#sergey magnitsky

[deborahdeshoftim5779]

Navalny is not the first opponent to fall victim to Putin’s increasingly bloody regime and he won’t be the last. The roll call is long and growing — Sergei Magnitsky, Boris Nemzov, Denis Voronenkov, Stanislav Markelov, Anastasia Baburova, Anna Politkovskaya, and those whose end was uncertain, like Boris Berezovsky. The names of all those who have fallen from windows or decided to end their life in mysterious circumstances are much, much longer.

Elena Davlikanova, responding to Putin's murder of Navalny.

[odinsblog]

For over two decades, President Vladimir Putin has squeezed dissent in Russia. Critics, journalists, and defectors have faced dire consequences after opposing him. From poisonings to shootings, mysterious falls from windows, and even plane crashes, there is a long trail of silenced voices.

Alexei Navalny, whose death in prison is as yet unexplained, had previously fallen ill on a flight from Siberia to Moscow in 2020 after being poisoned with Novichok, a nerve agent. Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian spy who defected and was a prominent Putin critic, was murdered with polonium-210 in London in 2016.

Other deaths of opposition figures under Putin's rule also appear to follow a pattern. Boris Nemtsov, shot dead near the Kremlin, and Stanislav Markelov, assassinated in Moscow alongside journalist Anastasia Baburova, are just two examples. Natalia Estemirova, abducted and found dead in Chechnya, and Anna Politkovskaya, an investigative journalist murdered in her Moscow apartment building, also paid the ultimate price following their dissent.

Here are 10 prominent Putin critics who have died in assassinations or mysterious circumstances.

Alexei Navalny

Date of death: February 16, 2024

Cause of Death: Alexei Navalny died in prison. The Russian prison service reported that he felt unwell after a walk and lost consciousness.

Biography: Alexei Navalny was a prominent critic of Vladimir Putin. He gained global attention in 2020 when he survived a poisoning with the nerve agent Novichok. Navalny willingly returned to Russia from Germany in 2021, where he had received treatment for the previous poisoning. Upon his return, he was promptly arrested. Navalny was known for exposing corruption, investigating Putin's inner circle, and leading anti-Kremlin opposition movements. His death is likely to be seen by fellow opposition members as a political assassination attributable to Putin, but is as yet unexplained.

Mikhail Lesin

Age: 57

Date of Death: November 5, 2015

Cause of Death: Mikhail Lesin was a former Russian press minister and media executive. He fell out of favor with Putin and faced scrutiny for his wealth. Lesin was found dead in a Washington, D.C. hotel room. The official cause of death was ruled as accidental blunt force injuries, but questions persist about the circumstances.

Boris Nemtsov

Age: 55

Date of Death: February 27, 2015

Cause of Death: Boris Nemtsov was shot dead on a bridge near the Kremlin. His murder remains unsolved, but many believe it was politically motivated. Nemtsov was a vocal critic of Putin's government, advocating for democracy, human rights, and transparency. He served as a deputy prime minister under President Boris Yeltsin and later became a prominent opposition figure.

Boris Berezovsky

Age: 67

Date of Death: March 23, 2013

Cause of Death: Boris Berezovsky was a wealthy businessman, oligarch, and former ally of Putin. However, he became a vocal critic and fled to the U.K. Berezovsky was found dead in his home in Berkshire, England. The official cause of death was ruled as suicide, but suspicions remain due to his high-profile opposition activities.

Sergei Magnitsky

Age: 37

Date of Death: November 16, 2009

Cause of Death: Sergei Magnitsky was a lawyer and auditor who exposed a massive tax fraud scheme involving Russian officials. He was arrested, imprisoned, and denied medical treatment. Magnitsky died in custody following severe beatings and medical neglect. His death led to the passing of the Magnitsky Act in the United States, which sanctions Russian officials involved in human rights abuses and corruption.

Stanislav Markelov

Age: 34

Date of Death: January 19, 2009

Cause of Death: Stanislav Markelov was a human rights lawyer and journalist. He was assassinated in Moscow by a gunman who also killed journalist Anastasia Baburova. Markelov had represented victims of human rights abuses and criticized the Russian government's actions in Chechnya. His death raised concerns about the safety of those opposing the regime.

Anastasia Baburova

Age: 25

Date of Death: January 19, 2009

Cause of Death: Anastasia Baburova, a journalist and activist, was shot dead alongside human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov in Moscow. She had reported on neo-Nazi groups and political violence. Her murder remains unsolved, but it is believed to be connected to her activism.

Natalia Estemirova

Age: 50

Date of Death: July 15, 2009

Cause of Death: Natalia Estemirova, a human rights activist and journalist, was abducted in Grozny, Chechnya, and found dead later that day. She had documented human rights violations in Chechnya and criticized the government. Her murder remains unsolved, but it is widely believed to be connected to her activism and criticism of the Chechen authorities.

Anna Politkovskaya

Age: 48

Date of Death: October 7, 2006

Cause of Death: Anna Politkovskaya, an investigative journalist, was shot dead in her apartment building in Moscow. She had reported extensively on human rights abuses, corruption, and the war in Chechnya. Her work was critical of Putin's government, and her murder sparked international outrage. Despite investigations, the masterminds behind her killing have not been brought to justice.

Yuri Shchekochikhin

Age: 53

Date of Death: July 3, 2003

Cause of Death: Yuri Shchekochikhin was a journalist, writer, and member of the Russian State Duma. He investigated corruption, organized crime, and human rights abuses. Shchekochikhin suddenly fell ill and died from an unknown cause. Some suspect poisoning, but the circumstances remain unclear.

(continue reading)

List of journalists killed in Russia

The dangers to journalists in Russia have been known since the early 1990s but concern over the number of unsolved killings soared after Anna Politkovskaya's murder in Moscow on 7 October 2006. While international monitors mentioned a dozen deaths, some sources within Russia talked of over two hundred fatalities.

2009 reports on deaths of journalists in Russia: In June 2009, a wide-ranging investigation by the International Federation of Journalists into the deaths of journalists in Russia was published. At the same time, the IFJ launched an online database which documents over three hundred deaths and disappearances since 1993.

(continue reading)

[herukapadmajungiansworld]

Switzerland has for years been the destination of choice for Russian oligarchs and corrupt officials to hide their stolen money. Swiss banks are estimated to hold over $200 billion in stashed Russian cash.

The United States recently opened an investigation into Swiss banks helping #Russia to evade sanctions, subpoenaing the two largest Swiss banks at the time. Switzerland is also key to Russian #evasion of export controls meant to ensure Russia cannot resupply its military and continue its war.

Russian-induced corruption within the Swiss law enforcement system led to the resignation of the former top prosecutor of Switzerland and the conviction of a senior Swiss law enforcement official on bribery charges. Switzerland is now primed to send millions in frozen Russian dirty money related to the revelations of Sergei Magnitsky to the Russians who stole it.

This hearing will examine Switzerland’s key role in laundering Russian money. Witnesses will discuss how Switzerland came to be a favorite destination for Russian dirty money, how Russian corruption in Switzerland endangers U.S. national security and the ability of Ukraine to defend itself, and possible policy responses. This hearing builds on years of work by the #Commission to hold Switzerland to account for its role in Russian money laundering and corruption.

The following witnesses are scheduled to testify:

1Bill Browder, Global Magnitsky Justice Campaign

2Drew Sullivan, Co-Founder, Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP)

3Olena Tregub, Secretary General, Independent Defense Anti-Corruption Committee (NAKO)

HEARING

Russia’s Alpine Assets: Money Laundering and Sanctions Evasion in Switzerland

July 18, 2023

1:00 p.m.

Senate Dirksen Building G50

Live stream:

youtube.com/watch?v=dxX98X…

[winterswake]

Artyom Borovik, Anna Politkovskaya, Sergei Magnitsky, Alexander Litvinenko, Boris Nemtsov, Alexei Navalny

[darkmaga-retard]

The United States has felt no compunction about slapping unilateral sanctions with impunity for decades, with weaponized penalties a tried and tested tool favored over official diplomacy to force countries to do Washington's bidding.

The US has seized Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's airplane in the Dominican Republic. Washington claims that the plane was purchased in violation of American sanctions.

The incident, decried by Venezuela as modern-day "piracy," feeds into Washington's lengthy track-record of using sanctions and restrictions to bring sovereign countries "to heel." Here are just a few cases in point.

Magnitsky Act

Claiming it was policing rule of law, the US Congress adopted the notorious Magnitsky Act in 2012 following the death of Russian tax adviser Sergei Magnitsky in a Moscow prison in 2009. Magnistky, who worked for the British-based Hermitage Capital investment fund, had been arrested on charges of tax evasion.

Russia dismissed "far-fetched" allegations on the circumstances of Magnitsky’s death and slammed the legislation as "unacceptable meddling" in its domestic affairs. The Magnitsky List first targeted Russian officials, but the act was later expanded to punished targeted individuals anywhere in the world with visa and financial sanctions.

[occrpnewsagency]

Azerbaijani Laundromat includes two Malta firms

Over €440,000 passed through Malta firms for UK shell company employed in Azerbaijani slush fund

Malta-registered companies have been featured in the extensive global network through which money from an Azerbaijan slush fund passed.

The data features in revelations published by the OCCRP (Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project) into the so called ‘Azerbaijani Laundromat’, a complex money-laundering operation that handled €2.5 billion over a two-year period through four shell companies registered in the UK.

From 2012 to 2014, the money was used by the country’s ruling elite to pay off European politicians, buy luxury goods, launder money, and otherwise benefit themselves.

During the same time period, the Malta company Vostok Media Exchange Ltd was used to process a total of €438,000 in nine separate payments to an English company, Metastar Invest LLP; while Metastar paid another Maltese company, Wise Holding Ltd, €9,510.

Vostok Media Exchange was set up in Malta in 2009, and its ownership is vested in PGM Group SA, which is registered in the tax haven of the British Virgin Islands. Its directorship is held by the Swiss fiduciary services firm Comatrans.

On its part, Wise Holding’s ownership is vested in a Polish firm while its directorship is held by Polish residents in Malta with similar other directorships in Malta-registered firms.

There is so far no information as to what the payments were for.

OCCRP understands that a company in Malta called Wise holding limited was incorporated with the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA) in May 2014, suggesting that in 2013 no monies could have been paid to this company. After a protest by its owner Artur Lukasiewicz, this newspaper could find no indiciation that any money was received from Metastar Invest.

According to the investigation by the OCCRP and newspapers such as The Guardian, the money laundering network used four UK shell companies, one of which was Metastar Invest. Its HQ was registered at a service address in Birmingham but ultimately controlled by a company in a tax haven.

Records show that the now dissolved Metastar was run by two “members”: Advance Developments Ltd and Corporate Solutions Ltd, also dissolved and based in Belize.

In turn Metastar controlled other companies, such as Armut, which is alleged to have siphoned €192 million of funds paid by the hedge fund Hermitage Capital Management to the Russian treasury. This particular scandal involved an organised Russian criminal syndicate, the Klyuev Group, which, it is claimed, has stolen at least $800m from the Russian people with the aid of the Russian government.

Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer working for Hermitage, blew the whistle on the scandal – only to be imprisoned in Russia, and allegedly tortured in a bid to withdraw his testimony. While in prison he developed gallstones, pancreatitis and a blocked gall bladder. A human rights council set up by the Kremlin found that he was physically assaulted shortly before his death, which was the direct result of being denied urgent medical care needed to treat his conditions.

The scandal has only reinforced the perception of corruption at the heart of gas-rich Baku, where the Aliyev dynasty has held sway since the fall of communism.

In a more recent case, an Italian MP was found to have taken bribes to issue favourable reports on Azerbaijan at the Council of Europe. Italian prosecutors accused Luca Volontè, the former chair of the centre-right group in the Council of Europe’s parliamentary assembly, of accepting millions of euros in cash from Azerbaijan in exchange for supporting its government, which has been heavily criticised for subverting elections and jailing journalists and opponents. 

Azerbaijan is often accused of “caviar diplomacy”, using cash and gifts to buy influence – charges first detailed by the European Stability Initiative think-tank in 2012. The council notably voted down a critical report on Azerbaijan’s political prisoners in 2013.

Former Labour MP Joe Debono Grech, a member of the Council of Europe’s parliamentary assembly who was a rapporteur on various reports on Azerbaijan, had denied ever receiving gifts from Baku.

He also had told this newspaper that a speech at a 2015 CoE assembly was misinterpreted. “I do not condone dictatorships,” Debono Grech had told OCCRP, adding that Azerbaijan is “not a democracy”.

But he was adamant that Azerbaijan could not be turned into another Libya.

While admitting that “nobody approves of unwarranted arrests,” Debono Grech described the situation as “complex” and echoed Azerbaijan’s arguments that there is no clear definition of what constitutes a political prisoner.

Way back in 2012, a report by the South East Europe think-tank, European Stability Initiative (ESI), had already included Debono Grech among the list of Azerbaijani apologists, for failing to flag irregularities in the 2010 and 2013 elections in which Ilham Aliyev consolidated his grip on power.

Debono Grech, who served as co-rapporteur for six years, during which he visited Azerbaijan some 30 times, denied ever receiving gifts from the Caucasian dictatorship.

“I can only vouch for myself, but I never received any gifts,” Debono Grech said, who even as consultant to the Gozo minister had refused any remuneration for his role.

[occupyhades]

God’s Whistleblower

The eyes of the LORD are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good. Proverbs 15:3 (ESV)

A person who plans evil will get a reputation as a troublemaker. Proverbs 24:8 (NLT) 

Their mouths are full of cursing, lies, and threats. Trouble and evil are on the tips of their tongues. Psalm 10:7 (NLT) 

With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. James 3:9 (NIV) 

There is no darkness or deep shadow where the workers of iniquity can hide. Job 34:22 (BSB)

We know that anyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning. 1 John 5:18 (ESV)

Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have found your deeds unfinished in the sight of my God. Apocalypse 3:2 (NIV)

Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; hold it fast, and repent. But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come to you. Apocalypse 3:3 (NIV)

[usnewsper-politics]

Russia's Troubling Murders: Putin's Leadership and the Fight for Democracy and Human Rights #AlexeiNavalny #AnnaPolitkovskaya #BorisNemtsov #democracyinRussia #humanrightsinRussia #politicalassassinations #Putinleadership #Putinsregime #repressioninRussia #Russiamurders #SergeiMagnitsky

[onlytruthnolie]

Azerbaijani Laundromat includes two Malta firms

Over €440,000 passed through Malta firms for UK shell company employed in Azerbaijani slush fund

Azerbaijani ruler Ilham Aliyev and his wife Merhiban: the family dynasty has held power since the fall of Communism. The Azeri slush fund uses UK shell companies to then pay off bribes to European politicians, like Italian MP Luca Volonte (left)

Malta-registered companies have been featured in the extensive global network through which money from an Azerbaijan slush fund passed.

The data features in revelations published by the OCCRP (Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project) into the so called ‘Azerbaijani Laundromat’, a complex money-laundering operation that handled €2.5 billion over a two-year period through four shell companies registered in the UK.

From 2012 to 2014, the money was used by the country’s ruling elite to pay off European politicians, buy luxury goods, launder money, and otherwise benefit themselves.

During the same time period, the Malta company Vostok Media Exchange Ltd was used to process a total of €438,000 in nine separate payments to an English company, Metastar Invest LLP; while Metastar paid another Maltese company, Wise Holding Ltd, €9,510.

Vostok Media Exchange was set up in Malta in 2009, and its ownership is vested in PGM Group SA, which is registered in the tax haven of the British Virgin Islands. Its directorship is held by the Swiss fiduciary services firm Comatrans.

On its part, Wise Holding’s ownership is vested in a Polish firm while its directorship is held by Polish residents in Malta with similar other directorships in Malta-registered firms.

There is so far no information as to what the payments were for.USDPAYER BENEFICIARY DATE 113,447VOSTOK MEDIA EXCHANGE LTDMTMETASTAR INVEST LLPGB2014-05-27105,720VOSTOK MEDIA ECHANGE LTDMTMETASTAR INVEST LLPGB2014-02-0672,848VOSTOK MEDIA EXCHANGE LTDMTMETASTAR INVEST LLPGB2013-09-1069,457VOSTOK MEDIA EXCHANGE LTDMTMETASTAR INVEST LLPGB2013-11-1457,726VOSTOK MEDIA EXCHANGE LTDMTMETASTAR INVEST LLPGB2013-07-0531,613VOSTOK MEDIA ECHANGE LTDMTMETASTAR INVEST LLPGB2013-01-2527,540VOSTOK MEDIA ECHANGE LTDMTMETASTAR INVEST LLPGB2013-01-2325,846VOSTOK MEDIA EXCHANGE LTDMTMETASTAR INVEST LLPGB2013-05-3121,233VOSTOK MEDIA ECHANGE LTDMTMETASTAR INVEST LLPGB2012-10-1511,391METASTAR INVEST LLPGBWISE HOLDING LIMITEDMT2013-08-23

MaltaToday understands that a company in Malta called Wise holding limited was incorporated with the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA) in May 2014, suggesting that in 2013 no monies could have been paid to this company. After a protest by its owner Artur Lukasiewicz, this newspaper could find no indiciation that any money was received from Metastar Invest.

According to the investigation by the OCCRP and newspapers such as The Guardian, the money laundering network used four UK shell companies, one of which was Metastar Invest. Its HQ was registered at a service address in Birmingham but ultimately controlled by a company in a tax haven.

Records show that the now dissolved Metastar was run by two “members”: Advance Developments Ltd and Corporate Solutions Ltd, also dissolved and based in Belize.

In turn Metastar controlled other companies, such as Armut, which is alleged to have siphoned €192 million of funds paid by the hedge fund Hermitage Capital Management to the Russian treasury. This particular scandal involved an organised Russian criminal syndicate, the Klyuev Group, which, it is claimed, has stolen at least $800m from the Russian people with the aid of the Russian government.

Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer working for Hermitage, blew the whistle on the scandal – only to be imprisoned in Russia, and allegedly tortured in a bid to withdraw his testimony. While in prison he developed gallstones, pancreatitis and a blocked gall bladder. A human rights council set up by the Kremlin found that he was physically assaulted shortly before his death, which was the direct result of being denied urgent medical care needed to treat his conditions.

The scandal has only reinforced the perception of corruption at the heart of gas-rich Baku, where the Aliyev dynasty has held sway since the fall of communism.

In a more recent case, an Italian MP was found to have taken bribes to issue favourable reports on Azerbaijan at the Council of Europe. Italian prosecutors accused Luca Volontè, the former chair of the centre-right group in the Council of Europe’s parliamentary assembly, of accepting millions of euros in cash from Azerbaijan in exchange for supporting its government, which has been heavily criticised for subverting elections and jailing journalists and opponents. 

Azerbaijan is often accused of “caviar diplomacy”, using cash and gifts to buy influence – charges first detailed by the European Stability Initiative think-tank in 2012. The council notably voted down a critical report on Azerbaijan’s political prisoners in 2013.

Former Labour MP Joe Debono Grech, a member of the Council of Europe’s parliamentary assembly who was a rapporteur on various reports on Azerbaijan, had denied ever receiving gifts from Baku.

He also had told this newspaper that a speech at a 2015 CoE assembly was misinterpreted. “I do not condone dictatorships,” Debono Grech had told MaltaToday, adding that Azerbaijan is “not a democracy”.

But he was adamant that Azerbaijan could not be turned into another Libya.

While admitting that “nobody approves of unwarranted arrests,” Debono Grech described the situation as “complex” and echoed Azerbaijan’s arguments that there is no clear definition of what constitutes a political prisoner.

Way back in 2012, a report by the South East Europe think-tank, European Stability Initiative (ESI), had already included Debono Grech among the list of Azerbaijani apologists, for failing to flag irregularities in the 2010 and 2013 elections in which Ilham Aliyev consolidated his grip on power.

Debono Grech, who served as co-rapporteur for six years, during which he visited Azerbaijan some 30 times, denied ever receiving gifts from the Caucasian dictatorship.

“I can only vouch for myself, but I never received any gifts,” Debono Grech said, who even as consultant to the Gozo minister had refused any remuneration for his role.

[libertas-news]

Azerbaijani Laundromat includes two Malta firms

Over €440,000 passed through Malta firms for UK shell company employed in Azerbaijani slush fund

Malta-registered companies have been featured in the extensive global network through which money from an Azerbaijan slush fund passed.

The data features in revelations published by the OCCRP (Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project) into the so called ‘Azerbaijani Laundromat’, a complex money-laundering operation that handled €2.5 billion over a two-year period through four shell companies registered in the UK.

From 2012 to 2014, the money was used by the country’s ruling elite to pay off European politicians, buy luxury goods, launder money, and otherwise benefit themselves.

During the same time period, the Malta company Vostok Media Exchange Ltd was used to process a total of €438,000 in nine separate payments to an English company, Metastar Invest LLP; while Metastar paid another Maltese company, Wise Holding Ltd, €9,510.

Vostok Media Exchange was set up in Malta in 2009, and its ownership is vested in PGM Group SA, which is registered in the tax haven of the British Virgin Islands. Its directorship is held by the Swiss fiduciary services firm Comatrans.

On its part, Wise Holding’s ownership is vested in a Polish firm while its directorship is held by Polish residents in Malta with similar other directorships in Malta-registered firms.

There is so far no information as to what the payments were for.

MaltaToday understands that a company in Malta called Wise holding limited was incorporated with the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA) in May 2014, suggesting that in 2013 no monies could have been paid to this company. After a protest by its owner Artur Lukasiewicz, this newspaper could find no indiciation that any money was received from Metastar Invest.

According to the investigation by the OCCRP and newspapers such as The Guardian, the money laundering network used four UK shell companies, one of which was Metastar Invest. Its HQ was registered at a service address in Birmingham but ultimately controlled by a company in a tax haven.

Records show that the now dissolved Metastar was run by two “members”: Advance Developments Ltd and Corporate Solutions Ltd, also dissolved and based in Belize.

In turn Metastar controlled other companies, such as Armut, which is alleged to have siphoned €192 million of funds paid by the hedge fund Hermitage Capital Management to the Russian treasury. This particular scandal involved an organised Russian criminal syndicate, the Klyuev Group, which, it is claimed, has stolen at least $800m from the Russian people with the aid of the Russian government.

Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer working for Hermitage, blew the whistle on the scandal – only to be imprisoned in Russia, and allegedly tortured in a bid to withdraw his testimony. While in prison he developed gallstones, pancreatitis and a blocked gall bladder. A human rights council set up by the Kremlin found that he was physically assaulted shortly before his death, which was the direct result of being denied urgent medical care needed to treat his conditions.

The scandal has only reinforced the perception of corruption at the heart of gas-rich Baku, where the Aliyev dynasty has held sway since the fall of communism.

In a more recent case, an Italian MP was found to have taken bribes to issue favourable reports on Azerbaijan at the Council of Europe. Italian prosecutors accused Luca Volontè, the former chair of the centre-right group in the Council of Europe’s parliamentary assembly, of accepting millions of euros in cash from Azerbaijan in exchange for supporting its government, which has been heavily criticised for subverting elections and jailing journalists and opponents.

Azerbaijan is often accused of “caviar diplomacy”, using cash and gifts to buy influence – charges first detailed by the European Stability Initiative think-tank in 2012. The council notably voted down a critical report on Azerbaijan’s political prisoners in 2013.

Former Labour MP Joe Debono Grech, a member of the Council of Europe’s parliamentary assembly who was a rapporteur on various reports on Azerbaijan, had denied ever receiving gifts from Baku.

He also had told this newspaper that a speech at a 2015 CoE assembly was misinterpreted. “I do not condone dictatorships,” Debono Grech had told MaltaToday, adding that Azerbaijan is “not a democracy”.

But he was adamant that Azerbaijan could not be turned into another Libya.

While admitting that “nobody approves of unwarranted arrests,” Debono Grech described the situation as “complex” and echoed Azerbaijan’s arguments that there is no clear definition of what constitutes a political prisoner.

Way back in 2012, a report by the South East Europe think-tank, European Stability Initiative (ESI), had already included Debono Grech among the list of Azerbaijani apologists, for failing to flag irregularities in the 2010 and 2013 elections in which Ilham Aliyev consolidated his grip on power.

Debono Grech, who served as co-rapporteur for six years, during which he visited Azerbaijan some 30 times, denied ever receiving gifts from the Caucasian dictatorship.

“I can only vouch for myself, but I never received any gifts,” Debono Grech said, who even as consultant to the Gozo minister had refused any remuneration for his role.

[t-jfh]

Aleksei Navalny [4 June 1976 – 16 February 2024] pictured in 2013 while contesting the election for Mayor of Moscow. Navalny honed his political ideas and activism as an anticorruption campaigner, and steadily rose to become Russia’s most prominent opposition leader and critic of President Vladimir Putin.

(Photo: Sergey Ponomarev/The New York Times)

A portrait of Aleksei Navalny on Friday at a monument honoring victims of political repression in St. Petersburg, Russia.

(Photo: Reuters)

The IK-3 "Polar Wolf" Arctic penal colony, where Aleksei Navalny served his prison term, in the settlement of Kharp, in Russia’s Yamal-Nenets region. (Photo: Reuters)

Navalny was one of scores imprisoned for their political beliefs, rights group says.

Aleksei A. Navalny may have been Russia’s best-known opposition figure, but hundreds of people are imprisoned for their political beliefs in Russia, according to Memorial, the Nobel-winning human rights organization, which is banned in Russia. A number of them are politicians and activists.

By Valerie Hopkins and Gaya Gupta

The New York Times - February 16, 2024

Russian opposition politician, Vladimir Kara-Murza, pictured while visiting America in 2016.

(Photo: Al Drago/The New York Times)

Vladimir Kara-Murza, 42, is a longtime opposition politician, independent journalist and historian who comes from a well-known family of Soviet dissidents. He has long campaigned for a democratic Russia, running for election to the Russian Parliament and serving as a deputy leader of the People’s Freedom Party. He was arrested in Moscow in April 2022 and accused of treason for condemning Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in the news media and to American lawmakers.

Mr. Kara-Murza obtained British citizenship as a teenager and played an important role in lobbying Washington more than a decade ago for the Magnitsky Act, which punished officials deemed responsible for the death of a tax lawyer in a Russian jail. Mr. Kara-Murza is believed to have been poisoned twice, in 2015 and 2017.

Still, like Mr. Navalny, he returned to Russia in 2022, saying he believed it was important to protest the invasion of Ukraine.

He was arrested that April on charges of disobeying police orders and was later charged with “spreading false information about the Russian military.”

In April 2023, he was sentenced to 25 years in a penal colony on that charge and for being affiliated with an “undesirable” organization. It was the longest sentence given to any opposition politician in modern Russia.

•

[deborahdeshoftim5779]

Russian politician Vladimir Kara-Murza has lost his appeal against his 25-year prison sentence for exposing Russian war crimes in Ukraine.

Since 2022, Putin's regime has applied prison sentences of at least 15 years for publicly condemning the war in Ukraine. In a fraudulent criminal category called 'disseminating fakes about the armed forces', Russians can face charges of treason for stating that Russian soldiers are committing war crimes such as torture.

In other words, the truth is illegal in Russia.

As Kara-Murza is also a British citizen, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has expressed his outrage, along with the Foreign Secretary James Cleverly. But at least the British government has gone further and sanctioned Russians involved in Kara-Murza's trial and imprisonment.

Remember that in February 2015, Kara-Murza's political ally and friend Boris Nemtsov was assassinated in Moscow at the very time that he planned to expose Russian mercenaries invading the east of Ukraine. Shortly afterwards, Kara-Murza was poisoned for the first time by FSB agents who would later be exposed after they tried murdering Alexei Navalny using the chemical nerve agent Novichok in August 2020.

Kara-Murza survived two poisoning attempts, each time being given a 5% chance of survival. In spite of this, he returned to Russia to continue his opposition to Putin's regime and demand an end to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Telling the truth and standing up for justice has cost him his freedom.

The international community must not assume that Putin's only crimes are occurring in Ukraine. Putin's crimes in Russia have yet to be punished, and sanctions against Russian oligarchs should have been applied long before Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Furthermore, the international community must not give Putin the impression that sanctions will end if he leaves Ukraine.

We know from the attempt to murder Navalny three years ago that Russia has a state program dedicated to assassinating political critics. This is a crime against humanity and deserves international arrest warrants for Putin and core members of Russia's FSB, GRU, Investigative Committee, and other internal organs.

We know that the Russian authorities have long been suspected of orchestrating terrorist attacks on Russian soil, beginning with the apartment bombings of September 1999, for which the FSB has never fully been investigated. If proven, these too are crimes against humanity.

The international community must continue to put maximum pressure on the Kremlin by keeping the names of Kara-Murza, Navalny, Chanysheva, and more in the news. These people have been wrongly accused of crimes, prevented from defending their innocence, denied the right to examine the evidence against them, and given unjust prison sentences.

Russian prisons are famous for squalor, violence, and death. In November 2009, Russian accountant and lawyer Sergei Magnitsky was beaten to death in a Russian prison after months of torture by Russian guards because he refused to retract his accusations of tax fraud against Interior Ministry officials.

These are all plain violations of international law and Russia, namely Putin and his terrorist government, must be held to account.

[lejournaldupeintre]

12 years ago : The Magnitsky Case

Magnitsky was a Moscow lawyer who uncovered the largest tax fraud in Russian history. He was detained without trial, tortured and consequently died in a Moscow prison on November 16, 2009; No thorough, independent and objective investigation has been conducted by Russian authorities into the detention, torture and death of Sergei Magnitsky, nor have the individuals responsible been brought to…

[boostcmg]

Have you ever been imagined that Sergey Magnitsky and Mikhail Khodorkovsky participated in series of aggravated crimes, and that their imprisonment was not the worst option comparing to the real opportunity of lethal injection in the USA or life inprisonment? What if this penalty for them was very real? At the moment society can's assess the real state of things, to judge either about Russia, or its' justice.

#fakehares #shitomordniki #whoframedblackrabbit #boost #meggi #raevskayarepnina #cardinlist #sergeymagnitsky #meggifromhouseofskjold #hatefuleight #heritage #nürembergring #yukos #khodorkovsky

[mariacallous]

July 10, 2008, was a dangerously hot day in Herndon, Virginia. At the end of the workday, a man named Miles Harrison left his office and walked through the parking lot. When he reached his car, he glanced into the backseat. What he saw caused him to collapse.

Harrison’s newly adopted son, Chase, had died of heatstroke in the vehicle. That morning, Harrison was supposed to drop the baby off at kindergarten but had forgotten. He’d left Chase in his car seat, where he was trapped for nine hours. The boy was two and a half.

A jury acquitted Miles Harrison, finding no sign that Chase’s death was anything but an accident. In Russia, however, Dima Yakovlev, as Chase was known before his adoptive parents renamed him, became a household name: the Kremlin used the incident to launch a new campaign against the “collective West” — and against domestic dissent.

‘Beyond the pale’

In January 2012, the sixth convocation of the Russian State Duma began its work against the backdrop of the largest protest rallies the country had seen in a decade (a response in part to the dubious elections that brought the same Duma’s members to power). Deputies from the Communist Party and the party A Just Russia, masquerading as real opposition, attended some of the rallies, wore white ribbons (a symbol of the protests), and pulled stunts like delaying the adoption of repressive bills by adding hundreds of amendments to them at once. A Just Russia party chairman Sergey Mironov even suggested that he might become a “transitional president.”

Then, in March 2012, everything changed. Putin returned to the presidency, ending the era of his “tandemocracy” with Dmitry Medvedev. The “oppositional” parliament promptly reverted to an obedient one; most of the deputies who had tried to embed themselves in grassroots protest movements suddenly began dutifully voting for Kremlin-backed initiatives.

Soon, the parliament began “purging” deputies who still took independent stances. In September 2012, for example, the State Duma stripped Gennady Gudkov of his seat, claiming that he had illegally profited from his position (he spent the preceding several months voicing support for anti-Putin protesters).

But that was just the start. On December 10, 2012, then-State Duma speaker Sergey Naryshkin and the leaders of all four of the Duma’s party factions introduced a bill banning American citizens “involved in violations of freedoms and human rights” and “offenses against Russia and its citizens” from entering Russia. The legislation itself didn’t stand out among the numerous repressive measures passed by Russian lawmakers during that period, but the fact that parliamentarians unanimously approved it was notable.

The bill’s authors emphasized that it was Russia’s response to the U.S. Magnitsky Act. In 2007, Sergey Magnitsky, an auditor for the Hermitage Capital investment fund, announced that he had uncovered a scheme to embezzle 5.4 billion rubles (about $75 million) from the Russia’s state budget and that multiple security officials were involved. He was subsequently arrested for tax evasion, and he died in a remand prison in 2009. The cause of death was recorded as heart failure. He was just 37 years old. The Magnitsky Act imposed sanctions against the people suspected to have been involved in the young man’s death; it was later expanded to apply to citizens of Russia and other countries suspected of human rights violations.

Within days, 400 out of 450 State Duma deputies and 144 out of 146 Federal Assembly members had signed the retaliatory bill imposing sanctions against American citizens. Dima Yakovlev’s name came up during the bill’s first reading.

“They named their bill after Magnitsky. United Russia [Russia’s ruling party] proposes naming our bill after Dima Yakovlev — the two-year-old baby who was burned alive [in the U.S.],” said deputy Vyacheslav Nikonov.

On December 17, United Russia deputy Ekaterina Lakhova and Yelena Afanasyeva, a deputy from the far-right Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR), amended the document to include a ban on American citizens adopting Russian children.

Opposition politician Dmitry Gudkov (the son of ousted Duma deputy Gennady Gudkov) told Meduza that the adoption amendment was “completely unexpected” for most members of parliament. “It was beyond the pale. We expected repressions [against the opposition], but we didn’t expect barbarity,” he said.

‘A human shield’

Speaking to Meduza, two sources close to the leaders of the Kremlin’s political bloc credited a third party with persuading Vladimir Putin to endorse the idea of banning U.S. citizens from adopting Russian children. The initiative could have come from then-Russian Children’s Rights Commissioner Pavel Astakhov, who had been advocating for the measure since 2010, or from members of Russia’s Security Council, according to the source.

Ekaterina Lakhova, one of adoption amendment’s official coauthors, claimed at the time that she had been “troubled” by the idea of “Americans adopting Russian orphans” since the mid-2000s. A source who was close to State Duma leadership at the time, however, told Meduza that both the bill itself and the adoption amendment “arrived” at the parliament from the Putin administration and the Security Council (whose secretary, Nikolai Patrushev, remains in the post to this day).

In 2012, TV Rain, citing its own sources, reported that then-First Deputy Chief of Staff of the Putin administration and current State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin had worked with Lakhova to write the amendment. Sources who worked in the presidential administration’s political bloc at the time, as well as one who worked in the State Duma’s administrative office, told Meduza that Volodin and Lakhova served as “executors” who “delivered” the amendments to the State Duma from the Kremlin and “ensured the deputies' support.”

Dmitry Gudkov confirmed this to Meduza: “Volodin acted through his counterparty [Lakhova]: You introduce [the bill], and then we’ll twist the arms [of the Duma deputies] so that it gets passed.”

And the deputies’ arms did require twisting. The proposed adoption ban sparked a public controversy impossible to imagine in the Russia of 2022. The measure’s critics included a number of high-status establishment politicians, including members of the ruling party. St. Petersburg Senator Vadim Tyulpanov, for example, remarked, “As a rule, Russian citizens adopt healthy children, whereas ill and severely ill children get adopted primarily by foreign citizens, including Americans. In fact, in large part by Americans.” He was right: between the early 1990s and the end of 2012, American families adopted about 60,000 children from Russia, constituting anywhere from 10 percent to 28 percent of all foreign adopters of Russian children in various years.

Still, the Kremlin got its way. Dmitry Gudkov, who voted against the “Dima Yakovlev law,” recounted the situation to Meduza: “The presidential administration gave instructions through the factions’ leadership. Deputies were told these [instructions] were coming from Putin himself, and that if they didn’t vote, they would become his enemy; they’d be personally challenging the president. Businessmen were made to understand they would have problems with their businesses, and politicians were told they wouldn’t be allowed to join the next parliament.”

Sergey Petrov, Gudkov’s former party colleague, confirmed to Meduza that the heads of their faction “threw themselves at the [bill’s] opponents like lions, with a fury we’d never seen before.”

The threats worked. At first, 388 deputies (mostly from the United Russia party) voted for the amendment banning adoption by Americans, while only 15 voted against it. One person formally abstained, while 44 didn’t vote. In the second reading, 400 deputies supported the bill, and only four opposed it: Gudkov, Petrov, and their fellow A Just Russia members Ilya Ponomarev and Valery Zubov.

In the third reading, a few more people opposed the bill after A Just Russia member Andrey Ozerov, United Russia member Boris Reznik, and Communist Party member Oleg Smolin changed their votes.

The only deputy who voted against the amendment and still has a seat in the Russian State Duma today is Communist Oleg Smolin. In 2013, he told journalists:

To be honest, I was just outraged when children were brought into the struggle between different financial groups. I wouldn’t want our children to be made into human shields for our oligarchs and security officials. I don’t think using children to protect participants in financial proceedings is patriotism. I think patriotism is something completely different.

Nine years later, in February 2022, Smolin would be the only State Duma deputy to vote against Russia’s recognition of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk “People’s Republics.” On the other hand, he said almost immediately that he’d hit the wrong button by mistake (he is blind) and proceeded to change his vote.

None of the other then-deputies who voted against the adoption bill are still in Russian politics. Boris Reznik opted not to run in the following election, while the others, such as Ilya Ponomarev and Dmitry Gudkov, went on to become political emigrants. In April 2022, Andrey Ozerov was arrested on suspicion of embezzlement, and he was put under house arrest in June and prohibited from using the Internet.

‘Nobody knew the new rules’

Unlike the State Duma, the Federation Council didn’t take much convincing: the senators unanimously supported the Putin administration’s initiative.

The government cabinet, however, put up more of a fight. Ministers at that time consisted largely of “liberal technocrats,” many of whom had trouble understanding why the Kremlin was pushing for the adoption ban.

The bill came under criticism from officials as high-ranking as then-Deputy Prime Ministers Olga Golodets and Arkady Dvorkovich, Education Minister Dmitry Livanov, Open Government Affairs Minister Mikhail Abyzov, and even Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (who called the initiative “wrong” and expressed confidence that the “Duma will make a balanced decision”).

“It’s as if the logic is ‘An eye for an eye,’ but that logic is wrong because the ones who might suffer are children of ours who can’t find adoptive parents in Russia,” Livanov wrote on Twitter. Propagandist Vladimir Solovyov responded approvingly.

Deputies from Russia’s ruling party, including Vyacheslav Volodin’s subordinates, savaged the bill’s “liberal” objectors. State Duma deputy Olga Batalina, for example, called Education Minister Livanov “incompetent” and the ministry itself “dysfunctional.”

A former government official who spoke to Meduza on condition of anonymity noted that Volodin and his circle were acting “at their own risk”: “The system had changed with Putin and Medvedev’s ‘castling’ move, and nobody knew the new rules.”

Another source who was close to the government during that period told Meduza that even then-Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev opposed the law and asked some colleagues to speak out against it. Nonetheless, the former president himself didn’t publicly reveal his position. “It’s not about inter-state disputes or even about our personal positions. I thought there was a lot to say about this, but I won’t, I’ll refrain; I’ve said it all before, in conversation with President Obama,” Medvedev vaguely explained at the time.

On December 28, Putin signed the bill into law. Just weeks later, on December 13, a protest dubbed the “March Against Scoundrels” was held in Moscow; participants (numbering about 50,000, according to protest organizers) carried portraits of the deputies who voted for the bill. By the time the protest was over, the Dima Yakovlev law had another name: the Law of Scoundrels.

A loyalty test

According to official lists, when the Dima Yakovlev law was passed, about 250 Russian children were slated to be adopted by American families. Fifty-two of those adoptions went through successfully, winning court approval before the law entered force. According to data from 2017, adoptive parents were never found for 11 of the remaining children. One of the children died less than six months after the Dima Yakovlev law was passed.

In the years that followed, the Russian authorities regularly hinted that the law might be repealed, but that never happened. On the contrary, the political practices that proved effective during the Dima Yakovlev law’s passage became firmly entrenched in Russian political life. State Duma deputies began rushing Kremlin-supported initiatives into law with increasing frequency, exhibiting hitherto unheard-of unanimity. In 2013, for example, the parliament gave regional authorities the ability to cancel mayoral elections independently; in 2014, the Duma overwhelmingly approved the annexation of Crimea, and eight years later, the lawmakers unanimously voted for the annexation of four more Ukrainian regions.

Dmitry Gudkov told Meduza that, in his view, the Dima Yakovlev law’s passage was a “turning point” for Russian politics. He believes only “a few of the denser deputies” sincerely supported the measure, while the rest “knew exactly what they were voting for”:

Until then, they still had some semblance of [...] moral cores — even if they voted for repressive laws. They could tell themselves they supported those laws for political reasons or even out of patriotism — as if the laws would prevent people like Navalny from rising to power on U.S. State Department money and destroying Russia. That’s nonsense, of course, but it’s probably possible to justify one’s actions to oneself in that way.

But the adoption ban was unjustifiable; the public definitely wasn’t demanding it. It’s just that Putin wanted to punish the U.S. It was a presidential whim, and it cost children’s lives. It was a question of ethics: Am I a monster or not? And they answered in the affirmative.

As Gudkov tells it, in December 2012, the Kremlin conclusively “broke” the deputies and “arranged all of the scoundrels in one formation”: “The deputies turned into clay that the Kremlin could mold to make whatever it wanted.”

A source who worked with Vyacheslav Volodin in 2012 told Meduza that Russia’s top leadership viewed the adoption ban as a test of loyalty and as a way to determine who was prepared for “demonstrative anti-Western tightening.”

According to political scientist Alexander Kynev, considered against the backdrop of the 2011–2012 protests, “it was important to end the pushback from the non-systemic opposition”: “The ‘anti-Magnitsky’ law was a conspicuous break in the way the parliament voted; it was when the public differences between the party of power’s behavior and the systemic opposition parties’ behavior disappeared.”

“2012 was marked by uncertainty. The prevailing opinion among experts was that the president, of course, had won, but that the situation would be completely different by the next election. People expected a new president to appear in 2018; sure, he would be chosen by Putin, but he would be new. In 2014, the situation changed. People started saying, ‘Why do we need a new president, if Putin performed a miracle and returned Crimea?’” political scientist Alexey Makarkin told Meduza.

Ultimately, according to Makarkin, even the systemic opposition adopted this new “radically conservative” post-annexation view.

Meduza reached out to Vyacheslav Volodin, Pavel Astakhov, Olga Batalina, Nikolai Levichev, Oleg Smolin, Yekaterina Lakhova, Sergey Mironov, and Dmitry Peskov for comment. As of this article’s publication, nobody responded.

[tealin]

The first time I listened, I liked the music but the narrative bits didn’t really stick the landing.  Now I’ve listened to it nine times in three days, so evidently I got over that in a big way.  If you’d pitched me ‘indie folk John Grisham-esque current events musical’ I would have rolled my eyes, but please give it a try (or two).