14 December 2015 – This morning, Russian newspaper Kommersant published a highly emotional statement by Russian General Prosecutor Yuri Chaika in response to a 43-minute video expose of corruption and criminality involving his two sons and relatives of senior prosecutors in his office.
The “Chaika” movie was produced by Russian anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny and his Foundation for Fight against Corruption. It has been viewed 3,358,619 times on Youtube since its release on 1 December 2015.
“I’m very impressed with the investigation which went into making this movie and applaud Alexei Navalny and his colleagues for their bravery in exposing the shocking allegations against Chaika and his family, but I had nothing to do with the investigation, financing or production of this film,” said Bill Browder, author and Head of the Magnitsky Justice Campaign.
“Chaika’s 7 pages of unhinged allegations that I am a CIA agent who was running a special operation designed to destroy Russia looks like the emotional ranting of someone who has been caught red-handed and is desperately looking for an escape route,” continued Mr. Browder.
Most significantly, Chaika’s 7-page letter offers no explanation on the vast business empires of his two sons that were allegedly built on abuse of office of the network of prosecutors’ offices Russia-wide, raids on businesses with threats of jail-time and criminal prosecutions, rigging tenders and scaring competitors with prosecutorial probes. It also ignores the allegations that one of his sons took over a state shipping company after a manager who tried to prevent the takeover was killed. The investigation into that man’s death was closed finding no crime occurred. Prosecutor Chaika also made no comment about the international real estate holdings and assets, including a five-star Greek hotel, a Swiss villa and Swiss bank accounts, belonging to his sons and relatives of his senior colleagues in the Prosecutor’s office.
“After watching this movie, it’s clear that Prosecutor Chaika has serious and grave allegations to answer to. It’s simply not credible for him to say that he can ignore them because a foreigner who is regarded as Putin’s number one enemy was supposedly behind them,” said Bill Browder, author of “Red Notice: How I Became Putin’s Number One Enemy.”
“Even if only a fraction of allegations in this movie are true, this would further confirm that Russia is truly being run like a mafia state by mafia-like officials,” said Bill Browder.
For more information please contact:
Justice for Sergei Magnitsky
+44 207 440 1777
e-mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org
Twitter: @KatieFisher__
www.facebook.com/russianuntouchables
