Booted U.S. Lawyer Backed Magnitsky
The lack of an official explanation for the abrupt expulsion from Russia of U.S. lawyer and former Justice Department official Thomas Firestone earlier this month has led to a flurry of speculation about what may have prompted it.
Firestone, an expert on corruption in Russian law enforcement agencies who worked as a lawyer for the Moscow office of the Baker & McKenzie law firm, was detained at Sheremetyevo Airport on May 5 when returning from a trip abroad. Officers kept him in the airport for some 15 hours before ultimately sending him to the U.S.
The expulsion follows an exchange of insults between the U.S. and Russia last month, when the U.S. released a blacklist of 18 Russian officials allegedly implicated in human rights violations who were banned from entering the U.S., and Russia responded with a similar blacklist of 18 U.S. officials.
“I don’t know what the reason for Firestone’s expulsion was, but [it’s true that] he was very active in advocating for the release of Sergei Magnitsky in 2009 and that he made a number of requests to Russian officials asking them for his release,” Hermitage Capital head William Browder said by phone Tuesday.
If it’s true that Firestone was expelled over the U.S. Magnitsky Act, he wouldn’t be the first American citizen to face repercussions from the so-called Anti-Magnitsky list.
Chris Smith, a top U.S. lawmaker, was refused a Russian visa earlier this year and blamed it on his vocal backing of the U.S. Magnitsky Act.
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Russia asks Interpol to track Magnitsky campaigner
The diminutive US-born businessman and his entourage of one or two assistants has become a familiar sight in the European Parliament in Brussels, which Bill Browder visits several times a year to make the case for EU sanctions on Russian officials linked to the alleged murder of his former employee, whistleblower accountant Sergei Magnitsky.
He is also a frequent visitor in Berlin, The Hague, Paris, Rome, Stockholm and Warsaw.
But he is a wanted man in Russia, which last month issued a warrant for his arrest on charges that he illegally obtained shares in its national energy champion, Gazprom, 15 years ago.
He is also wanted in other ways.
Following a series of anonymous death threats, he now lives in London under the protection of the Special Branch of the British police.
When he travels, the UK liaises with security services in other European countries to keep him safe.
But if the Kremlin gets its way, his travels could come to an end.
The Russian interior ministry on 7 May filed a request with Interpol, the international police body in Lyon, France, to issue a so-called All Points Bulletin (APB) on Browder.
If it agrees, authorities in all 190 Interpol member states will be obliged to alert Russia of his movements, enabling it to request his detention and extradition.
The police body will consider Russia’s demand at a meeting on Thursday (23 May).
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Russia asks Interpol to monitor movements of British hedge fund boss Bill Browder
Russia has applied to Interpol to monitor the travel and whereabouts of a British hedge fund boss wanted by Moscow who is at the heart of a diplomatic stand-off over the alleged killing of whistle-blowing lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.
The international policing body will decide this week whether to approve the request from the Russian authorities to issue an “All Points Bulletin” for US-born financier Bill Browder, whose Hermitage Capital Management employed Mr Magnitsky prior to his death in a Russian prison in 2009.
The death of Mr Magnitsky, who died at the age of 37 after being beaten and then denied essential medical treatment, has become a symbol of corruption in Russia and prompted a law in the United States imposing visa bans and freezing the assets of officials involved in the alleged killing.
A Russian court last month issued a warrant for the arrest in absentia of Mr Browder, who has led a campaign for justice for Mr Magnitsky, on tax evasion charges which the businessman said are part of a politically-motivated vendetta against him by Russian president Vladimir Putin.
The Independent understands that the application from the Russian Interior Ministry stops short of a request for a so-called Interpol “red notice” requesting the arrest of a wanted individual.
Instead it will request Interpol’s 190 member countries to alert Moscow to his whereabouts, potentially allowing the Russian authorities to make a direct demand for him to be detained if he travels abroad.
An Interpol committee will meet on Thursday to decide whether to accept the Russian request, which can be rejected if it is found to breach Article Three of its constitution which states that it is ‘strictly forbidden for the organization to undertake any intervention or activities of a political, military, religious or racial character’.
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British tycoon William Browder fears extradition to Russia
A British businessman is facing extradition from the UK to Russia after Moscow issued a request for an Interpol “blue notice” to locate and arrest him.
William Browder, a US-born businessman based in London who is campaigning against Russian officials implicated in the death of Sergei Magnitsky, his former lawyer, said the warrant meant that he risked being sent to Russia, tortured and killed if he were to travel anywhere in the world.
The move came to light on a day in which President Putin’s use of the courts to constrain freedom of speech was highlighted, with the Levada Centre, Russia’s only independent polling organisation, saying that it might have to close because of legal harassment.
Human rights organisations detect similar political motivation behind a crackdown on NGOs in Russia.
Mr Browder’s London-based company, Hermitage Capital Management, was one of the largest foreign investors in Russia from the mid 1990s until it became the victim of a massive tax fraud in 2007. He hired Mr Magnitsky to investigate.
The lawyer concluded that officials from the Russian Interior Ministry had colluded with police and organised criminals in a $230 million (£150 million) scam, but Mr Magnitsky was then arrested and accused of the fraud that he had apparently exposed.
In March he was posthumously put on trial, having died while in pre-trial detention. Mr Browder was named as an absent co-defendant.
Mr Browder said that Russia had now formally requested Interpol to lodge an “All Points Bulletin” to locate him. The organisation’s oversight committee, the Commission for the Control of Interpol’s files, will rule on the application this week.
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A Rare Case of Justice in Russia
Good news from Russia, politically speaking, is a scarce commodity—especially if it involves opponents of Vladimir Putin. On Thursday, a Moscow City Court judge overturned the extension of pretrial detention for Vladimir Akimenkov, one of 17 people who are currently being held behind bars in the so-called “Bolotnaya case.” According to the government’s version, the mass protests against Putin’s inauguration on Moscow’s Bolotnaya Square on May 6, 2012, turned into “riots.” An independent expert commission established by human rights groups has concluded that the violence was deliberately provoked by the authorities to create a pretext for the subsequent crackdown.
Akimenkov, now 25, was arrested last June on the charges of “participating in riots” and engaging in “violence against representatives of the authorities”—charges that could land him in prison for eight years. The entire case is built on the (constantly changing) “witness testimony” of one police officer by the name of Yegorov. Akimenkov categorically denies the charges, as do most of the other “Bolotnaya prisoners.”
The activist suffers from inborn eye diseases, including a severe myopia, partial atrophy of the eye nerve, and coloboma of the iris. While in detention, he is being denied the necessary medical treatment. His eyesight is steadily worsening—now down to just 10 percent. If not released soon, Akimenkov could go completely blind. But, until now, this did not seem sufficient reason for the authorities to release him on bail before the start of the trial—nor, indeed, did the personal guaranties offered by State Duma members Ilya Ponomarev and Boris Kashin, popular writer Ludmila Ulitskaya, and human rights leaders Ludmila Alekseeva and Lev Ponomarev.
Thursday’s ruling was the first case of a successful appeal in the “Bolotnaya case.” Akimenkov’s attorneys were as surprised as anyone. Now—unless prosecutors appeal—the activist will be released on June 10th, the day his previous arrest expires.
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Russia wants Bill Browder on Interpol list
Last month, Moscow issued an arrest warrant against the founder of Hermitage Capital management on charges that he stole shares in gas giant Gazprom 15 years ago.
Mr Browder said the action was a “politically-motivated” response to his campaign to expose a criminal network linked to the death in detention four years ago of his lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who uncovered an alleged $230m (£150m) fraud against the Russian state.
The request will be considered by Interpol’s commission this Thursday and Friday. A so-called “blue notice” would require all 190 member countries “to provide information about an individual’s location and activities” and could be used for arrest and extradition.
Mr Browder was a prominent Russian investor before being barred entry in 2006. The following year, Mr Magnitsky unearthed evidence of a huge alleged tax fraud by a criminal group that included officials in the police and tax authorities, and went public.
He was later jailed on disputed tax evasion charges and died in prison in November 2009 after being denied medical help. Mr Browder has since campaigned for justice and sparked a major diplomatic incident after succeeding in having 60 Russians – including senior state officials – barred from the US. Russia responded by banning US adoptions of Russian children and launching a controversial posthumous trial of Mr Magnitsky.
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Russia wants Interpol to impose ‘All Points Bulletin’ on British hedge fund boss Bill Browder
Russia has applied to Interpol to monitor the travel and whereabouts of a British hedge fund boss wanted by Moscow who is at the heart of a diplomatic stand-off over the alleged killing of whistle-blowing lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.
The international policing body will decide this week whether to approve the request from the Russian authorities to issue an “All Points Bulletin” for US-born financier Bill Browder, whose Heritage Capital Management employed Mr Magnitsky prior to his death in a Russian prison in 2009.
The death of Mr Magnitsky, who died at the age of 37 after being beaten and then denied essential medical treatment, has become a symbol of corruption in Russia and prompted a law in the United States imposing visa bans and freezing the assets of officials involved in the alleged killing.
A Russian court last month issued a warrant for the arrest in absentia of Mr Browder, who has led a campaign for justice for Mr Magnitsky, on tax evasion charges which the businessman said are part of a politically-motivated vendetta against him by Russian president Vladimir Putin.
The Independent understands that the application from the Russian Interior Ministry stops short of a request for a so-called Interpol “red notice” requiring the arrest of a wanted individual.
Instead it will require Interpol’s 190 member countries to alert Moscow to his whereabouts, potentially allowing the Russian authorities to make a direct demand for him to be detained if he travels abroad.
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US lawyer expelled from Russia over fresh spy allegations
A US lawyer and former Justice Department official was expelled from Russia earlier this month after he apparently refused to co-operate with Russia’s domestic spy agency, it has emerged.
Thomas Firestone was posted to the US embassy in Moscow by the Justice Department but had left the US government to work at private law firm Baker & Mackenzie. On May 5, according to an acquaintance who requested anonymity, he was returning to Russia from a trip abroad when he was detained and interrogated at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport for 15 hours and then declared persona non grata.
The acquaintance of Mr Firestone said he had been the target of a recruitment attempt by Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB, in March, but had refused to co-operate, and the person speculated that Mr Firestone’s expulsion was a consequence of that encounter.
Russian officials declined to comment, saying they had no information on the matter.
The case comes amid a shadowy struggle between US and Russian spy agencies that spilled over into the press this month following the arrest and expulsion of Ryan Fogle, a third political secretary at the US embassy whom the FSB detained and accused of having tried to recruit a senior Russian counterintelligence official. Mr Fogle was apparently arrested wearing a blond wig and carrying a street atlas and a compass; a videotape of his detention was broadcast on Russian television.
Russian officials told state television that they had been monitoring an increase in spy recruitments by the US over the past two years, and had previously complained to the CIA station chief in Moscow about tactics that they said “went beyond the ethical lines that exist within the security service”. They also said they had quietly expelled another US diplomat in January after a similar failed attempt to recruit a spy.
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Russia Expels Former American Embassy Official
A former senior Justice Department official at the American Embassy here was declared “persona non grata” and barred from Russia this month, according to people familiar with the case, possibly because he had rebuffed an effort by the Russian Federal Security Service to recruit him as a spy.
The former official, Thomas Firestone, had been living and working in Moscow as a lawyer for an American law firm, and had extensive contacts in the Russian government. He was detained at Sheremetyevo airport outside Moscow on May 5 while trying to return to Russia from a trip abroad; the authorities held him for 16 hours and then put him on a flight to the United States.
Mr. Firestone was contacted in March by Russian intelligence operatives who sought to enlist him to spy for the Russians, according to one person who is familiar with the case. Mr. Firestone turned them down, the person said. It was not clear whether the episode was the cause of his ejection from Russia.
The Obama administration has raised the matter of Mr. Firestone’s expulsion with the Russian government, according to one American government official. Spokesmen for the White House, the State Department, and the American Embassy in Moscow all declined to comment.
Details of Mr. Firestone’s case emerged on Sunday as Ryan C. Fogle, an American Embassy official who was arrested in Moscow last week in an embarrassing spy scandal, finally left Russia, as the Russian Foreign Ministry had demanded. Mr. Fogle, whose official title at the embassy in Moscow was third secretary of the political desk, was arrested by the Russian Federal Security Service, and was accused of trying to recruit a Russian counterterrorism officer to spy for the Central Intelligence Agency.
Senior political leaders, including Secretary of State John Kerry and the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, have made clear that they do not intend to let the Russian-American spy games disrupt their cooperation on larger issues of international security, in particular a conference in Geneva aimed at resolving the civil war in Syria.
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To learn more about what happened to Sergei Magnitsky please read below
- Sergei Magnitsky
- Why was Sergei Magnitsky arrested?
- Sergei Magnitsky’s torture and death in prison
- President’s investigation sabotaged and going nowhere
- The corrupt officers attempt to arrest 8 lawyers
- Past crimes committed by the same corrupt officers
- Petitions requesting a real investigation into Magnitsky's death
- Worldwide reaction, calls to punish those responsible for corruption and murder
- Complaints against Lt.Col. Kuznetsov
- Complaints against Major Karpov
- Cover up
- Press about Magnitsky
- Bloggers about Magnitsky
- Corrupt officers:
- Sign petition
- Citizen investigator
- Join Justice for Magnitsky group on Facebook
- Contact us
- Sergei Magnitsky
