{"id":40311,"date":"2016-06-14T17:49:02","date_gmt":"2016-06-14T21:49:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=40311"},"modified":"2016-06-14T17:53:44","modified_gmt":"2016-06-14T21:53:44","slug":"he-was-not-killed-he-died-kremlin-critics-magnitsky-movie-premiers-in-us-exposing-browder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=40311","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;He was not killed, he died&#8217;: Kremlin critic\u2019s Magnitsky movie premiers in US, exposing Browder"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"article__summary summary \"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.rt.com\/news\/346642-magnitsky-film-shown-washington\/video\/\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<div class=\"article__text text \">\n<p>RT.com<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Despite threats of a libel lawsuit, a documentary about the Magnitsky case by a prominent critic of the Russian government has been shown in Washington. The film rejects the narrative about the case accepted in the West, on which the US Magnitsky Act is based.<\/p>\n<p>The film, titled \u2018The Magnitsky Act \u2013 Behind the Scenes\u2019, was presented to the public for the first time on Monday at the Newseum, a private museum dedicated to the news industry and freedom of speech in Washington, DC. The two-hour production is part documentary, part dramatization of the events that surround the death of Russian lawyer Sergey Magnitsky six years ago.<\/p>\n<div class=\"arcticle__read-more read-more\">\n<p><a class=\"read-more__link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.rt.com\/news\/180412-browder-magnitsky-hermitage-prevezon\/\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"read-more__cover\" src=\"http:\/\/img.rt.com\/files\/news\/2c\/0b\/c0\/00\/william-browder.n.jpg\" alt=\"Hermitage Capital investment fund CEO William Browder (AFP Photo \/ Bertrand Guay)\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"read-more__footer\">Read more: \u00a0\u00a0<a class=\"read-more__link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.rt.com\/news\/180412-browder-magnitsky-hermitage-prevezon\/\" target=\"_blank\">After Magnitsky: Dead lawyer\u2019s boss Browder and his legal hurdles \u2013 now in US<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Magnitsky worked as an accountant for US-British investor William F. Browder, who made millions in Russia during the 1990s, but was later accused of tax evasion and fled the country. The lawyer was detained by the Russian police as part of a separate fraud investigation and died in police custody in November 2009.<\/p>\n<p>Browder claimed that Magnitsky had been investigating corrupt police officers and was thrown into jail and murdered by them. He declared a crusade against what he called endemic corruption in the Russian government and lobbied across Europe and the US for punishment of the individuals whom he accused of involvement in Magnitsky\u2019s death.<\/p>\n<p>In 2012 the US passed an act named after the Russian lawyer, which imposed sanctions against 40 Russian citizens \u2013 a move that Moscow saw as blatantly anti-Russian, and apparently retaliated against by banning the adoption of Russian orphans by US citizens.<\/p>\n<h2>\u2018Story of coming together with lie, selfishness &amp; cynicism\u2019<\/h2>\n<p>Director Andrei Nekrasov struggled for months to have his controversial work shown to the public. Scheduled screenings in three European venues, including the European Parliament, were canceled because Browder threatened multimillion-dollar libel lawsuits against producers or would-be broadcasters of the film.<\/p>\n<p>Browder opposes the film because he believes it to be <em>\u201ca calculated attempt to harm our campaign and to make people doubt the legacy of Sergey Magnitsky,\u201d<\/em> as he told euobserver.com back in April.<\/p>\n<div class=\"arcticle__read-more read-more\">\n<div class=\"read-more__title\"><\/div>\n<p><a class=\"read-more__link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.rt.com\/news\/331054-russia-us-travel-ban\/\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"read-more__cover\" src=\"http:\/\/img.rt.com\/files\/2016.02\/thumbnail\/56b0e59dc46188b6188b458a.jpg\" alt=\"The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Smolenskaya-Sennaya Square in Moscow. \u00a9 Natalia Seliverstova\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"read-more__footer\">Read more\u00a0 \u00a0<a class=\"read-more__link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.rt.com\/news\/331054-russia-us-travel-ban\/\" target=\"_blank\">Russia slaps travel ban on 5 US ex-officials over \u2018legalization of torture\u2019<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Newseum was threatened in the same way, but rejected the pressure, saying that publishing Nekrasov\u2019s film was an issue of freedom of speech.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cThis is a core issue about getting points of view into the public domain,\u201d<\/em> investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, who moderated the event, told the audience before the screening.<\/p>\n<p>Nekrasov says he wanted to make a docudrama film about Magnitsky ever since he heard of his story. He received funding for the project from eight European film foundations and state broadcasters and got in touch with Browder as part of his work.<\/p>\n<p>But he found inconsistencies in the evidence presented by Browder\u2019s campaign to back his story, saying most of it was circumstantial at best. When he confronted the businessman about them, he said Browder broke off all contact and started to oppose the film.<\/p>\n<p>The director believes that the narrative of Magnitsky as the brave whistleblower killed by corrupt Russian cops, as it was accepted in the West, is a scam by Browder, who capitalized on the lawyer\u2019s death to shield himself from all past and future accusations from Russian law enforcement, which he could claim to be politically motivated.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;<em>I believe Magnitsky died<\/em>,&#8221; Nekrasov told journalists in response to a question on whether he believed the lawyer was killed or died. &#8220;<em>Questions remain, but the fact that he was not killed, as Mr Browder says, by the same people who investigated his case and had a &#8216;motive&#8217; to make him silent as a whistleblower \u2013 this is totally certain.<\/em>&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cThe story of Magnitsky turned out to be made-up,\u201d<\/em> Nekrasov told journalists as he commented on revelations he made during the making of his film. <em>\u201cI saw facts that do not add up, that prove that the story of Magnitsky was faked by Browder,\u201d<\/em> he added.<\/p>\n<div class=\"arcticle__read-more read-more\">\n<div class=\"read-more__title\"><\/div>\n<p><a class=\"read-more__link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.rt.com\/news\/260065-witness-magnitsky-case-poison\/\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"read-more__cover\" src=\"http:\/\/img.rt.com\/files\/news\/3f\/7e\/10\/00\/uk-2.n.jpg\" alt=\"Aleksandr Perepelichny\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"read-more__footer\">Read more\u00a0 \u00a0<a class=\"read-more__link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.rt.com\/news\/260065-witness-magnitsky-case-poison\/\" target=\"_blank\">Key Magnitsky case witness may have been poisoned \u2013 report<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Documents show that the evidence presented by Browder as proof that Magnitsky was a whistleblower was in fact a transcript of Magnitsky\u2019s interrogations, which were conducted before he made his statements, Nekrasov claimed, stressing that police officers had no motive for killing Magnitsky as he did not expose them.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cThere is no evidence that he [Magnitsky] was killed or even was beaten,\u201d<\/em> the film director told journalists.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cI am a critic of the Russian authorities \u2026 and I continue to be this critic, but in this particular case, the West made a mistake by adopting the Magnitsky Act and the Magnitsky resolutions, as they are based on a made-up story,\u201d<\/em> Nekrasov said, adding that <em>\u201cit is not in the interests of the US to remain trammelled by prejudice against Russia.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cI thought I was filming about great the whistleblower Magnitsky. But it became my story of coming together basically with a lie, and with a lot of selfishness, and cynicism,\u201d<\/em> Nekrasov told RT in May, when the screening of the film was cancelled at the last moment in Brussels.<\/p>\n<p>The director\u2019s view didn\u2019t go well with some of the first viewers of the film, including Russian opposition politicians and rights activists.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cYou have become a foot soldier of the propaganda war,\u201d<\/em> exclaimed Ilya Yashin, a veteran opposition figure in Russia. <em>\u201cI am ashamed for you, Andrei. You will have to live with that.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The outcry was perhaps to be expected. Nekrasov himself has been a critic of the Russian government for years. Some of his earlier works explored alleged involvement of the Kremlin in very serious issues, including the Chechnya war, the murder of Aleksandr Litvinenko, corruption in security agencies and others.<\/p>\n<p>His documentaries, both political and otherwise, were praised by critics and won a number of awards, including the prestigious German Grimme-Preis award. Georgia named him person of the year 2009 for a film about the 2008 war against Russia.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cI am a critic of the Russian regime and still am. I had a sort of political affiliation to Browder and his friends,\u201d<\/em> Nekrasov said of his latest film.<em> \u201cIt goes against your ideology and your worldview to say that actually the Russian cops did not kill Magnitsky, the Russian cops didn\u2019t steal the money. Russia is still a very corrupt country, but in this case it was different.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>___<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.rt.com\/news\/346642-magnitsky-film-shown-washington\/\">&#8216;He was not killed, he died&#8217;: Kremlin critic\u2019s Magnitsky movie premiers in US, exposing Browder \u2014 RT News<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>RT.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40311\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}