Stop the Untouchables. Justice for Sergei Magnitsky.

INTERPOL REBUFFS RUSSIA ON HUNT FOR BRITON, A KREMLIN CRITIC

New York Times

Interpol has rejected a Russian request for a worldwide police hunt for William F. Browder, a British investment banker and a Kremlin nemesis who has made no secret of his whereabouts or of his battle against the government of President Vladimir V. Putin over accusations of human rights abuses.

The decision, announced on Friday by Interpol, to delete all information about Mr. Browder from its databases amounted to a rare — and sharp — rebuke of Russia for trying to use international law enforcement agencies in a political dispute.

Mr. Browder, once the largest private foreign investor in Russia, has crusaded against Russia’s government since the death of his lawyer, Sergei L. Magnitsky, in a Russian prison in 2009, apparently after he was denied proper medical care.

Mr. Magnitsky was arrested while trying to expose a government corruption scheme, in which a company once owned by Mr. Browder was used to file a fraudulent $230 million tax return.

In December, President Obama signed a law named for Mr. Magnitsky that aims to punish human rights abuses in Russia by prohibiting Russians accused of such violations from traveling to the United States or holding financial assets there. Russia retaliated with its own law on human rights abuses by Americans, and barred American citizens from adopting Russian children.

Mr. Browder was a major force behind the American legislation and has been pushing for similar laws to be adopted in Europe.

Mr. Putin and other officials have brushed off questions about why no one has been convicted in Mr. Magnitsky’s death, and they have increasingly sought to portray Mr. Magnitsky and Mr. Browder as criminals.