Mag­nit­sky Sanc­tions Law Intro­duced in the Cana­dian Parliament

 

13 May 2016 — Yes­ter­day, the Con­ser­v­a­tive Party of Canada announced the intro­duc­tion of the Jus­tice for Vic­tims of Cor­rupt For­eign Offi­cials (Sergei Mag­nit­sky Law) bill in House of Com­mons and the Sen­ate simultaneously.

 

The Mag­nit­sky bill was intro­duced by James Bezan MP, Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Selkirk-Interlake-Eastman, in the House of Com­mons, and The Hon. Raynell Andr­ey­chuk, Sen­a­tor for Saskatchewan, in the Senate.

 

“The pur­pose of the Mag­nit­sky Law is to sanc­tion those who are com­mit­ting seri­ous human rights crimes within their coun­tries, or the cor­rupt indi­vid­u­als who are steal­ing the assets of peo­ple,” said Mr Bezan, MP, on the bill introduction.

 

The Hon Irwin Cotler, for­mer Jus­tice Min­is­ter, and one of the strongest advo­cates of Mag­nit­sky leg­is­la­tion in Canada, last year urged Cana­dian law­mak­ers to adopt the law:

 

“It is time…for us to treat Russ­ian domes­tic human-rights vio­la­tions as seri­ously as we do vio­la­tions of polit­i­cal inde­pen­dence and ter­ri­to­r­ial integrity… Coun­tries that value human rights and the rule of law must use the mea­sures at our dis­posal to hold vio­la­tors to account and dis­cour­age future violations.”

 

The Cana­dian Mag­nit­sky Law (C-267) and (S-226) pro­vides for visa sanc­tions and asset freezes against for­eign nation­als respon­si­ble for gross vio­la­tions of inter­na­tion­ally rec­og­nized human rights.

 

Speak­ing about the effect of the Cana­dian Mag­nit­sky Law, James Bezan, MP said:

 

“This would pro­vide the tools and mech­a­nisms to the gov­ern­ment to ensure it can put in place the proper sanc­tions with respect to the travel and eco­nomic activ­ity of those cor­rupt for­eign offi­cials with­out hav­ing to do it on a case-by-case basis.”

 

“More impor­tantly, it also pro­vides both the House of Com­mons and the Sen­ate for­eign affairs com­mit­tees with the abil­ity to look at who is on the dif­fer­ent lists for sanc­tions around the world on an annual basis and report that back to the House.”

 

Before last year’s elec­tion, the Lib­eral Party of Canada, along with other polit­i­cal par­ties, promised to enact Mag­nit­sky sanc­tions if they won. In par­tic­u­lar, the Lib­eral Party said that a Lib­eral Gov­ern­ment would intro­duce leg­is­la­tion, mod­elled on the US Mag­nit­sky leg­is­la­tion, because of the belief that, “by impos­ing sanc­tions, we can impose mean­ing­ful penal­ties on human rights vio­la­tors and deter future vio­la­tions.”

 

Yet, after com­ing to power in Novem­ber 2015, Canada’s new Prime Min­is­ter 44-years old Justin Trudeau reneged on his party’s elec­tion promise, sud­denly changed course and decided to “re-engage” with Rus­sia instead.

 

“This is a betrayal by Justin Trudeau of the prin­ci­ples that Boris Nemtsov and Sergei Mag­nit­sky stood for and who gave their lives in the fight with cor­rup­tion and human rights abuse,” said William Brow­der, leader of Global Mag­nit­sky Jus­tice campaign.

 

In 2012, Russ­ian oppo­si­tion leader Boris Nemtsov trav­elled to Canada to call on the Cana­dian gov­ern­ment and politi­cians to adopt the Mag­nit­sky Act. He was sub­se­quently assas­si­nated in front of the Kremlin.

 

Address­ing a Cana­dian audi­ence in Ottawa, three years before his mur­der, Boris Nemtsov said:

 

“Mag­nit­sky was killed by pros­e­cu­tors and prison man­age­ment… Putin gov­ern­ment sup­ported the mur­der­ers. The idea of the [Mag­nit­sky] Act is to imple­ment sanc­tions against cor­rupt offi­cials and oth­ers who are respon­si­ble for killing Mag­nit­sky.” (See Full speech by Boris Nemtsov in Canada in 2012, start­ing after intro­duc­tion at 4^th min:http://www.ipolitics.ca/2015/03/02/when-nemtsov-came-to-ottawa/ )

 

“As a coun­try with the low level of cor­rup­tion and rule of law, Canada has to fight against crim­i­nals and against cor­rup­tion. You are not against Rus­sia, you are against cor­rup­tion, against crim­i­nals. It will be very painful for Russ­ian cor­rupt bureau­cracy to get such kind of law from Canada. Very painful. Because cor­rupt sys­tem in Rus­sia means that they have prop­erty out­side of the coun­try, they relax out­side the coun­try, they send their kids to get edu­ca­tion out­side,” said Boris Nemtsov, urg­ing Cana­dian law­mak­ers and the Cana­dian Gov­ern­ment to adopt Mag­nit­sky law four years ago.

 

The US became the first coun­try to enact the Mag­nit­sky Legislation.

 

In Decem­ber 2012, the US Con­gress adopted the Sergei Mag­nit­sky Rule of Law Account­abil­ity Act which imposes tar­geted visa bans and asset freezes on per­sons involved in Sergei Mag­nit­sky mis­treat­ment, death, cover up and the crim­i­nal con­spir­acy he had uncovered.

 

In Jan­u­ary 2014, the Par­lia­men­tary Assem­bly of the Coun­cil of Europe, com­pris­ing 47 states, called for the intro­duc­tion of Mag­nit­sky sanc­tions by mem­ber states in case of fail­ure by Russ­ian author­i­ties to respond to the rec­om­men­da­tions of its res­o­lu­tion, “Refus­ing Impunity for the Killers of Sergei Mag­nit­sky”, to which Rus­sia has failed to com­ply since.

 

In April 2014, the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment adopted the Mag­nit­sky Sanc­tions Res­o­lu­tion, list­ing 32 per­sons involved in Mag­nit­sky case and urg­ing the EU Coun­cil to adopt EU-wide sanctions.

 

For more infor­ma­tion, please contact:

 

Jus­tice for Sergei Mag­nit­sky

+44 207 440 1777

e-mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org

www.lawandorderinrussia.org

French TV Sta­tion ARTE Per­ma­nently Can­cels Nekrasov’s Anti-Magnitsky Pro­pa­ganda Film

 

9 May 2016 – The French TV sta­tion, ARTE, has per­ma­nently can­celled the anti-Magnitsky pro­pa­ganda film by Russ­ian film­maker Andrei Nekrasov.

 

French lawyer Safya Ako­rri who rep­re­sents the widow of Sergei Mag­nit­sky, and William Brow­der, the leader of the inter­na­tional jus­tice cam­paign for Sergei Mag­nit­sky, wrote to ARTE, sub­mit­ting a list of false alle­ga­tions made in Nekrasov’s film and pre­sent­ing the evi­dence of their falsity.

 

ARTE has since can­celled the show sched­uled for release on 3 May 2016 and offi­cially informed their lawyers that they had no inten­tion to show it at any point in the future.

 

ARTE’s deci­sion fol­lows the deci­sion at the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment on 27 April 2016 not to air the Nekrasov’s film for sim­i­lar rea­sons. The screen­ing of Nekrasov’s film was sched­uled as a per­sonal ini­tia­tive of Nekrasov’s girl­friend, Heidi Hau­tala, a mem­ber of the Euro­pean par­lia­ment from the Green Party in Finland.

 

Speak­ing about the deci­sion by ARTE to can­cel the film, William Brow­der, leader of Mag­nit­sky jus­tice cam­paign, said:

 

“There are many peo­ple who wish to avoid fac­ing jus­tice for Magnitsky’s death and the crimes he exposed by try­ing to destroy his mem­ory and legacy. It is our duty to make sure this doesn’t hap­pen.”

 

Andrei Nekrasov’s film on Sergei Mag­nit­sky was pre­pared for release on ARTE’s Euro­pean cul­tural chan­nel on May 3, 2016 ignor­ing the fact that Sergei Magnitsky’s mother did not con­sent to the use of video footage of her.

 

“We are out­raged that Mr. Nekrasov pre­tended that he sym­pa­thized with our grief,” said Nataliya Magnitskaya.

 

Nekrasov’s film, which claims to be a “doc­u­men­tary”, con­tains numer­ous false alle­ga­tions against Sergei Mag­nit­sky, which had been reviewed and refuted by inde­pen­dent Russ­ian and inter­na­tional bod­ies, includ­ing the Par­lia­men­tary Assem­bly of the Coun­cil of Europe, com­pris­ing del­e­gates from 47 states, the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment, theUS Depart­ment, and the US Con­gress, among others.

 

The let­ter from Magnitsky’s mother and widow denounced any form of dis­tri­b­u­tion of Nekrasov’s film which, they believe, used com­pro­mised meth­ods char­ac­ter­is­tic of Krem­lin pro­pa­ganda films:

 

“Mr. Nekrasov is not unique, such mis­lead­ing movies and pro­grams are demon­strated in Rus­sia on a reg­u­lar basis to drag Sergei Magnitsky’s name through the mud and to jus­tify the per­sons respon­si­ble for his death. Direc­tors use frag­ments of inter­views which are often taken by deceit, sin­gle sen­tences or even words are taken out of the con­text of the doc­u­ments, cer­tain phrases are turned inside out and acquire the oppo­site mean­ing, frag­ments of speeches are com­bined in a way nec­es­sary to manip­u­la­tive indi­vid­u­als, accord­ing to the order.”

 

When the Mag­nit­sky fam­ily learned about Nekrasov’s film, they issued a let­ter of protest against this lat­est anti-Magnitsky pro­pa­ganda ini­tia­tive. The Mag­nit­sky fam­ily said:

 

“We think that the film by Andrei Nekrasov, which is based on his con­coc­tions but not on the doc­u­ments  and facts, degrades the dig­nity of Sergei Mag­nit­sky, degrades the deceased per­son who is unable to defend himself.”

 

“This movie is made in the inter­ests of those who are scared of the truth uncov­ered by Sergei Magnitsky,”

said Magnitsky’s mother and widow.

 

Fol­low­ing the rev­e­la­tion of Nekrasov’s turn-around on Mag­nit­sky case, ques­tions have been raised as to what could explain it.

 

Andrei Nekrasov was pre­vi­ously known for films, includ­ing about poi­son­ing of Alexan­der Litvi­nenko, which were pro­duced by his wife, Olga Kon­skaya, who passed away in Ger­many in 2009. Andrei Nekrasov’s pub­lic stance on Putin’s Rus­sia changed since at least March 2014 — the time of Pres­i­dent Putin’s inva­sion in Ukraine.

 

In Andrei Nekrasov’s blog post of 21 March 2014 avail­able on the web­site of ‘Echo of Moscow,’ Russ­ian radio sta­tion, he expressed a strong anti-American sen­ti­ment, jus­ti­fy­ing Putin’s actions, saying:

 

“Why Amer­ica (and allies) can vio­late inter­na­tional law, and Rus­sia — not? Amer­i­cans and Co vio­late it, and this is not Kremlin-Kiselev’s pro­pa­ganda, it is a fact rec­og­nized by the inter­na­tional community;”

 

“Putin con­trols the imag­i­na­tion of the peo­ple, and this is not the result of him “usurp­ing power…;”

 

“In the opin­ion of aggrieved Rus­sians, Crimea is not sub­ject to Budapest memorandum.”

 

For more infor­ma­tion, please contact:

 

Jus­tice for Sergei Magnitsky

+44 207 440 1777

e-mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org

www.lawandorderinrussia.org

5 May 2016 – Promi­nent Russ­ian human rights defend­ers have spo­ken out against Russ­ian film­maker Andrei Nekrasov and NBC reporter Ken Dilan­ian for their anti-Magnitsky pro­pa­ganda cam­paign in Europe and the US.

Lud­mila Alex­eeva, Head of Moscow Helsinki Group

In a pub­lic let­ter pub­lished by ‘Novaya Gazeta’ news­pa­per, Lud­mila Alex­eeva rebuked their mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tions of Mag­nit­sky case, saying:

 

“I have no idea who specif­i­cally is behind this [Andrei Nekrasov’s] film and who hired the author, I have no idea. But one thing is clear – these are the peo­ple who are very inter­ested to dis­avow the evi­dence of cor­rup­tion, which started to emerge first with the case of Mag­nit­sky (and thanks to Mag­nit­sky), and con­tin­ues to emerge, but on a global scale (such as the Panama leaks ).”

 

“The high-profile expo­sure of cor­rup­tion was started specif­i­cally by Sergei Mag­nit­sky, — said Lud­mila Alex­eeva. — That is why it is so impor­tant for the peo­ple com­plicit in the con­spir­acy to defame Mag­nit­sky and the evi­dence which he made pub­lic. As a result, this film appeared…  To try to show that every­thing — what Mag­nit­sky first said, then the Panama leaks – are non­sense. What they want is to revoke sanc­tions. They decided to start with the dis­avow­ing of the Mag­nit­sky list.”

 

A vet­eran Russ­ian human rights defender, Lud­mila Alex­eeva, is one of the lead­ing voices in Russ­ian civil soci­ety advo­cat­ing for West­ern Mag­nit­sky sanc­tions as a tool to address the impunity in Rus­sia of those respon­si­ble for Magnitsky’s tor­ture and mur­der in detention.

Valery Borschev

Valery Borschev, another lead­ing Russ­ian human rights advo­cate and head of the Moscow Pub­lic Over­sight Commission,an inde­pen­dent panel that inves­ti­gated Magnitsky’s death since 2009, spoke out to quash the phony claims in Andrei Nekrasov’s film.

 

“The film [by film­maker Nerkasov] tries to con­tra­dict every­thing that has been con­cluded by our Com­mis­sion. …We  looked at con­di­tions of deten­tion, tor­ture, non-provision of med­ical care, vio­lence which led to murder.…I state firmly: the film does not reflect the true state of affairs in part con­cern­ing the deten­tion of Mag­nit­sky,” said Valery Borschev.

 

Russ­ian human rights activists cas­ti­gated the false claims in Nekrasov’s film that Mag­nit­sky was not beaten in cus­tody, did not tes­tify against cor­rupt police offi­cers, and that Mag­nit­sky him­self com­mit­ted the crime he had uncov­ered. These claims are con­tra­dicted by evi­dence of Magnitsky’s beat­ing from both the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment and the Mag­nit­sky fam­ily, his inves­ti­ga­tion into the fraud and com­plaints filed three weeks before the US$230 mil­lion were stolen, offi­cial writ­ten records of his tes­ti­mony, and con­clu­sions reached by Russ­ian and inter­na­tional bod­ies who con­ducted inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tions. These false claims have pre­vi­ously been refuted on numer­ous occa­sions, but are now being rekin­dled by Russ­ian film­maker Andrei Nekrasov in his anti-Magnitsky film in Europe, and echoed by Ken Dilan­ian, NBC News off-air cor­re­spon­dent in the United States.

 

In his writ­ten ques­tions to the ‘Jus­tice for Sergei Mag­nit­sky’ cam­paign last week, reporter Ken Dilan­ian claimed that he and his team at NBC found “no evi­dence” of Sergei’s Magnitsky’s beat­ing before he died, despite pub­licly avail­able records, inde­pen­dent reports and pho­tographs from Magnitsky’s autopsy. Dilan­ian also claimed he found “no evi­dence” of Magnitsky’s tes­ti­mony against police before his arrest. This is despite Mag­nit­sky nam­ing in tes­ti­mony before his arrest offi­cers Kuznetsov and Kar­pov 14 times and 13 times respectively.

Andrei Nekrasov, Russ­ian filmmaker

 

 

 

Ken Dilan­ian, NBC News off-air reporter

 

 

 

Accord­ing to the NBC News web­site, prior to sud­denly tak­ing on the Mag­nit­sky story, Ken Dilan­ian had never reported on Russ­ian affairs or human rights.

 

Mr. Dilan­ian joined NBC News as off-air cor­re­spon­dent at the end of 2015. In his pre­vi­ous job with the Los Ange­les Times, he was com­pro­mised for per­mit­ting his close rela­tion­ships with sources to influ­ence his reporting.

 

In an open let­ter to Steve Burke, CEO of NBC Uni­ver­sal, pub­lished in the Russ­ian news­pa­per ‘Novaya Gazeta’, Valery Borschev con­demned the false claims, cit­ing the inves­ti­ga­tion con­ducted by the Moscow Pub­lic Over­sight Com­mis­sion which he chaired imme­di­ately after the death of Sergei Mag­nit­sky and as part of the work­ing group of the Russ­ian President’s Human Rights Council.

 

“The inves­ti­ga­tion of doc­u­ments, sub­mit­ted by law enforce­ment bod­ies to the work­ing group, led mem­bers of the Pub­lic Over­sight Com­mis­sion to the con­vic­tion that Sergei Mag­nit­sky was sub­jected to vio­lence before his death… There is a doc­u­ment, dated 16.11.2009, signed by deputy head of deten­tion cen­ter Markin, and eye wit­nesses Borovkov and Larin, which said: “rub­ber baton was applied,” “hand­cuffs were applied,” – ie he was beaten while hand­cuffed by rub­ber baton,” said Valery­Borschev­in­hislet­ter­to­CEOofN­BCU­ni­ver­sal Steve Burke.

 

The Russ­ian state-sponsored anti-Magnitsky pro­pa­ganda began after Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin adopted a for­eign pol­icy decree in May 2011, instruct­ing Russ­ian gov­ern­ment bod­ies to fight US sanc­tions. It then esca­lated after a Decem­ber 2012 press con­fer­ence by Vladimir Putin, in which he was asked about Sergei Mag­nit­sky numer­ous times, and where he denied that Mag­nit­sky had died from tor­ture and promised to “delve deeper” into the case. The new esca­la­tion of pro­pa­ganda fol­lows a press con­fer­ence ear­lier this year, in which Russ­ian For­eign Affairs Min­is­ter Sergei Lavrov implied new rev­e­la­tions on the Mag­nit­sky case to fight the US Mag­nit­sky Act.

 

On 27 April 2016, Andrei Nekrasov planned an anti-Magnitsky event at the Euro­pean par­lia­ment in Brus­sels to show his new defam­a­tory film with help from his girl­friend, Finnish MEP Heidi Hautala.

 

It is under­stood that Ken Dilan­ian planned his story with NBC News for the same day, 27 April 2016.

 

On 27 April 2016, the widow and mother of Sergei Mag­nit­sky wrote to mem­bers of the Euro­pean par­lia­ment, stat­ing their cat­e­gor­i­cal protest against any demon­stra­tion of the defam­a­tory and false film about Sergei Mag­nit­sky any­where, and espe­cially in the Euro­pean Parliament.

 

“Through this let­ter, Sergei’s fam­ily expresses its highly neg­a­tive reac­tion to the movie, its protest against uncon­scionable attempts to blacken the name of Sergei Mag­nit­sky. We are cat­e­gor­i­cally against the pub­lic demon­stra­tion of the film by Andrei Nekrasov, against the dis­tri­b­u­tion of the film in any way,” said the Mag­nit­sky family.

 

The film “pre­miere” at the Euro­pean par­lia­ment was cancelled.

 

ARTE, Euro­pean cul­ture net­work, who planned to air the anti-Magnitsky film on 3 May 2016, can­celled it as well.

 

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

 

 

Promi­nent Russ­ian human rights defend­ers who con­ducted an inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tion of Mag­nit­sky case, have spo­ken out against the new wave of anti-Magnitsky pro­pa­ganda and its enablers.

 

State­ment by Lud­mila Alex­eeva, Head of the Moscow Helsinki Group and Chair of the Russ­ian President’s Human Rights Council’s Work­ing Group on the inves­ti­ga­tion of death of Sergei Mag­nit­sky, 3 May 2016:http://www.novayagazeta.ru/politics/72940.html

 

State­ment by Valery Borschev, head of the Moscow Pub­lic Over­sight Com­mis­sion which inves­ti­gated the cir­cum­stances of death in deten­tion of Sergei Mag­nit­sky, 2 May 2016:http://www.novayagazeta.ru/politics/72931.html

 

 

Results of search for Dilan­ian and “human rights” on NBC News web­site for 2016:

 

“Dilan­ian” and “human rights” pro­duces two sto­ries in 2016

Trump Needs His ‘Own Damn Bucket’ to Water­board: Ex-CIA Chief …

Feb 22, 2016 … by Ken Dilan­ian .… Laura Pit­ter, senior national secu­rity coun­sel for Human Rights Watch, says it’s wor­ri­some that major GOP can­di­dates are …

www.nbcnews.com/…/trump-needs-his-own-damn-bucket-waterboard-ex-cia –chief-n523576

 

Spy Kid: A Young CIA Offi­cer Breaks Cover and Spills Secrets — NBC …

Apr 1, 2016 … by Ken Dilan­ian … the bat­tle­field,” in the CIA’s euphemistic phrase for killing human tar­gets with .… “And this is me going, ‘You’re right, I wasn’t.

www.nbcnews.com/…/spy-kid-young-cia-officer-breaks-cover-spills-secrets– n548846

 

 

Pre­vi­ous post by Andrei Nekrasov with pro-Putin and anti-American sen­ti­ments pub­lished on Echo of Moscow blog, 21 March 2014: http://echo.msk.ru/blog/andnekrasov/1283896-echo/

 

Andrei Nekrasov, Russ­ian film­maker turned anti-Magnitsky cam­paigner, pre­vi­ously claimed:

• “Amer­i­cans and Com­pany” vio­late inter­na­tional law and that “this is not Kremlin-Kiselyov’s pro­pa­ganda, it is a fact rec­og­nized by the inter­na­tional com­mu­nity.”
•  “Putin con­trols the imag­i­na­tion of the peo­ple, and this is not the result of him “usurp­ing power.”
• “In the opin­ion of aggrieved Rus­sians, Crimea is not sub­ject to Budapest mem­o­ran­dum.”

3 May 2016 – Today, at 3 pm, William Browder, leader of the global “Justice for Sergei Magnitsky” campaign, will testify in front of the UK Parliament’s Home Affairs Committee about the Russian money laundering in the UK and the implementation of the Proceeds of Crime Act.

Mr Browder will reveal results of a six-year long investigation into the money laundering and proceeds of corruption exposed by Sergei Magnitsky, which led to Magnitsky’s arrest, torture and murder in Russian police custody at the age of 37.

The information will include detailed descriptions of luxury purchases in London and surrounding counties totalling US$30 million connected to the money laundering network uncovered thanks to Sergei Magnitsky.

This investigation was assisted by Alexander Perepilichnyy, a Russian whistleblower who came forward after Sergei Magnitsky’s death and provided bank statements leading to more than US$15 million being frozen by Swiss Prosecutor General in a separate Swiss money laundering investigation. Perepilichnyy died in November 2012 in suspicious circumstances in front of his home in Weybridge, Surrey at the age of 44.

The investigation into the Magnitsky case has recently revealed a connection of the proceeds from the crime Sergei Magnitsky uncovered to the ‘Panama Papers,’ and specifically to Sergei Roldugin, President Putin’s long-time friend and cellist.

For more information, please contact:

Justice for Sergei Magnitsky

+44 207 440 1777

e-mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org

www.lawandorderinrussia.org

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