Magnitsky Act Comes to Canada
This is no secret that the driving force behind the lobbying anti-Russia Magnitsky Law is the former US and now British citizen and former hedge fund manager William Browder.
Alex Krainer (AK), who is also a hedge fund manager, wrote the book “The Killing of William Browder” deconstructing Browder’s narrative. Alex has kindly agreed to be interviewed for the Strategic Culture Foundation (SC) and present his opinion overall Magnitsky-Browder affair.
SC: In September Canada’s House of Commons passed its version of the Magnitsky Act by a vote of 277 to 0. Prior to that a pretty similar version of this Act passed the US Congress and the Council of Europe. What is your take on it? Can you tell us why Mr. Browder is spending so much time and money to lobby this act around the world?
AK: Indeed, Bill Browder has been remarkably prolific and efficient with his political lobbying to get these laws passed in Canada as well as through the US Congress and the Council of Europe before that. But the truly extraordinary aspect of his lobbying is that it is based on a narrative which appears very dubious, to put it politely. Browder claims that he and his Moscow lawyer Sergei Magnisky uncovered tax fraud conspiracy perpetrated by a network of corrupt Russian government officials, that Mr. Magnitsky blew the whistle on this conspiracy and that to silence him, these officials had him imprisoned and ultimately killed. Browder claims that his lobbying is a crusade for justice for Sergei Magnistky and for human rights in general. Accordingly, the sanctions imposed by the US and Canada on Russian officials allegedly responsible for Mr. Magnitsky’s plight were ostensibly motivated by human rights concerns. But that whole strange business entirely hinged on Mr. Browder’s story and next to no due diligence on the part of these western law-makers. Even a rudimentary fact-checking should have uncovered numerous problems with Mr. Browder’s narrative.
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