MEPs clarify position on Magnitsky sanctions

Senior MEPs from the European Parliament’s main groups have urged diplomats to impose sanctions on Russian officials over the killing of anti-corruption activist Sergei Magnitsky.

The initiative comes after two of the officials, Pavel Karpov and Andrei Pavlov, at an EU parliament event last week accused Magnitsky of having himself committed the crime that he reported to authorities - the embezzlement of $230 million from Russian tax authorities.

The MEPs said in an appeal on Monday (2 May) to EU foreign relations chief Federica Mogherini that “the presence in the European Parliament of two of these individuals, targeted by international sanctions, shows clearly the need for concerted EU action.”

“Mogherini must finally bring the Magnitsky sanctions to the Council [where EU states meet] for adoption,” they said.

Karpov and Pavlov are on a US travel ban and asset freeze list.

The EU parliament in 2014 also put them on a list of 32 people deemed guilty of the $230 million plot.

But the parliament list is non-binding on EU states, which meant that a Finnish Green MEP, Heidi Hautala, was free to organise their EU entry visas and EU parliment access badges.

Elmar Brok, a German centre-right deputy who chairs the parliament’s foreign affairs committee and who co-signed the Mogherini appeal, told EUobserver he has little faith that she will go ahead.

“It’s not a priority [for the EU foreign service] but it’s important that the parliament clarifies where we stand on this issue,” he said.

“I think it’s proved that Mr Magnitsky was the victim and so I think we should fight to hold to account the people responsible for his death,” he added.

Other co-signatories included Rebecca Harms, the leader of Hautala’s own Green group, and Guy Verhoftsadt, the leader of the liberal Alde group.

They also included deputies from the centre-left S&D group and the conservative ECR faction.

Hautala had invited Karpov and Pavlov for the premiere of a film on Magnitsky and his former employer, British businessman Bill Browder, made by her friend, Russian film maker Andrei Nekrasov.

The film also blamed Magnitsky and Browder for the $230 million plot. But the German broadcaster behind the movie, ZDF, cancelled the showing at the last minute citing technical and legal problems.

The film is due to be aired on the Franco-German Arte channel on Tuesday. But it remains uncertain if Arte will go ahead.

Browder is to testify in the British parliament on Tuesday to say that some of the Magnitsky conspirators used the stolen money to buy luxury properties in London.

Another Russian whistleblower, Alexander Perepilichnyy, who helped Browder to follow the money laundering trail to Switzerland, died in what British police have said were suspicious circumstances outside his UK home in 2012.

Authorities in France, Luxembourg, Monaco, Switzerland and the US have frozen $43 million of funds related to the case.

The OCCRP, a club of European investigative reporters working on the Panama Papers leak, have linked $800,000 of the money to Sergei Rudolgin, a close friend of Russian leader Valdimir Putin.