14 November 2014 – To mark the fifth anniversary of Sergei Magnitsky’s murder in police custody, Russian state-controlled television, NTV will be airing a show on prime time television which will conclude that Sergei Magnitsky was not murdered, and will blame justice campaigner Bill Browder as the man responsible for all of Russia’s problems (http://www.ntv.ru/peredacha/
The new Russian show accuses Mr Browder of being a CIA agent responsible for the devaluation of the Russian ruble in 1998, for the theft of $4.7 billion of Russian IMF funding; and for the murders of Edmond Safra and Boris Berezovsky.
The show relies on several experts, including Oleg Lurie, who was previously convicted for extortion in Russia and served a four year prison sentence (http://www.interfax.ru/
The show also stars Paul Barril, a former French intelligence officer, suspected by human rights activists of complicity in the Rwandan genocide (http://www.parismatch.com/
“While the rest of the world is marking the anniversary of Sergei Magnitsky’s killing in custody, noting with shock the impunity of Russian officials, the Russian government continues to cover up the crime and blame the victims,” said a Magnitsky Justice Campaign representative.
The Magnitsky case has lead to a dramatic movement in Russian civil society, calling on the West to do something to create consequences for involved Russian officials, and specifically to impose sanctions in the form of visa bans and freezes on their assets in Western banks.
As a result, in December 2012, the U.S. passed the “Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act” imposing such sanctions. In Europe, the European Parliament, the Parliamentary Assembly of the OSCE and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), international organizations comprising up to 57 countries, passed resolutions calling on their members and their national parliaments to adopt a course similar to that of the US and impose Magnitsky sanctions. The Russian government and President Putin have made resisting the Magnitsky sanctions one of top foreign policy priorities.
Sergei Magnitsky was a 37-year old lawyer and outside counsel for the Hermitage Fund, who was tortured to death in Russian Interior Ministry custody after he testified about the involvement of Interior Ministry officials in the theft of his client’s companies and the $230 million theft. The Russian officials responsible for his arrest, torture and killing were absolved from any responsibility, promoted and decorated with state honours.
For more information, please contact:
Magnitsky Justice Campaign
