Putin’s nemesis Bill Browder dismayed that South Africa is siding with the ‘murderous dictator’

Bill Browder, architect of the Global Magnitsky Justice Campaign to sanction perpetrators of atrocities and corruption around the world, is really disappointed that South Africa is “siding with a murderous dictator”, Russian President Vladimir Putin, instead of with the free and fair world – the free and fair world which sided with South Africa to help defeat apartheid. 

Browder, then a major investment fund manager, was hounded out of Russia in 2005 when he exposed massive corruption among oligarchs close to Putin. He launched the Magnitsky Act in the US after his Russian lawyer, Sergey Magnitsky, was tortured and murdered in a Russian police cell on 16 November 2009. This was after Magnitsky had exposed a massive scam in which Browder’s financial documents were stolen and used in a complex fraud to steal$230-million in taxes which he had paid to the Russian government.

https://youtu.be/RVFWYEocAqE

Browder told Daily Maverick’s The Gathering in Cape Town on Thursday that the US Magnitsky Act of 2012 froze the assets and banned the visas of the Russians involved in Magnitsky’s murder and the fraud he exposed.

Since then another 34 countries passed their own Magnitsky Acts which sanction not only Russians but also those responsible for human rights abuse and corruption across the world in places like China, Venezuela and Iran. Browder noted that the US Magnitsky Act was used to sanction the Gupta brothers for their corruption and State Capture in South Africa. 

Browder addressed the gathering by video rather than in person because he said Putin hated him so much because of his Magnitsky laws that he had put him on several Interpol and extradition lists. 

“There are certain countries that I can travel to. South Africa is one country I can’t travel to because I’m pretty sure that If I did… the South African government would arrest me and send me back to Russia where President Putin would then torture and kill me like he did my dead lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky.”

He said it would be great if South Africa also passed a Magnitsky Act, “as long as South Africa was using it properly. I kind of have my doubts right now based on the fact that South Africa is so sympathetic to Vladimir Putin.”

Browder noted that all the rule-of-law countries in the world had condemned Putin in the harshest possible ways, sanctioned him, and supplied weapons to Ukraine.

“And then there’s South Africa which we all supported when the South African people were standing up to apartheid. We all went on demonstrations at universities, boycotting products, getting sanctions imposed so that South Africa could live a free and fair life. 

“And now South Africa is free and fair… instead of siding with the free and fair of the world, South Africa is siding with a murderous dictator and that really does disappoint me.”

Browder hoped one day to return to South Africa “when it won’t be dangerous to come there when another South African government, a new South African government, condemns Putin and does the right thing and joins the civilised world fighting against these atrocities”.  

Pretoria has drawn wide criticism for its “non-aligned” stance on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Though it initially called on Russia to withdraw from Ukraine, it has never condemned Russia or Putin for the aggression and it has abstained from all of the resolutions adopted by the UN General Assembly which did condemn them. 

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