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The investor Bill Browder has long been imposed as the number one enemy of Vladimir Putin. "He has tracked me through Interpol, has made numerous requests from the British government to extradite me," said Mr Browder, who was briefly detained in Spain two months ago. "Putin made it clear that I was his number one enemy in Helsinki a week ago, and since 2012."
This month, the Russian president took advantage of a joint appearance with President Donald Trump to accuse tax evasion. The next day, Mr. Browder was appointed alongside 10 former US diplomats, intelligence officials and others whom Moscow wanted to question.
But the American businessman, whose company made billions in Russia until its exclusion from the country for unexplained reasons in 2005, said that the true motive of the His opprobrium was his lobbying for Magnitsky's American law. It imposes sanctions on Russian officials for corruption and human rights violations, prohibiting appointees from visiting the United States or doing business with Americans. Since its adoption, the United States has imposed sanctions on 49 people in six separate rounds.
Moscow has often sought to downplay the impact of the sanctions, but this latest episode underscores the Kremlin's concern for Magnitsky's borders and the importance of the infamous Trump Tower meeting in 2016, the Robert Mueller's investigation into the complicity between the Trump campaign and Russia.
"Russian elites bristle with Magnitsky law," said Cliff Kupchan, president of the Eurasia group. "It is a sanction that names and shames elites for repressive acts." The Kremlin opposes American sanctions in general, but this measure – considered to be morally preaching – really provokes anger. "[19659005TheactwasnamedafterSergeiMagnitskytheauditorofMrBrowderwhoexposeda$230milliontaxevasioncriminalgangagainsttheRussianstateHowevertheRussianauthoritiesarrestedMrMagnitskyforataxcaseagainsttheBrowdercompanyandhediedayearlaterinaRussianprisonafterbeingbeatenin2009
Prevezon settled the case last year, agreeing to pay $ 5.9 million without admitting guilt, although missed a deadline for reimbursement. "There was not one person on this list [released by Moscow last week] who was not related to Magnitsky or Prevezon," Mr. Browder told the Financial Times.
Former congressional adviser Kyle Parker, another of those who said he believed On the list because he drafted the Magnitsky law, he said that Moscow was furious because that it was the first time that the United States had deployed sanctions previously reserved for Iran, Cuba, North Korea and Libya.
"At that time, Russia had just acceded to it. WTO, was a member of the G8 and was seeking to become a member of the OECD.Many of the senses were almost fully integrated [into the west] and so Magnitsky was the beginning of the American will to climb, to cross the Rubicon and to brandishing these tools against the Kremlin, "he said." He laid the groundwork for our broader response to sanctions as a result of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. "[19659005MrBrowdersaidthatthismonth'ssummitwasessentiallyrepeatingtheobjectivesoftheTrumpTowermeeting"Itwasthesamemeetingthesametalkingpoints"hesaid19659005] In June 2016, members of the Trump campaign team, including Don Jr, Mr. Trump's son, and Jared Kushner, his son-in-law, met several Russians who offered their help to the Clinton campaign. Some Russians at this meeting Trump Tower – including Moscow-based lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya and former Soviet Army officer Rinat Akhmetshin, now a Washington lobbyist – have been working on the defense of Prevezon.
During the meeting, the two men, who met through their work on the Magnitsky case, lobbied Team Trump against the Magnitsky law. Jamie Fly, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund, said that the Trump Tower meeting and Putin's public attack were best seen as part of a broader Moscow effort to dislodge the Magnitsky law. and discredit Mr. Browder.
"There has been an effort of influence organized by the Russian state on the Magnitsky law for years," he said. "It is striking that Mr. Putin felt so encouraged to raise Browder personally with Mr. Trump."
Moscow challenges Mr. Browder's account of his business and the death of Mr. Magnitsky and sentenced him in absentia to nine years of imprisonment. tax evasion.
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M. Akhmetshin filed a defamation suit against Mr. Browder this month in a Washington District Court alleging that he had claimed to be a foreign spy after Mr. Akhmetshin found inconsistencies in the story of Mr. Browder. His complaint says that Mr. Browder was "a driving force" behind the Prevezon case. Mr. Browder said that he still had to see the claim.
million. Trump has not publicly opined on Magnitsky, although the US State Department does not seem discouraged. A US State Department official said that "an important goal" of his Magnitsky program was to form an international group of partners to take further action. "We intend to follow closely the reactions of other governments," said the official.
If Mr. Browder makes his way, eight more countries will soon adopt their own versions of US legislation. The United Kingdom, Canada, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia have already adopted their own models, and Mr. Browder is now pushing France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Ukraine, Australia and South Africa to do the same.
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