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The Minister of foreign Affairs of great Britain Dominique Raab announced the introduction of sanctions against States that violate human rights – Saudi Arabia, Russia, Myanmar and North Korea

Pippa Fowles / No 10 Downing Street / Flickr

Dominic Raab with the family of Sergei Magnitsky and William Browder

Pippa Fowles / No 10 Downing Street / Flickr

The sanctions came into force after the publication of the document. They are introduced in the framework of the entry into force of the “Magnitsky amendment” to the law on sanctions and anti-money laundering, which was adopted by the House of Commons in may 2018 and was to come into force after the UK’s exit from the EU

BrianAJackson / DepositPhotos

The Minister of foreign Affairs of great Britain Dominique Raab announced the introduction of sanctions against States that violate human rights – Saudi Arabia, Russia, Myanmar and North Korea. Announced on Monday by the British government measures include, in particular, a travel ban on representatives of these countries to the UK. Thus, London for the first time after Brexit demonstrated self-determination to punish those individuals and those organizations that are responsible for human rights violations, notes The Guardian. Earlier, the UK was just following sanctions orders, which were introduced by bodies of the European Union and the United Nations.

The British government is committed to strengthening its role in the world, said the foreign Minister in Parliament. “Those who commit the most serious violations of human rights will be responsible for their actions,” said Dominic Raab. His words are quoted by radio “Freedom”.

The sanctions will be exposed to those who violate the right to life, right to liberty, torture and use slavery. Sanctions will be aimed not only at those individuals who directly violate human rights, but also those who benefit from these abuses, stress in London. “Those who have blood on their hands… will not be able to dance waltzes in the country, to buy property on kings road to do their Christmas shopping in Knightsbridge or to launder dirty money in British banks”, – assured Raab.

Dominic Raab said that sanctions will be directed against those involved in the death of Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the mass murder of the ethnic minority Rohingya people in Myanmar and the use of forced labor in North Korea, reports “Interfax”.

A LIST of 25 Russians, caught in the sanctions list of the UK
What is the “Magnitsky act”, and what sanctions it provides for

“We are introducing sanctions against individuals who were involved in some of the most egregious in recent years, violations of human rights. The first (the subjects of sanctions. – Approx. “Interfax”) – persons who were associated with the torture and murder of Sergei Magnitsky – a lawyer who uncovered the largest tax fraud in Russian history,” said Raab during a speech in Parliament.

The British foreign Secretary at the hearings in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament pledged to extend the list of human rights violations, which would impose sanctions in the framework of British law similar to the American “Magnitsky act”. He also explained that the sanctions regime apply not only to civil servants, but also non-state actors. So, according to him, London is considering options for introducing corruption to the list of acts that entail the imposition of sanctions.

As reported by Dominic Raab, at the moment, “independent sanctions regime the UK in the field of human rights” gives the authority to impose sanctions – freezing of assets and travel bans – against persons who violate “the right to life, threatening with murder or extra-judicial violence”, the right not to be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading attitude or punishment, as well as “the right to be free from slavery… or forced labour”.

Raab stressed that it is also possible to impose restrictions in relation to “a wider network of offenders,” including those who “assists, abets, encourages or supports the Commission of these crimes.”

In the Minister’s statement notes that the adoption of such a regime is “another step in the long struggle against impunity for the worst violations of human rights”.

A LIST of 25 Russians, caught in the sanctions list of the UK

In the sanctions list of the Ministry of foreign Affairs of great Britain were 25 Russian citizens:
– the Chairman of the Investigative Committee of Russia Alexander Bastrykin,
Deputy Prosecutor General Viktor grin,
– head of the Main investigatory management (GSU) SK the Russian Federation across Moscow Andrey Strizhov,
– the former head of the SIZO “Matrosskaya Tishina” Fikret Tagiyev,
– former chiefs jail “sailor’s silence” Ivan Prokopenko,
– the doctor “sailor’s silence” by Alexander Gauss,
– the former head of the SIZO “Butyrka” the prison Dmitry br,
– a former Deputy head of the SIZO “Butyrka” Dmitry Kratov,
the prison doctor Larisa Litvinova,
– former Deputy interior Minister Alexei Anichin,
– the investigator of the interior Ministry Boris Kibis,
– the investigator of the interior Ministry, Oleg Silchenko,
– a former Deputy head of the UK Ministry of internal Affairs of the Russian Federation Oleg Logunov
– the former head of the UK Ministry of internal Affairs of the Russian Federation Gennady Karlov,
Deputy chief of Department SK the Ministry of internal Affairs of the Russian Federation Natalia Vinogradova,
– inspector SK the Russian Federation Elena Tricula,
– employee of the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation Andrey Pechegin,
– interior Ministry official Andrei Krechetov,
– police officer Dmitry Tolchinsky,
– police officer Aleksey Droganov,
– the judge of the Tver court of Moscow Alexei Krivoruchko,
– the judge of the Tver court of Moscow Sergey Podoprigorov (decided to arrest Magnitsky in 2008),
– the judge of the Tver court of Moscow Elena Stashina,
– the judge of the Tver court of Moscow Svetlana Ukhnalev,
– the former head of the investigative Department of the MIA of the Russian Federation Pavel Lapshov.

Under the sanctions also got 20 citizens of Saudi Arabia, including the assistant of the Saudi crown Prince Saud al-Qahtani, who, according to us authorities, organized the brutal murder of journalist Khashoggi in the Consulate of Saudi Arabia in Istanbul. Restrictions imposed on two military leaders of Myanmar, which, according to the British side involved in the “systematic crimes” against ethnic Rohingya in Myanmar, two North Korean agencies – the Ministry of public security and Ministry of state security of the DPRK. These agencies London accuses of torture, the use of slave labor and murder. The document lists 49 people and organisations, reports TASS.

Mentioned in the list of persons denied entry to Britain, their assets in the country, if any, will be frozen, they are forbidden to do business in the country and with the mediation of the citizens of the Kingdom.

The sanctions came into force after the publication of the document. They are introduced in the framework of the entry into force of the “Magnitsky amendment” to the law on sanctions and anti-money laundering, which was adopted by the House of Commons in may 2018 and was to come into force after the UK’s exit from the EU.

“Inclusion in a list of named individuals and organizations is only the first wave of measures imposed under the new sanctions regime. New sanctions will be announced in the coming months,” – said in a statement the foreign Ministry of the Kingdom.

Speaking in the House of Commons of the British Parliament, foreign Minister Dominic Raab did not exclude that in the future sanctions would be extended to foreign nationals who, in the opinion of London, involved in corruption. “We will continue to try to expand the sanctions regime, and we have already considered the possibility that corruption could be added to the Arsenal of available means”, – he said.

Monday Raab took in the foreign office, and the widow of Sergei Magnitsky, Natalia, and his son Nikita and convicted in absentia in Russia of the founder of the British investment Fund Hermitage Capital of William Browder.

The “Magnitsky Act”

“Magnitsky sanctions” is named after Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who worked for a large investment Fund Hermitage Capital. In 2007, Russian prosecutors suspected the subsidiaries of Hermitage Capital in evasion from payment of taxes. After searches in the company of the lawyer of Fund Sergey Magnitsky accused officials of MIA and Prosecutor’s office to use the received materials for embezzlement of the state more than $ 230 million, disguised as a VAT refund.

In response, prosecutors accused Magnitsky of tax evasion. He was arrested and died in SIZO “Matrosskaya Tishina” in November 2009 at the age of 37 years. Before his death, Magnitsky was deprived of medical care and, in fact, tortured. His death caused a huge public resonance in Russia and abroad, and also became the reason for adopting the so-called Magnitsky act in different countries.

In 2016, the U.S. Congress unanimously passed a bill providing for the extension of the “law Magnitsky” on all countries, not just Russia. The law authorizes the U.S. President to update the list of foreign citizens that, according to him, are guilty of corruption and violation of human rights. Similar legal acts also took Canada, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and the UK.

An international financier, the founder of Hermitage Capital, William Browder, is considered the main initiator of the adoption of this law. Russia has described the Magnitsky act as interference in its internal Affairs. The Russian foreign Ministry called the document a hostile and provocative.

After the release of “the Panama document” in 2016, the Centre for the investigation of corruption and organized crime published evidence that stolen money from the budget mentioned by Magnitsky, settled in the accounts of long-time friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin cellist Sergei Roldugin – called “purse” of Putin.

Meanwhile, in the attitude of the founder of the British investment Fund Hermitage Capital of William Browder in Russia excite all new criminal cases, although it has twice in absentia condemned. On 11 July 2013, the Tver court of Moscow found him guilty of tax evasion in especially large amounts (522 million) and sentenced to nine years in prison on charges of tax evasion amounting to more than 522 million rubles through falsifying tax returns and illegal use of benefits intended for the disabled.

In July 2014, Russia announced Browder on the international wanted list. The Prosecutor General’s office has repeatedly sent to Interpol request for the arrest of the founder of Hermitage Capital.

At the end of 2017, the Tver court of Moscow again sentenced Browder to nine years in prison, finding him guilty in deliberate bankruptcy and tax evasion of more than 3 billion rubles. To the same date was sentenced Browder partner Ivan Cherkasov.

Russian investigators have accused Browder in several murders, including Magnitsky, and in the creation of a criminal community.

In October 2017, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the basis of the so-called “Magnitsky act”, providing a package of anti-Russian sanctions are political games. “It’s all very counterproductive political games around the things that really basically are not such which need to work in a similar way that you need to inflate,” said Putin at a meeting of the International discussion club “Valdai”, commenting on the annexation of Canada to the act.

A response the Magnitsky act was the so-called “law of Dima Yakovlev” (“the law of scoundrels”), which forbade Americans to adopt Russian orphans.