Kremlin foe faces new charges in Russia
U.S.-born investor dismisses case as payback for his criticism of Putin
MOSCOW — Russian prosecutors announced new criminal charges against U.S.-born Kremlin foe Bill Browder on Monday, days before a Russian police officer could become president of Interpol in a move that some Moscow critics fear might politicize the law enforcement agency.
Browder and other opponents of Russian President Vladimir Putin have complained that Russia has tried to use Interpol against them. If a Russian is elected as its new president, it could encourage Moscow to intensify attempts to hunt down its critics abroad.
The new charges leveled against Browder accuse him of forming a criminal group to embezzle funds in Russia.
They also alleged that he could be behind the death of his employee, Sergei Magnitsky, in a Russian prison.
Magnitsky, a 37-year-old lawyer who alleged he had uncovered $230 million in tax fraud by Russian officials, died in 2009 while in pre-trial detention.
A Russian presidential commission concluded he had been beaten and denied medical care, and two prison doctors were charged with negligence leading to his death; one was acquitted and the other went free because the statute of limitations had expired.
Browder mounted an international campaign to bring Magnitsky’s killers to justice, and in 2012, the U.S. Congress passed the Magnitsky Act that imposed travel and financial sanctions on top Russian officials, including prosecutors. Several other countries have since adopted similar legislation.
Browder, who had owned a major investment fund in Russia before he was barred entry to the country, was convicted in absentia in Russia on charges of tax evasion and funneling money overseas in both 2013 and again last year, and sentenced to nine years in prison.
On Monday, Mikhail Alexandrov of the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office told reporters that they have opened a criminal case into the poisoning of three people described as associates of Browder, saying it was “highly likely” that Magnitsky was poisoned as well with the same military-grade substance.
Browder has blamed Russian prison officials for Magnitsky’s death and dismissed the new charges against him as a sham.
He told the Associated Press that he has no relation to the three men named by the prosecutors and described the accusations of poisoning as an attempt to discredit his campaign for justice for Magnitsky.
Putin’s “reaction is so absurd that it only helps our campaign and our cause,” he said.
The Russian prosecutors said they decided to pursue the new charges against Browder after reviewing evidence submitted by Natalia Veselnitskaya, a Russian lawyer who met with Donald Trump Jr. and members of his father’s presidential campaign in 2016 and who lobbied for the repeal of the Magnitsky Act.