behrends took action, includ­ing delay­ing the con­sid­er­a­tion of the Glob­al Mag­nit­sky Act, repeat­ing to mem­bers of Con­gress talk­ing points from the paper pro­vid­ed to them by the sanc­tioned Russ­ian offi­cial, made per­son­al intro­duc­tions for lob­by­ists advo­cat­ing Russ­ian gov­ern­men­t’s and Grin’s posi­tion against the Mag­nit­sky Act on behalf of the 44 sanc­tioned Russ­ian nation­als. In addi­tion, Rohrabach­er and Behrends pro­mot­ed the anti-Mag­nit­sky film which was based on the mate­r­i­al and infor­ma­tion from the Sanc­tions Des­ig­nat­ed Nationals.

“They [these actions] con­sti­tute ser­vices pro­vid­ed to a SDN by U.S. per­sons in appar­ent vio­la­tion of the Mag­nit­sky Act sanc­tions which express­ly for­bid U.S. per­sons to pro­vide such ser­vices,” says the complaint.

Deputy Gen­er­al Pros­e­cu­tor of Rus­sia Vic­tor Grin played a cen­tral role in the cov­er up of the US$230 mil­lion crime exposed by Sergei Mag­nit­sky. Vic­tor Grin per­son­al­ly ini­ti­at­ed two posthu­mous pros­e­cu­tions against Sergei Mag­nit­sky a year and a half after Sergei Mag­nit­sky’s death, and exon­er­at­ed offi­cials impli­cat­ed by Mag­nit­sky in the US$230 mil­lion fraud.

Since  Decem­ber 29, 2014, Vic­tor Grin has been sanc­tioned under the US Mag­nit­sky Act.

Dana Rohrabach­er is a mem­ber of the U.S House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives rep­re­sent­ing Cal­i­for­ni­a’s 48^th con­gres­sion­al district.

Paul Behrends has been employed in Con­gress since Q3 ’14, and has also been a staffer for House Com­mit­tee on For­eign Affairs.

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

OFAC com­plaint

http://russian-untouchables.com/docs/OFAC%20complaint%20filed_Redacted.pdf

Baroness Helena Kennedy QC Introduces Magnitsky Visa Ban Legislation to the UK House of Lords

July 4, 2017

Press Release

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Baroness Hele­na Kennedy QC Intro­duces Mag­nit­sky Visa Ban Leg­is­la­tion to the UK House of Lords

4 July 2017 – Last week Baroness Hele­na Kennedy QC intro­duced the Mag­nit­sky visa ban leg­is­la­tion at the House of Lords of the British parliament.
The new leg­is­la­tion will give the British gov­ern­ment the pow­er to deny entry into the UK to indi­vid­u­als who have been involved in gross human rights abus­es as defined in sec­tion 241 of the Pro­ceeds of Crime Act 2002 (“POCA”).

The new leg­is­la­tion is enti­tled “Can­cel­la­tion of UK Visas for Gross Human Rights Abus­es Bill 2017.”

The bill com­ple­ments the pre­vi­ous Mag­nit­sky leg­is­la­tion passed ear­li­er this year by the British Par­lia­ment which gives the British gov­ern­ment new pow­ers to freeze the UK assets of for­eign­ers involved in gross human rights abus­es and corruption.

On intro­duc­ing the bill, Baroness Kennedy said:

“My Lords, I beg to intro­duce a Bill to enable the Sec­re­tary of State or an immi­gra­tion offi­cer to refuse entry or to vary or cur­tail leave to enter or remain already grant­ed to a per­son who is non-UK or non- EEA nation­al who is known to be or to have been involved in gross human rights abuses.”

“This Bill was inspired by Bill Brow­der’s cam­paign­ing for human rights and his efforts to secure jus­tice for his lawyer, Sergei Mag­nit­sky, whose life was cru­el­ly end­ed in a Russ­ian jail. This coun­try has been too lax in its will­ing­ness to allow entry to rich human rights abusers from around the world. It has to stop. These tor­tur­ers and vio­la­tors of rights have to be denied impuni­ty,” said Baroness Kennedy QC.

The leg­is­la­tion fol­lows in the foot­steps of the US Mag­nit­sky Act which was adopt­ed by the US Con­gress in Decem­ber 2012. The Mag­nit­sky Act adopt­ed into law in the Unit­ed States com­pris­es two com­po­nents — visa bans and asset freezes – and applies them to those involved in the Mag­nit­sky case, includ­ing the crim­i­nal con­spir­a­cy he had uncov­ered, as well as in oth­er gross human rights vio­la­tions and acts against human rights defenders.

Baroness Kennedy QC is a mem­ber of the House of Lords, Head of Mans­field Col­lege, Uni­ver­si­ty of Oxford, and a lead­ing human rights barrister.

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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