AFP

MOSCOW RUSSIA threatened on Wednesday to hit back at the United States with even stiffer penalties after a Senate panel backed sanctions against those implicated in the prison death of a whistleblower with US ties.

The death in 2009 of Sergei Magnitsky — a lawyer who accused tax chiefs and police of defrauding the budget of hundreds of millions of dollars — has turned into a symbol of the apparent impunity of the Russian state.

Magnitsky was employed by the US emerging markets investor Bill Browder and his case has become a test of how far President Barack Obama is willing to push Russia at a time when he needs Moscow’s support on Syria and Iran.

The US Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday faced down Russia’s impending anger by unanimously approving the “Magnitsky Law” — a measure that would deny entry and freeze the bank accounts of Russians linked to his case.

Russia’s condemnation was swift and worded more strongly than the language used by President Vladimir Putin after his meeting with Obama on the sidelines of a regional summit in Mexico last week. “We do not just regret but are astonished that work on the Magnitsky legislation is continuing in defiance of common sense and despite Moscow’s signals that such steps are counterproductive,” said Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov.

“There will be a response and not just symmetric.

There could also be an asymmetric response,” he told Russian news agencies.

Ryabkov toned those remarks slightly later in the day by telling state television that Russia’s answer would be “balanced and not bring additional difficulties to our relations. But it will be firm.” The actual fate of the legislation however remains unclear.

Obama is pushing the Senate to stall it despite the support it enjoys in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives in an election season during which the White House is being accused of being soft on foreign affairs.

US Senator John McCain — Obama’s 2008 election rival and furious critic of Putin’s rule — urged the administration to deliver “a powerful blow for US national security, rule of law and universal human rights.” The 37-year-old lawyer worked for what was then Moscow’s largest Western hedge fund when he was arrested and jailed.

He had only weeks earlier claimed to have uncovered a scheme through which Moscow tax and interior ministry officials claimed back some $230 million Hermitage Capital had paid off its profits to the state.

The fund — now based in London — has since been leading a meticulous investigation that claims to have linked those very same officials to a former Russian banker named Dmitry Kluyev whom it accuses of leading a criminal group.

Its latest evidence haul released Wednesday includes records of the group travelling on various foreign trips with Kluyev after allegedly transferring the tax return funds to his bank.

McCain’s letter to Obama called the “Kluyev Group..
a dangerous transnational criminal organisation” that was involved in other crimes besides the those leading to the arrest and death of Magnitsky.

The lawyer was eventually charged with the very crimes he claimed to have uncovered after an investigation led by the same officials he had alleged to be involved in the fraud scam.