By Marcus Williams.
Britain has blacklisted at least 60 Russian officials implicated in the 2009 prison death of Hermitage Capital’s lawyer Sergei Magnitksy.
The move mirrors a measure taken by the US in July that prompted the Russian Foreign Ministry to retaliate with a ban on US officials.
The decision to impose visa sanctions on the Russian officials in Magnitsky case was made by the UK Home Office. Shadow Justice Minister, Chris Bryant MP, said the visa ban had been confirmed to him by UK Immigration Minister Damian Green, according to the UK Observer newspaper.
Labour MP Bryant said: “From conversations with Damian Green I took it that these people would not be welcomed, it seems now as if there is a secret ban on these list of people.”
Documents revealed by the Observer show that a number of government officials and Russian criminals named by Sergei Magnitsky as perpetrators of the $230 million theft have regularly traveled to the UK in the last five years. Artem Kuznetsov and Pavel Karpov, two Interior Ministry officers accused by Magnitsky of playing a key role in the $230 million theft scheme, travelled to London in March 2006.
The British move is bound to frustrate efforts to reset Anglo-Russian relations which have floundered even after Prime Minister David Cameron’s visit to Moscow last month.
Relations took a nosedive in November 2009 when Magnitsky died in a squalid Moscow prison after being jailed for almost a year without trial for a tax crime he insisted he did not commit.
William Browder, the founder of UK-based Hermitage Capital Management, previously said the British government had shied away from tackling Russia on human rights. It looks like his campaign is gathering speed…
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