25 May 2016 – The Russian Investigative Committee has rejected William Browder’s criminal complaint against Russian General Prosecutor Yuri Chaika. The complaint asked the Russian authorities to investigate Chaika for making knowingly false accusations of triple homicide against William Browder in a December 2015 letter Chaika published in the Russian newspaper “Kommersant.” In that article, Chaika accused Browder of murdering three Russian citizens.

“Chaika shouldn’t be allowed to abuse his position and make such wild and knowingly false statements against me purely to seek revenge for his false assumption that I was involved in exposing the abuse and corruption of his office,” said William Browder, author of the New-York Times best-seller “Red Notice. How I Became Putin’s No 1 Enemy.“

Chaika’s Kommersant letter also blamed William Browder for financing and backing the YouTubeexpose of corruption and criminality involving Chaika’s sons prepared by Russian anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny.

1. Ustyugov, an official in the Russian Investigative Committee, issued the rejection to William Browder’s complaint, stating there were “no grounds to register this application as a crime report and conduct a probe into it.”

The Russian Investigative Committee’s official who prepared the refusal was officer Marina Lomonosova, who previously was in charge of investigating the death of Sergei Magnitsky in Russian police custody.

Judge Artur Karpov of Basmanny District Court of Moscow agreed with the Investigative Committee’s inaction, saying “there were no reasons to distrust the documents provided by the criminal prosecution bodies.”

Moscow district city Judge Artur Karpov has previously refused complaints from Sergei Magnitsky’s mother seeking an investigation of her son’s torture and murder in detention. He also sanctioned arrests of Bolotnaya Square protesters and the house arrest of Alexei Navalny.

For more information, please contact:

Justice for Sergei Magnitsky

+44 207 440 1777

e-mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org

www.lawandorderinrussia.org

www.billbrowder.com

https://twitter.com/Billbrowder

21 May 2016 – Within 24 hours of the fail­ure of Russian-sponsored lob­by­ists to remove the name “Mag­nit­sky” from the Global Mag­nit­sky Act at the House For­eign Affairs Com­mit­tee, at 19:39 on 19 May 2016, the Russ­ian Gen­eral Prosecutor’s Office responded by mak­ing a pub­lic announce­ment of the con­tin­u­a­tion of crim­i­nal cases against William Brow­der, leader of the Global Mag­nit­sky Jus­tice Move­ment, and his colleagues.

 

Lob­by­ists rep­re­sent­ing a Russ­ian national who is under inves­ti­ga­tion for money laun­der­ing by the US Depart­ment of Jus­tice, approached a num­ber of mem­bers of the House For­eign Affairs Com­mit­tee and staffers in the week of May 16, 2016 try­ing to con­vince the con­gress­men to vote in favor of an amend­ment to remove the name of Mag­nit­sky from the Global Mag­nit­sky Act.

 

They made a num­ber of defam­a­tory com­ments about William Brow­der, the head of the Global Mag­nit­sky Jus­tice Cam­paign, to jus­tify their request. Their efforts failed, except on Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Dana Rohrabacher, who pro­posed the amend­ment. The House For­eign Rela­tions Com­mit­tee rejected the amendment.

 

“In response to the fail­ure of Russ­ian state-sponsored smear cam­paign against William Brow­der in Wash­ing­ton, the Russ­ian Gen­eral Prosecutor’s Office decided to re-announce its ille­git­i­mate and polit­i­cally moti­vated pro­ceed­ings against him in Rus­sia as “news.” These alle­ga­tions are three years old and have been pre­vi­ously rejected as mer­it­less and polit­i­cally moti­vated by INTERPOL and by the Coun­cil of Europe, com­pris­ing 47 mem­ber states,” said Her­mitage representative.

 

The re-announced crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings in Rus­sia relate to The Her­mitage Fund trad­ing shares in Gazprom nearly twenty years ago. The share pur­chases had been reviewed at the time by Gazprom itself, the Russ­ian Fed­eral Secu­ri­ties Com­mis­sion, the Russ­ian tax author­i­ties and the Prosecutor’s Office who all con­firmed the law­ful­ness of the transactions.

 

“The unfounded, arbi­trary and selec­tive accu­sa­tions in this case are hall­marks of polit­i­cally moti­vated abuse of the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem, which has been char­ac­ter­is­tic of the Mag­nit­sky case in Rus­sia,” said Her­mitage representative.

 

The Russ­ian state attack on William Brow­der esca­lated since the press con­fer­ence of Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin in Decem­ber 2012 where he was asked about Sergei Mag­nit­sky on seven occa­sions. In response, Pres­i­dent Putin said that he knew that Sergei Mag­nit­sky was not a human rights defender, but “Mr Browder’s lawyer,” and promised to “delve deeper” in the case. A month later, in Jan­u­ary 2013, Russ­ian author­i­ties opened crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings against William Brow­der in rela­tion to invest­ing in Gazprom shares nearly 20 years ago. This same case was the sub­ject of the Russ­ian Gen­eral Prosecutor’s announce­ment on 19 May 2016, one day after Russ­ian pro­pa­ganda efforts failed to remove the name of Sergei Mag­nit­sky from the title of the Global Mag­nit­sky leg­is­la­tion in Wash­ing­ton, in spite of enlist­ing a web of lob­by­ists and con­sul­tants of all kinds.

 

The Russ­ian anti-Magnitsky offen­sive in Wash­ing­ton was coor­di­nated with the attacks on civil activists at home, with at least two new crim­i­nal probes announced against anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny – one for allegedly slan­der­ing Pavel Kar­pov, sanc­tioned for his role in the Mag­nit­sky case; and another for involve­ment in a pur­ported CIA oper­a­tion to mur­der Sergei Mag­nit­sky in Russ­ian police cus­tody on instruc­tions from William Browder.

 

“The Russ­ian Prosecutor’s Office is spread­ing dis­in­for­ma­tion and abus­ing its crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem to pro­tect cor­rupt Russ­ian offi­cials and crim­i­nals who stole US$230 mil­lion. It is this brazen impunity which neces­si­tates West­ern Mag­nit­sky sanc­tions,” said William Browder.

 

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, leav­ing a wife and two children.

 

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 explo­sive 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

www.lawandorderinrussia.org

billbrowder.com

twitter.com/Billbrowder

19 May 2016 – On 18 May 2016, the U.S. House For­eign Rela­tions Com­mit­tee passed the Global Mag­nit­sky bill, which cre­ates con­se­quences for cor­rupt offi­cials and human rights abusers around the world in the form of visa bans and asset freezes.

 

Dur­ing the mark-up of the bill, Con­gress­man Dana Rohrabacher, from Orange County, Cal­i­for­nia, pro­posed an amend­ment to exclude Magnitsky’s name from the title of the bill. To jus­tify his amend­ment, Con­gress­man Rohrabacher referred to a “confus­ing sit­u­a­tion” and “seri­ous ques­tions” that “Mag­nit­sky was being held [in Russ­ian deten­tion] because the Russ­ian Gov­ern­ment knew that there was $230 mil­lion of tax lia­bil­ity that they did not have the funds, that Mr Brow­der, that was his tax lia­bil­ity.”

 

Con­gress­man Rohrabacher’s remarks imply that Her­mitage did not pay the US$230 mil­lion in taxes to the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment, and the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment was con­cerned about recov­er­ing these funds from the start. These claims are wrong, and are con­tra­dicted by the facts and pub­licly avail­able doc­u­ments, including:

 

(i) Doc­u­men­tary evi­dence that the US$230 mil­lion in taxes had been paid by the Her­mitage Fund’s Russ­ian com­pa­nies to the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment in 2006,

ii) Doc­u­men­tary evi­dence that those US$230 mil­lion were stolen a year later through a mas­sive fraud per­pe­trated by a Russ­ian crim­i­nal organ­i­sa­tion com­pris­ing Russ­ian offi­cials, who stole Her­mitage com­pa­nies and then approved in one day the wire trans­fers of US$230 mil­lion away from the Russ­ian trea­sury to accounts opened by known Russ­ian crim­i­nals to a bank owned by a con­victed Russ­ian criminal;

(iii) Doc­u­men­tary evi­dence that Russ­ian author­i­ties ignored Hermitage’s orig­i­nal reports and com­plaints about the US$230 mil­lion fraud,

(iv) Doc­u­men­tary evi­dence that the Russ­ian author­i­ties did not look for the stolen money, and instead organ­ised retal­ia­tory crim­i­nal cases against Hermitage’s Russ­ian lawyers includ­ing Sergei Magnitsky.

The facts of the US$230 mil­lion fraud abet­ted by Russ­ian offi­cials are described in con­tem­po­ra­ne­ous com­plaintsfiled by Her­mitage, as well as in tes­ti­monies given by Sergey Mag­nit­sky nam­ing the per­pe­tra­tors, bank state­ments pro­vided by whistle­blower Alexan­der Perepilich­nyy show­ing the acqui­si­tion of multi-million dol­lar prop­er­ties and cash going to accounts of and for the ben­e­fit of Russ­ian offi­cials involved with the US$230 mil­lion fraud, mil­lions of dol­lars in assets and lav­ish lifestyles of Russ­ian offi­cials impli­cated in Magnitsky’s tes­ti­mony for their role in the US$230 mil­lion fraud, and, most recently, the Panama Papers’ leak show­ing some of the stolenUS$230 mil­lion reach­ing the cor­po­rate account of Sergei Roldugin, a close friend of Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin.
Con­gress­man Rohrabacher’s remarks are also con­tra­dicted by find­ings of inde­pen­dent author­i­ta­tive bod­ies, includ­ing the Coun­cil of Europe, who con­ducted a year-long inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tion of the Mag­nit­sky case, and sum­ma­rized its con­clu­sions in a detailed report adopted in Jan­u­ary 2014, called “Refus­ing Impunity for the Killers of Sergei Mag­nit­sky.” The report­found the exis­tence in Rus­sia of a “mas­sive cover-up involv­ing senior offi­cials of the com­pe­tent min­istries, the Pros­e­cu­tor General’s Office, the Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee and even cer­tain courts” and urged that “the cover-up must be reversed and the true cul­prits must be held to account.”

 

In sup­port of his remarks against Brow­der, Con­gress­man Rohrabacher brought up two arti­cles which pre­sented attacks on Brow­der by the legal defense team of Denis Kat­syv, the son of a Russ­ian offi­cial, who is unsuc­cess­fully try­ing to appeal a US court order and unfreeze US$14 mil­lion of his assets seized under the USGovernment’s money laun­der­ing and civil for­fei­ture action in rela­tion to the Mag­nit­sky case. The U.S. Depart­ment of Jus­tice has described Katsyv’s alle­ga­tions in rela­tion to William Brow­der as “false,”“wild”, and “untrue,” and his con­duct — as “egre­gious” and “inexcusable.”

 

Con­gress­man Rohrabacher also crit­i­cized Brow­der for threat­en­ing legal action against NBC. The story he is refer­ring to was an attempt by NBC’s reporter Ken Dilan­ian to repeat alle­ga­tions from Katsyv’s team that Sergei Mag­nit­sky wasn’t beaten in cus­tody and was never a whistle-blower. Both claims were in con­tra­dic­tion to pub­licly avail­able evi­dence from the Russ­ian Gov­ern­ment. Promi­nent Russ­ian human rights defend­ers, Lud­mila Alex­eeva and Valery Borschev, who per­son­ally inves­ti­gated the Mag­nit­sky case, spoke out against Ken Dilanian’s attempt to mis­rep­re­sent key facts about the Magnitsky’s case in pub­lic state­ments and in an open let­ter to NBCUni­ver­sal CEO Steve Burke. Ken Dilan­ian had pre­vi­ously allowed his sources to influ­ence or write his con­tent.

 

After Rohrabacher’s inter­ven­tion, the House For­eign Affairs Com­mit­tee sub­se­quently voted to reject his amend­ment and passed the Global Mag­nit­sky bill, which will now be up for a vote on the House floor. The date of the vote is not known yet.

 

The Global Mag­nit­sky bill is named after Sergei Mag­nit­sky, Hermitage’s lawyer who in 2007 – 2008 uncov­ered a mas­sive fraud per­pe­trated by Russ­ian offi­cials and organ­ised crim­i­nals to steal US$230 mil­lion that the three com­pa­nies of the Her­mitage Fund had paid to the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment in profit tax a year before, in 2006.  Sergei Mag­nit­sky tes­ti­fied about the fraud, named offi­cials involved, was then arrested by impli­cated offi­cials, kept in cus­tody with­out trial for 358 days in tor­tur­ous con­di­tions, denied fam­ily vis­its and med­ical care, and was killed on 16 Novem­ber 2009 at the age of 37, leav­ing a mother, a wife and two children.

 

In 2010, Sergei Mag­nit­sky was posthu­mously awarded by Trans­parency Inter­na­tional, a global anti-corruption organ­i­sa­tion, with ‘Integrity Award’ in recog­ni­tion of his stance against Russ­ian cor­rup­tion and offi­cial abuse.

 

For more infor­ma­tion, please contact:

 

Jus­tice for Sergei Magnitsky

+44 207 440 1777

e-mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org

www.lawandorderinrussia.org

http://www.billbrowder.com/

https://twitter.com/Billbrowder

19 May 2016 – Fol­low­ing yesterday’s approval of the Global Mag­nit­sky Human Rights bill by the House For­eign Affairs Com­mit­tee, Sen­a­tors Cardin and McCain called on the House speaker to swiftly bring it to a vote.

 

“For too long in too many coun­tries, per­pe­tra­tors of human rights vio­la­tions and grand cor­rup­tion have not been held to account for their crimes and yet con­tinue to enjoy travel and finan­cial priv­i­leges in the United States. With today’s House For­eign Affairs Com­mit­tee pas­sage of the Global Mag­nit­sky Human Rights and Account­abil­ity Act, we are one step closer to pre­vent­ing such impunity, — said Sen­a­tors Ben Cardin and John McCain in a joint state­ment. — We …call on Speaker Ryan to ensure a full House vote on Global Mag­nit­sky with­out delay.”

 

Cardin and McCain, the two orig­i­nal co-sponsors of the Global Mag­nit­sky bill, spoke about the impor­tance ofSergei Magnitsky’s legacy.

 

“The bill is named for Sergei Mag­nit­sky, who has the unfor­tu­nate dis­tinc­tion of serv­ing as a prime exam­ple of the cor­rupt, hor­rific crimes that befall count­less inno­cent peo­ple world­wide. Mr. Mag­nit­sky lost his life for sim­ply doing his job and try­ing to do the right thing when he dis­cov­ered wide­spread fraud and abuse of power in Rus­sia. Just like Mag­nit­sky, human rights defend­ers are vic­tim­ized and stig­ma­tized around the globe,” said sen­a­tors Cardin and McCain.

 

The House For­eign Affairs Com­mit­tee rejected an amend­ment pro­posed by 68-year old Con­gress­man Dana Rohrabacher seek­ing to remove the name of Mag­nit­sky from the Global Human Rights bill. To jus­tify his amend­ment, Con­gress­man Rohrabacher claimed he could not fig­ure out who stole US$230 mil­lion from the Russ­ian bud­get – Sergei Mag­nit­sky or Russ­ian offi­cials. This is despite the fact that the money has been found in the accounts of Russ­ian offi­cials and their fam­i­lies and most recently, through the Panama Papers, on account of Sergei Roldugin, a close friend of Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin.

 

Other Con­gress­men firmly rejected Con­gress­man Rohrabacher’s amend­ment describ­ing it as an unac­cept­able attempt to “rewrite history.”

 

Con­gress­man Con­nolly said that it was impor­tant to call out behav­iour of Pres­i­dent Putin which did not adhere to inter­na­tional norms, “whether in Crimea or in a prison cell.”

 

Russ­ian vet­eran human rights defender Lud­mila Alex­eeva, chair of the Moscow Helsinki Group, sent a mes­sage to mem­bers of the House For­eign Affairs Com­mit­tee ahead of the mark up, stating:

 

“Con­gress­man Dana Rohrabacher has been fooled by the Russ­ian dis­in­for­ma­tion, and has argued that the name of Sergei Mag­nit­sky be dropped from the Global Mag­nit­sky Human Rights Bill. To do this would be a gross betrayal of the human rights move­ment, and of the legacy of Sergei Mag­nit­sky who had sto­ically sac­ri­ficed his life in con­fronting cor­rup­tion and offi­cial abuse in Rus­sia. … To remove his name from the Global Mag­nit­sky Human Rights bill would be a sell­out of vic­tims of oppres­sion and abuse every­where around the world, whom Serge Mag­nit­sky has given hope, and of the prin­ci­ples of integrity he had paid with his life.”

 

Dur­ing the mark-up, con­gress­man Engel said the Global Mag­nit­sky bill would show to all that human rights abuse and cor­rup­tion can­not go on with impunity:

 

“This leg­is­la­tion would send a pow­er­ful mes­sage that human-rights abusers and cor­rup­tion aren’t just inter­nal mat­ters.  They are the con­cern of all coun­tries, and they should not be per­mit­ted to go on with impunity.”

 

On the eve of the Global Mag­nit­sky bill’s mark-up, Russ­ian author­i­ties announced a new crim­i­nal case against Alexei Navalny, the Russ­ian anti-corruption activist and Mag­nit­sky sanc­tions sup­porter. The new case was opened in response to a com­plaint from ex police offi­cer Pavel Kar­pov, who has been sanc­tioned by the US and the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment for his role in Mag­nit­sky case.

 

Last month, the Russ­ian author­i­ties also announced another crim­i­nal probe opened on another spu­ri­ous appli­ca­tion of Pavel Kar­pov against Alexei Navalny and William Brow­der for mur­der of Sergei Mag­nit­sky in Russ­ian police cus­tody, as part of a CIA plan.

 

“The rea­son for the most recent attack on civil soci­ety lead­ers and out­burst of the Russ­ian dis­in­for­ma­tion on the Mag­nit­sky case is the fear of cor­rupt Russ­ian offi­cials to not be able to enjoy the fruits of their cor­rup­tion in the West as a result of Mag­nit­sky sanc­tions. To fight the Mag­nit­sky sanc­tions, they use fab­ri­cated crim­i­nal cases, and dis­in­for­ma­tion both inside the coun­try and in the West. Russ­ian civil soci­ety lead­ers and inde­pen­dent media have been almost com­pletely shut down, while the Russ­ian pop­u­la­tion is fed a diet of myths and dis­in­for­ma­tion,”said William Brow­der, a leader of the global jus­tice for Sergei Mag­nit­sky move­ment and author of “Red Notice: How I Became Putin’s No 1 Enemy.”

 

Sergei Mag­nit­sky, who exposed the theft of US$230 mil­lion from the Russ­ian bud­get and gave tes­ti­mony impli­cat­ing gov­ern­ment offi­cials, was arrested and killed in Moscow deten­tion cen­ter in Novem­ber 2009. Those respon­si­ble for his death and those he exposed for the US$230 mil­lion theft have not been brought to justice.

 

Global Mag­nit­sky Human Rights Account­abil­ity Act passed the U.S. Sen­ate vote in Decem­ber 2015.

 

For more infor­ma­tion, please contact

Jus­tice for Sergei Magnitsky

+44 207 440 1777

e-mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org

www.lawandorderinrussia.org

http://www.billbrowder.com/

https://twitter.com/Billbrowder?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

Ger­man TV Sta­tion ZDF Con­firmed It Will Not Show Nekrasov’s Anti-Magnitsky Pro­pa­ganda Film

16 May 2016 – ZDF, a Ger­man public-service tele­vi­sion broad­caster, has con­firmed that they will not show Andrei Nerkrasov’s anti-Magnitsky pro­pa­ganda film. Pre­vi­ously, Sergei Magnitsky’s widow and mother expressed their cat­e­gor­i­cal objec­tion to dis­tri­b­u­tion in any form of the Nekrasov’s film about Sergei Mag­nit­sky because of its false and slan­der­ous content.

ZDF has now for­mally con­firmed its com­mit­ment to not broad­cast Nekrasov’s film. This fol­lows a sim­i­lar com­mit­ment by the French TV net­work ARTE.

“This film is full of lies and mis­in­for­ma­tion about the Mag­nit­sky case,” said William Brow­der, leader of the global Jus­tice cam­paign for Sergei Mag­nit­sky and author of the New York Times best-seller “Red Notice: How I Became Putin’s No 1 Enemy.”

“It is my duty to Sergei’s mem­ory and to his fam­ily to pre­serve the truth and pro­tect his legacy,” con­tin­ued Browder.

Nekrasov’s film con­tains false state­ments about Sergei Mag­nit­sky, which are refuted by inde­pen­dent inter­na­tional bod­ies, includ­ing the Par­lia­men­tary Assem­bly of the Coun­cil of Europe, com­pris­ing del­e­gates from 47 states, the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment, the US Depart­ment, and the US Con­gress, among others.

Russ­ian human rights activists, includ­ing vet­eran dis­si­dent and head of the Moscow Helsinki Group Lud­mila Alex­eeva and Valery Borschev, head of the Moscow human rights com­mis­sion, who inves­ti­gated Magnitsky’s death, spoke out against the attempts by Andrei Nekrasov to spread the lies in this case for the ben­e­fit of those who have been exposed by Magnitsky’s tes­ti­mony of involve­ment in the fraud and broader cor­rup­tion aris­ing out of Panama Papers, and are being affected by Mag­nit­sky sanc­tions (State­ment by Lud­mila Alex­eeva:http://www.novayagazeta.ru/politics/72940.html; State­ment by Valery Borschev:http://www.novayagazeta.ru/politics/72931.html).

Nekrasov’s anti-Magnitsky film was sched­uled for broad­cast on ARTE, a Franco-German cul­tural TV net­work, on 3 May 2016. ARTE has can­celled the sched­uled broad­cast of Nekrasov’s anti-Magnitsky film, and ZDF has now con­firmed that it will not show this film.

The deci­sion not to broad­cast Nekrasov’s film by ZDF and ARTE fol­low the ear­lier deci­sion not to air the Nekrasov’s film at the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment for sim­i­lar rea­sons. The screen­ing of Nekrasov’s film was orig­i­nally sched­uled there as a pri­vate ini­tia­tive of Heidi Hau­tala, Andrei Nekrasov’s girl­friend and a mem­ber of the Euro­pean par­lia­ment from Finland.

ZDF is based in Mainz, Rhineland-Palatinate. It is run as an inde­pen­dent non-profit insti­tu­tion, which was founded by all fed­eral states of Germany.

For more infor­ma­tion, please contact:

Jus­tice for Sergei Magnitsky

+44 207 440 1777

e-mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org 

www.lawandorderinrussia.org