Russia steps up pressure against Cyprus and EP on Browder
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Days after the US added more names to the Magnitsky sanctions list, Russian officials are stepping up pressure against Cyprus and the EU with public interventions.
On Sunday, Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov complained that his country’s cooperation with Cyprus in legal matters was the target of a media campaign.
Lavrov referred in an interview with Simerini to the case of Hermitage Capital founder Bill Browder that “some Cypriot media launched a campaign, which appears to have been caused or devised, in an attempt to defame the cooperation between our countries in the area of legal assistance in criminal and civil cases”.
The Russian chief diplomat dismissed the notion that his country’s request for legal assistance in a probe against investor-turned-activist Browder was politically motivated and that the cooperation had gone beyond the boundaries of “prevailing international legal practices”.
Lavrov said that Browder and the unspecified circles supporting him, aim at politicising the investigation against him and added that Cypriot judicial authorities have provided appropriate explanations.
Browder resorted to a Cypriot court in September seeking an emergency injunction barring the state from cooperating with Russian authorities in their probe against him on the grounds that it is politically motivated. Bowder said it came in response to his campaign for justice for Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky who died eight years ago in a Russian prison after exposing a $230m (€194m) tax theft. The Russian officials Magnitsky implicated in the case arrested him, subjected him to torture and denied him access to medical treatment.
As a result of Browder’s campaign, several countries, including the US, passed legislation targeting individuals and entities involved in this case as well other cases of human rights abuses, while the Council of Europe asked its members not to cooperate with Russia in its case against Browder. Interpol has so far rejected five arrest warrants issued by Russia against Browder.