Britain Won’t Cooperate in Browder Case

By Alexander Bratersky

The St. Petersburg Times

Published: July 4, 2012 (Issue # 1716)

MOSCOW — Investigators are ready to take their case against Hermitage Capital CEO Bill Browder to court — but the U.K. refuses to notify the British citizen, let alone extradite him.

Browder, a co-founder of the Hermitage Capital investment fund, is a suspect in the $230 million tax embezzlement case that landed lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in jail in 2008.

Magnitsky was jailed on tax evasion charges soon after he accused tax and police officials of stealing the $230 million. He died of heart failure after about a year in custody.

Last year, prosecutors reopened the Magnitsky case under an order by then-Prosecutor General Viktor Grin.

Hermitage has said the case was reopened three days after the U.S. State Department announced that Grin, an official associated with Magnitsky’s death, would be denied entry to the U.S.

For refusing to notify Browder, Britain has cited the European Convention on Mutual Legal Assistance, which allows a sovereign nation to deny assistance that could jeopardize national security.

The Russian Interior Ministry said Tuesday that the case would go to court, regardless of what Britain thinks.

The British denial, however, “allows the defense to say its rights are violated,” the ministry said in a statement. “It allows Browder … to tell the whole world about the injustice being committed in the Russian law enforcement system.”