US State Department Publishes Additional Names of Russian Officials Involved in Magnitsky’s Death

Not surprisingly, given the reciprocity war going on between the White House and the Kremlin, the Russian Foreign Ministry has announced the banning of five American officials following the addition of five Russian officials to the Magnitsky List of sanctions for involvement in the death of whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky in pre-trial detention and other severe human rights violations.

The list of Americans are as follows:

All of these officials have been alleged by US human rights groups to justify or implement torture programs during the Iraq War.

In a statement about their sanctions, the Foreign Ministry said the charges against the Russian officials were “baseless” and “will strike the latest blow against bilateral relations.” It accused the US of “continuing to methodically destroy their bias by regularly disseminating false information against Russia.”

The Foreign Ministry concedes Magnitsky’s fate was “tragic” and even calls him a “lawyer” (yurist) an issue sometimes in dispute by Russian propagandists because Magnitsky, who worked as a tax auditor, while performing legal functions, did not have attorney’s status in Russia. Yet his case is described by the Ministry as a “bargaining chip” in an “unscrupulous campaign by Washington to discredit our country” — despite the overwhelming volume of evidence that Russian officials discredited their country themselves with their rampant abuses.

The Foreign Ministry also accused the US of “hypocrisy” regarding human rights because it has not released the Russian citizen R.K. Mingazov, who has been held on Guantanamo for 13 years as the US maintains he was an Al Qaeda operative cooperating with the Taliban.

Two other cases of alleged US human rights violations were cited by the Foreign Minister — “the tragic situations of K.V. Yaroshenko and R.V. Seleznyov” who were jailed and were claimed to be denied medical care.

As the Christian Science Monitor reported, Seleznyov is a hacker arrested for credit card theft, and the son of a famous father who is a member of the Russian parliament; Yaroshenko was convicted in Manhattan Federal Court and sentenced to 20 years for importing $100 million of cocaine. Seleznyov’s father, Vladimir, claims his son was nabbed to trade him for fugitive NSA contractor Edward Snowden, but the problem with that theory is that Seleznyov was arrested before Snowden went public with his own hacking.

The Foreign Ministry finished by citing American police abuses motivated by racism; the abusive penitentiary system; and the “legalization” of medieval torture methods. Russia’s own numerous cases of police torture — never prosecuted — and its extra-judicial execution of hundreds of suspected Islamists every year was forgotten.

— Catherine A. Fitzpatrick 

Surprisingly, the Investigative Committee (IC) accepted for review the allegations made by Alexander Navalny and his colleagues at the Anti-Corruption Fund regarding Prosecutor General Yury Chaika and his two sons, Artyom and Igor, RBC.ru and the Radio Svoboda, the Russian-language service of RFE/RL reported.

But not surprisingly, the IC has passed the buck to the Prosecutor General’s Office.

As Dmitry Gudkov, one of the few opposition members of parliament has pointed out regarding the parliamentary inquiry he sent to the IC — Chaika himself will be the one to do the investigation as in their reply letter the IC has said the matter is “outside its competency.”

Gudkov had boiled the Navalny material down to two main questions for the Investigative Committee:

1. Was Olga Lopatina the wife of Deputy Prosecutor Gennady Lopatin at the time she was listed as a founder in the registration of the company Sakhar Kubani and during the mass murder committed in Kushchevskaya, and if so, what were her functions in the company?

2. Did Deputy Prosecutor Lopatin have any relationship to the investigation of the murders in Kushchevskaya, and if he did, what were his functions?

Navalny’s group found that Lopatina’s fellow officers in the company included the wives of members of the notorious Tsapok gang, whose leader Sergei Tsapok was convicted for murdering a family of 14 in Kushchevskaya.

Lopatina claimed she had no relationship to Tsapok’s relatives and said that she was in friendly relations with her husband but divorced.

Navalny had evidence that the divorce could have been fictitious, in order to hide Lopatin’s assets, when he discovered Olga and Gennady playing Facebook games together.

The Investigative Committee said these issues are “not within its competency” and had to be forwarded to the Prosecutor General; some lawyers have countered that in fact it was mandated to investigate other agencies and was shirking its duties. 

This affair highlights one of the chief flaws of the Russian criminal justice system — while the Investigative Committee was ostensibly to solve the built-in problem that the prosecutor himself investigates claims of malfeasance within the procuracy, in fact the system still enables the prosecutor himself to be put in charge of probing whether his employees are corrupt or abusive.

The Prosecutor General’s office said that it is not under obligation to investigate the incomes and businesses of the relatives of officials. This has sparked an effort by the Duma to pass a law barring the relatives of officials from engaging in business investments.

Vedomosti has found a good explanation for why Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has been behaving so aggressively lately — there are two months remaining in his tenure as president, Znak.com reported.

After that, President Vladimir Putin will have to appoint a temporary acting president until elections take place.

Kadyrov was appointed March 2011 by then-President Dmitry Medvedev for a period of five years; this term expires on April 5, 2016. The parliament confirmed him then, but the next president of Chechnya will be elected directly from among multiple candidates, per changes made in the Chechen Constitution in 2012.

Despite Kadyrov’s increasingly provocative behavior — yesterday he posted a video clip on Instagram showing two opposition figures through a sniper’s scope — the Kremlin has continued to back him.

Last week, President Vladimir Putin said Kadyrov was “an effective leader.” Sergei Ivanov, head of the presidential administration also endorsed him last week; asked by reporters if Kadyrov was becoming an irritant, he said (translation by The Interpreter):

Mikhail Vinogradov, a political analyst, told Vedomosti that he believes Kadyrov has to come “all at arms” to be appointed acting president and then be elected in the direct elections. Once elected, he will have a higher status than other leaders in the North Caucasus who have been appointed. No decree has been issued yet about his status as acting president, and there are rumors that he may be made vice premier. For now, Kadyrov has to pretend he is not worried about the coming appointment, and is concerned with “the larger topics of Islam, the opposition, and so on,” said Vinogradov: 

We could note that few have any doubt that Kadyrov would be able to manipulate such elections, as he has secured 99% support in elections for Putin.

Another source, close to the presidential administration who was not named said that he did not believe the Kremlin was seriously thinking of replacing Kadyrov; most likely their only worry was how to reduce the subsidies to Chechnya. Kadyrov is “raising the stakes,” he said; after looking at his Instagram account, no minister will think of cutting his subsidies.

Yesterday, as it turned out, Instagram’s management turned out to be bolder then Kremlin ministers; a representative told Vedomosti that they had removed the threatening video, saying death threats and calls to violence were a violation of community standards. The video still remains in place on the Instagram account of Magomed “Lord” Daudov, however, speaker of parliament and Kadyrov’s close comrade-at-arms.

Kadyrov reacted predictably on Instagram last night, saying:

“No sooner did I say a few words about the chained dogs of the USA than they removed my post from Instagram. There it is, the much-praised freedom of speech, American-style! You can write anything, but don’t touch the dogs of America, of the State Department and Congress. You know perfectly well what I’m talking about.

Sergei Mitrokhin, former leader of the opposition party Yabloko and now chair of its Moscow branch sent an appeal to Putin and the heads of the FSB and Prosecutor General to open up a criminal case against Kadyrov on grounds of calls to extremist activity and organizing an extremist organization. By the latter, he apparently means the troops within Chechnya that are called “Kadyrov’s personal army” although nominally they belong to the Chechen branch of the Interior Ministry.

Another short-term factor that could be driving Kadyrov’s behavior is the upcoming year anniversary of the assassination of Boris Nemtsov on February 27. The Investigative Committee has said they have “solved” the case and are expecting to transfer the case to a military court. Since the chief defendant, Zaur Dadayev, was in the Chechen Interior Ministry’s Sever Battalion and was praised by Kadyrov as a “patriot,” his sentencing will further call into question Kadyrov’s judgement.

A spotlight will also be shed on two figures, Ruslan Geremeyev, head of Sever and a relative of Kadyrov’s and Ruslan Mukhatdinov, his driver, said to organize the murder. Both have fled Russia. The opposition believes the masterminds of the murder have not yet been found and have already indicated they believe the trail leads to Kadyrov himself.

Four of the officials were involved in the death in prison of Magnitsky.  Boris Kibis, Interior Ministry investigator, was included for his role in the preposterous trial of Magnitsky posthumously. Oleg Urzhumtsev, previously included in the EU’s Magnitsky Sanctions List, was also involved in the posthumous trial. 

A State Department official told Reuters that Anichin was head of the Interior Ministry’s Investigative Committee, and authorized the criminal case under which Magnitsky was arrested; he has been defiant about inclusion in the sanctions’ list.

Lapshov was head of the Russian Interior Ministry’s investigative department of organized criminal activity and responsible for Magnitsky’s case.

Yevgeni Antonov ran a prison in Chechnya notorious for its abuses, the State Department said.

Reuters further reported:

Monday’s addition to the list raises the number of people sanctioned under the 2012 law to 39, State Department spokesman John Kirby said in a statement.

Though few if any assets have been frozen as a result of the designations, the actions “show the operational level of Russian officials that they can and will be held personally accountable for just following orders,” the State Department official said.

As a result of inclusion in the list, in addition to the assets freeze, the five are also banned from obtaining a US visa.

The addition of the names was welcomed by Hermitage Capital Management CEO William Browder who has campaigned extensively for his colleague Magnitsky, but it was tempered by the extent of  many others involved: