Russian embassy explains the US’ Magnitsky Act

As I was catching up on my reading, going through last month’s newspapers, I found an article titled “The Magnitsky effect” by Mr. Antonio Contreras (The Manila Times, Jan. 14, 2020). I am bringing this story to your attention because the author sadly made an unacceptable error of fact. Apart from that, although the Magnitsky Act is not the main topic of the article, I believe that the situation surrounding it should have been explained more thoroughly in order to provide the readers with a better understanding of this law and the events surrounding it.

The Magnitsky Act was initially adopted in 2012 under a false pretext of protecting human rights in Russia and “punishing” the Russian authorities for the demise of Mr. Sergey Magnitsky who was a person of interest in a tax evasion case against the Hermitage Capital Management Investment Fund. Mr. Magnitsky was an accountant of the fund and apart from possessing important information for the investigation, at a certain point he was also suspected of having assisted Mr. William Browder, one of the founders of the company in question, to commit the tax dodge. At the same time, mainstream Western media came up with a wild-eyed story about Mr. Magnitsky having investigated a case of embezzlement of 5.3 billion roubles from the Russian federal budget and that his death was an attempt to silence him. This theory was questionable at best since such an investigation would have been far beyond any clearance Mr. Magnitsky could have possibly had. He simply had no way to access this kind of information.