2 May 2016  – Fol­low­ing the anti-Magnitsky event held at the Euro­pean par­lia­ment last Wednes­day, and attended by Rus­sians included on Euro­pean Parliament’s sanc­tions list, today lead­ing mem­bers of the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment have called on Fed­er­ica Mogherini, EU’s for­eign affairs chief, to imple­ment Mag­nit­sky sanc­tions in Europe.

 

The call on Fed­er­ica Mogherini, in charge of EU’s for­eign pol­icy, is signed by Elmar Brok, Chair­man of the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment Com­mit­tee on For­eign Affairs,  Rebecca Harms, pres­i­dent of The Greens – Euro­pean Free Alliance group, Guy Ver­hof­s­tadt, chair of the Alde Group, and other mem­bers of the Euro­pean par­lia­ment fromEPP, ECR, S&D, Alde, and Greens/EFA polit­i­cal groups.

 

Two years ago, on 2 April 2014,  the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment adopted a res­o­lu­tion call­ing on the EU Coun­cil of Min­is­ters to sanc­tion 32 Russ­ian indi­vid­u­als, con­nected to the case of Sergei Mag­nit­sky and his killing in Russ­ian police cus­tody after expos­ing the US$230 mil­lion fraud.  Since then, no action was taken by Euro­pean Exter­nal Action Ser­vice. In Jan­u­ary 2015, Ms Mogherini advised the Euro­pean par­lia­men­tar­i­ans she did not think it was a good policy.

 

Last week, on 27 April 2016, a del­e­ga­tion of Rus­sians, includ­ing Pavel Kar­pov and Andrei Pavlov who are No 7 and No 15 on the Euro­pean Parliament’s Mag­nit­sky Sanc­tions Res­o­lu­tion list, attended an anti-Magnitsky event at the Euro­pean par­lia­ment in Brus­sels, which was widely cov­ered by Russ­ian media. The event was orga­nized by Heidi Hau­tala, MEP from Fin­land, to screen a defam­a­tory film about Sergei Mag­nit­sky pro­duced by her Russ­ian boyfriend, Andrei Nekrasov. The film falsely claims that Sergei Mag­nit­sky had not been beaten in cus­tody and had not named police offi­cers in his tes­ti­monies for their role in the fraud to steal US$230 mil­lion from the Russ­ian bud­get. Ms Hau­tala invited Andrei Pavlov and Pavel Kar­pov, two peo­ple on the 32-people sanc­tions list approved by the par­lia­ment, to attend the event.

 

“The pres­ence in the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment of two of these indi­vid­u­als, tar­geted by inter­na­tional sanc­tions, shows clearly the need for con­certed  EU action, and that HRVP Mogherini must finally bring the Mag­nit­sky sanc­tions to the Coun­cil for adop­tion,” said the state­ment by lead­ers of the Euro­pean Parliament.

 

“We, mem­bers of the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment, strongly protest against the fact that two indi­vid­u­als named on a Euro­pean Parliament’s sanc­tions list received access to and par­tic­i­pated in an event in the EP held on 27 April this year … which appears to be used as part of a broader cam­paign to dis­credit crit­ics of the Russ­ian lead­er­ship, both inside and out­side the coun­try, and to den­i­grate Sergey Magnitsky’s per­son­al­ity and his tragic death in a Russ­ian prison cell,” said lead­ers of the Euro­pean Parliament.

Pavel Kar­pov and Andrei Pavlov are No 7 and No 15 on the Euro­pean Parliament’s Mag­nit­sky list, which rec­om­mends the EU Coun­cil of Min­is­ters to impose visa sanc­tions and asset freezes on those who were involved in the crimes against Sergei Magnitsky.

#7: KARPOV, Pavel, born 27 August 1977;

#15: PAVLOV, Andrey (a.k.a. Pavlov, Andrei), born 7 August 1977;

Andrei Pavlov greet­ing Heidi Hau­tala, MEP, 27 April 2016

 

 

For more infor­ma­tion, please contact:

 

Jus­tice for Sergei Magnitsky

+44 207 440 1777

e-mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org

www.lawandorderinrussia.org

www.facebook.com/russianuntouchables