The comments made by Russia President Vladimir Putin targeting William Browder are boosting the hedge-fund manager’s efforts to get more countries to impose sanctions on Russia.
Mr. Browder, who was born in the U.S. but is a U.K. citizen, has been a thorn in Russia’s side for nearly a decade; he has spent much of that time crisscrossing the globe exposing Russian corruption and punishing Russian officials who he blamed for the 2009 death of his lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky. Starting with the U.S., Mr. Browder has successfully lobbied seven countries to pass laws invoking Mr. Magnitsky’s name that impose sanctions on Russian human-rights abusers.
He said in an interview with Risk & Compliance Journal on Thursday that the comments made by Mr. Putin in Helsinki will “increase the probability” that the eight countries he is working with now — France, Germany, Holland, Sweden, Denmark, Australia, South Africa and Ukraine — will impose their own measures. The comments by Mr. Putin answer one of the key questions countries ask, which is whether these sanctions will work, he said.
“It’s so important to him to not have [the sanctions] that he’s willing to bring it up in his summit with the most powerful man in the free world,” said Mr. Browder, referring to the summit between President Donald Trump and Mr. Putin.
The U.S. Magnitsky Act, signed in 2012, targets human-rights abusers in Russia. The U.S. passed another law in 2016, the Global Magnitsky Act, that authorizes sanctions against human rights abusers across the world, as well as those accused of grand corruption.
A U.S. Treasury Department spokesman said that Washington has put sanctions on 51 Russian and Russia-related targets under the two laws since their implementation.
“Under this administration, Treasury has consistently confronted Russian activities that threaten our institutions, our interests or our allies,” the spokesman said.
Lawmakers have approved of the U.S. handling of Russia sanctions targeting human-rights abuse. “The Magnitsky sanctions are clearly making an impact on Putin and his inner circle,” said Sen. Roger Wicker (R., Miss.).
Mr. Browder praised the U.S. effort, saying the Magnitsky Act sanctions have been used “quite effectively” by both the Obama and Trump administrations. He said the Trump administration has added high-value targets to the Russia-only list, and that the global list is “a rogues gallery” of the corrupt and violent.
“There will be huge pressure to add many more names to the list” in the wake of Mr. Putin’s remarks, he said.
Mr. Putin mentioned Mr. Browder at a press conference Monday following a summit with Mr. Trump, suggesting that the U.S. could hand over Mr. Browder and other targets of Russian investigations in exchange for Moscow’s help with the U.S. special counsel’s probe.
Mr. Trump initially seemed open to the idea, but the White House Thursday turned it down and the U.S. Senate unanimously rejected the Russian president’s gambit.
A Russian court sentenced Mr. Browder in absentia last December to nine months in prison after convicting him of deliberate bankruptcy and tax evasion; Mr. Browder has called the trial a farce and maintains his innocence.
Mr. Browder, however, is a U.K. citizen and runs Hermitage Capital Management from London. In the interview, Mr. Browder said the U.K. has rejected 12 Russian requests to interrogate or extradite him and that Interpol has rejected six Russian requests for his arrest, citing political motivation.
“The world is now seeing firsthand what I’ve been experiencing for five years,” Mr. Browder said. “The level of danger is no greater or no lesser than it was over the last five years.”
