British lawmakers will discuss on March 7 whether to push for visa sanctions against a number of Russian officials over the controversial death of Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in a pretrial detention center, a spokeswoman for the British investment fund Hermitage Capital Management said.
The lawmakers will consider a request to the British government to follow the United States’ example and ban Russian officials allegedly linked to Magnitsky’s death from entering the country, the spokeswoman said. The debate will last two hours, she added.
Some 20 lawmakers, including former foreign ministers David Miliband, Jack Straw and Malcolm Rifkind, supported the initiative, which was put forward by Conservative lawmaker Dominique Raab. The Hermitage Capital spokeswoman said the British government will have to “react” to the lawmakers’ move.
Magnitsky, who was working for Hermitage Capital Management, was arrested and jailed without trial in November 2008, and died in police custody a year later after being denied medical care. The 37-year-old lawyer had accused tax and police officials of carrying out a $230-million tax scam.
Last July, the Kremlin's rights body said Magnitsky's death was the result of "calculated, deliberate and inhumane neglect." Two doctors of the Butyrka prison where the lawyer died, Larisa Litvinova and Dmitry Kratov, were charged with "causing death through negligence."
A separate probe has also been launched against prison authorities and other investigators who were allegedly involved in or had interest in the Magnitsky case.
Several British lawmakers earlier called for visa sanctions to be imposed on the Russian officials in question, but the move yielded no results. In mid-January, the British parliament’s lower house held a 30-minute debate on the issue, during which lawmaker Denis MacShane called for barring a number of Russian officials, including Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, from attending the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.
Last summer, the U.S. State Department imposed travel bans on Russian officials from the so-called "Magnitsky list.” Moscow responded in kind, barring U.S. officials believed to be linked to the notorious Guantanamo prison from entry to Russia.
The Dutch parliament has also approved its own “Magnitsky list,” and similar lists are pending consideration by the Canadian and French legislatures.
On Monday, Moscow City Court authorized re-opening a 2008 criminal case against Magnitsky, in which he and five others were accused of embezzling 5.4 billion rubles ($185 million) of state money through fraudulent tax returns. Closed after Magnitsky’s death, the case was reopened last year. An appeal against the decision filed by the lawyer’s mother has been rejected.
