Bill Browder: ‘Serbia Won’t Pass Magnitsky Law under Vucic’

William Bill Browder, the head of the global campaign for Magnitsky legislation Photo: Private archive.

He then hired Sergei Magnitsky, head of the tax practice at Moscow law firm Firestone Duncan, to investigate the accusations. Magnitsky's research revealed a state conspiracy against Browder's fund and high-level corruption, but the state hit back.

Magnitsky ended up in jail for 358 days. He died in 2009 while still in prison, having allegedly been denied proper medical treatment. His death came eight days before he was due to be released.

Browder has since dedicated much of his life to encouraging countries to passing a law known today known as Magnitsky Act, initially targeting the Russian officials responsible for Magnitzky's death. The US adopted it in December 2012.

Four years later, the Global Magnitsky Act authorized the US government to sanction foreign government officials worldwide who are deemed to be major human rights offenders, freezing their assets, and banning them from entering the US.

Canada, the UK, Australia and the European Union as a whole have since followed suit.

More and more countries in the West have done likewise - including Kosovo. Processes have also been announced lately in Ireland and the Czech Republic, Browder told BIRN, naming other states that are considering passing such a law.

"Before the war in Ukraine, 34 countries had a Magnitsky act, so we had success before the Russians invaded Ukraine. But now more and more countries are getting involved. Switzerland is going to consider a Swiss version in the fall. And then we are going to have a real conversation in New Zealand and Japan," he says.

'Joining Russia is like joining the mafia'

After his book...

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