Browder om Nordearapport: Vill reda ut Magnitskij-mordet

William Felix Browder (born 23 April 1964) is an American-born British financier. He is the CEO and co-founder of Hermitage Capital Management, an investment fund that at one time was the largest foreign portfolio investor in Russia. He gave up his U.S. citizenship in 1998 to avoid paying taxes related to foreign investment. After having business in Russia for ten years, Browder was refused entry to Russia in 2005 as a threat to national security; he has said it was because he exposed corruption. After the death in prison in 2009 of Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer and auditor who had represented his company and conducted an investigation into massive tax fraud related to it, Browder lobbied for Congress to pass the Magnitsky Act, a law to punish Russian human rights violators, which was signed into law in 2012 by President Barack Obama. In 2013, Browder was tried in absentia in Russia for tax fraud, jointly in a posthumous prosecution of Magnitsky. He was convicted and sentenced to nine years in prison. Interpol rejected Russian requests to arrest Browder, saying the case was political. In 2014, the European Parliament voted for sanctions against 30 Russians believed complicit in the Magnitsky case; this was the first time it had taken such action. In July 2017, Browder testified to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on Russia's alleged interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election through use of persons in Washington, D.C. On October 19, 2017, Canada enacted its own Magnitsky Act, which allows for the freezing of assets and visa bans on officials from Russia and other nations considered to be guilty of human rights violations, and prohibits Canadian firms from dealing with foreign nationals who have grossly violated human rights. Other countries including Estonia, Lithuania, and the United Kingdom, have also enacted their own version of the Magnitsky Act. On October 21, 2017, as part of a criminal conviction for tax evasion, the Russian government attempted to place Browder on Interpol's arrest list. After a protest by U.S. Congressional leaders, his visa was restored the following day. Russia's arrest-warrant request was rejected by Interpol on October 26, 2017. While visiting Spain in May 2018, Browder was arrested on 30 May 2018 by Spanish authorities on a new Russian Interpol warrant and transferred to an undisclosed Spanish police station, yet he was released two hours later, after Interpol confirmed that this was a political case.

Sergej Leonidovitj Magnitskij (ryska: Сергей Леонидович Магнитский,) född 8 april 1972 i Odessa, död 16 november 2009 i Butyrkafängelset, Moskva, var en rysk revisor och jurist vars gripande och efterföljande död i häkte genererade både officiella och inofficiella undersökningar av anklagelser om bedrägeri, stöld och brott mot de mänskliga rättigheterna samt utlöste en diplomatisk schism mellan USA och Ryssland. När Sergej Magnitskij under 2007 undersökte affärerna kring det ryska företaget Hermitage Capital fann han att det förekommit omfattande korruption med systematiska stölder från ryska staten sanktionerade och utförda av ryska tjänstemän. Efter att han 2008 hade redovisat sina uppgifter för en statlig undersökningskommitté blev han själv gripen och häktades. Ett år senare avled han i Butyrkafängelset, sju dagar före utgången av häktningstiden. Under de 358 dagar han satt i fängelse utvecklade han gallsten, pankreatit och blockerad gallblåsa men gavs inte adekvat sjukvård. Ett råd för mänskliga rättigheter som inrättats av Kreml fann att han hade misshandlats strax innan han dog. Men vid en rättegång 2012 frikändes de ansvariga vid Butyrkafängelset från anklagelsen att ha orsakat Magnitskij död. Magnitskij-fallet blev internationellt uppmärksammat och ledde till att USA 2012 antog den så kallade Magnitsky Act som innebär att de ryska tjänstemän som tros vara inblandade i Magnitskijs död inte beviljas inresetillstånd till USA och förbjuds att använda landets banksystem. Som svar på USA:s agerande blockerade Ryssland hundratals amerikanska adoptioner av ryska barn. Under 2013 fortsatte de internationella turerna kring Magnitskij-fallet. Det diskuterades i Europarådet, som även lät sammanställa en rapport, och i april 2013 offentliggjorde USA en lista med 18 ryssar vars tillgångar i USA man fryst. Den 11 juli 2013 blev Magnitskij postumt dömd för skattebrott av en domstol i Moskva. Det var första gången en avliden människa dömts i rysk domstol, en juridisk möjlighet som infördes i Ryssland 2011. I Sveriges riksdag väcktes i oktober 2017 en motion om införande av "Magnitskijsanktioner", som hänvisades till utrikesutskottet.

The Magnitsky Act, formally known as the Russia and Moldova Jackson–Vanik Repeal and Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2012, is a bipartisan bill passed by the U.S. Congress and signed by President Obama in December 2012, intending to punish Russian officials responsible for the death of Russian tax accountant Sergei Magnitsky in a Moscow prison in 2009. Since 2016 the bill, which applies globally, "authorizes governments to sanction human rights offenders in Russia, freeze their foreign assets, and ban them from entering the signing country."