Putin slams Canada for ‘political games’
OTTAWA • Russian President Vladimir Putin is accusing Justin Trudeau’s government of playing “unconstructive political games” with its newly adopted Magnitsky law.
During a question-andanswer period at a conference in Sochi Thursday, Putin said events leading to the adoption of the law are part of a conspiracy to “blow up more anti-Russian hysteria,” according to a transcript posted on the Kremlin’s website.
On Wednesday, the Canadian parliament passed its final approval of a Senate bill proposed by Conservative Sen. Raynell Andreychuk. It would allow the federal government to impose sanctions on foreigners accused of human rights violations, including freezing any Canadian-held assets and barring them from entering the country.
The law — called the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act — is not targeted only at Russians. But its short title, the Sergei Magnitsky Law, is named after a Moscow lawyer who was tortured and died in prison in 2009 after blowing the whistle on corruption involving government officials.
While the House of Commons was debating the bill, the Russian embassy to Canada made overtures about “countermeasures” that could be imposed in retaliation to its adoption. On Twitter Wednesday, the embassy said the law’s passage has caused “irreparable damage” to the Canada-Russia relationship. But Thursday marked the first overt commentary from Putin.
“These are all some very unconstructive political games,” the president said in response to a Canada-focused question from professor Piotr Dutkiewicz, who is on sabbatical from Ottawa’s Carleton University and codirects its Centre for Governance and Public Management.
Putin accused Bill Browder — Magnitsky’s boss, who has spearheaded global efforts to bring justice in the case — of leading an “entire gang” engaged in “criminal activities.” He said Browder has been sentenced to nine years in Russian prison for his “scam,” but U.S. officials haven’t co-operated with an investigation. “This is just used to blow up more anti-Russian hysteria. Nobody wants to look into the matter, into what is actually beneath it,” Putin said.
Browder, the founder and CEO of Hermitage Capital Management, ran Russia’s biggest foreign investment fund until he was kicked out in 2005. Magnitsky was his lawyer in ensuing fights with the Russian authorities, who Browder accused of a $230-million tax fraud.
After Magnitsky’s death in prison, Browder campaigned in the U.S. where Congress adopted the “Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act” in 2012. That law was expanded in 2016 to allow sanctions on human rights abusers in any country.
The law received overt support from Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland, who herself is on a Russian sanctions list that bans her from entering the country. Freeland is said to be close friends with Browder, and was critical of Putin while working as a journalist in Moscow.
Freeland said on social media in 2014, when she was placed on the list, that it was an “honour” to feature next to Canadians such as Irwin Cotler, the former Liberal MP and human rights lawyer who has for years advocated a Magnitsky law in Canada.
Cotler told the Post recently that Russia only makes itself look guilty by opposing the law.
“When Russia says ‘you’re interfering with our sovereignty,’ no. We’re not interfering with your sovereignty at all. We’re protecting our sovereignty.”