Russia, Interpol and the US Department of Homeland Security: The revocation of Bill Browder's ESTA
By Péter MARTON
In the last two weeks there has been much commentary about the revocation or cancelling of Bill Browder's "visa" (rather his Electronic System of Travel Authorisation permit, or ESTA) by the United States, after Russia had issued an Interpol arrest warrant against him, a measure that could have significantly hindered the activities of a major critic of Russia's Vladimir Putin. Browder (pictured) now has his ESTA back, but it may be interesting to ask the question of exactly how and why it was taken from him even for the short time it was. Or seemed to have been...
Browder, originally a US, later (since about 30 years now) a British citizen, set up Hermitage Capital Management, an investment fund, back in the 1990s, and acquired shares in many Russian companies, planting seed capital as well as gaining a foothold in strategically important firms.
Shares in Gazprom were eventually in Hermitage's portfolio too. So Browder was in on a lot of information about what was going down in the Russian economy. He even had corruption-related information in abundance.
He wanted to force change related to this on elite groups that had very good connections, and their counterattack swept him aside. He was banned from visiting Russia since 2006 (since 2012 Russian authorities are seeking to have him "visit" but this time they want him as an extradited criminal, slight difference there). Meanwhile, Browder's auditor, Sergei Magnitsky, died in a Russian prison in 2009 under very questionable circumstances.
A billionaire with an agenda, Browder didn't stop there, and lobbied hard for legislation in the United States to sanction individuals related to Magnitsky's death. The result is the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2012 adopted by the US Congress. (Since 2012 Estonia and Canada also introduced similar legislation, and Lithuania is likely to do so in November.)
Russia alleges in return that basically for all the wrongdoing that Browder accuses Russian individuals of, he personally is responsible, including for the death of Magnitsky (while in a Russian prison, mind you, under circumstances that Russian prosecutors thereby themselves acknowledge to be questionable, ironically).
Russian authorities have attempted on several occasions by now (and for a while managed this time, on October 19) to have Browder placed on the Interpol international wanted list.
And then the ESTA revocation happened.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc? Preceded by it, therefore caused by it? How high was the level of involvement in the decision on the US side? Did it happen automatically? Or was it a decision by "the Trump administration" whom Browder also often criticises?
It's hard to assess, really.
Browder said here that "he was alerted to the move (the Interpol warrant) by an email from the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), stating that his “global entry status” had been revoked." This supposedly happened on October 19 -- Browder himself points to October 19 as the date of the email notification in question, and concludes in the video embedded here that "strangely, the US visa system appears to be intertwined with the Russian Interpol list."
But then US Customs and Border Protection (CBP, the agency working under DHS) said that:
The timeline doesn't add up easily. It would take some interesting explanation for it to be true, given the email that went out subsequently, on October 19. Browder himself says he thinks the date of October 18 indicated by CBP is wrong. So he called someone at DHS to explain:
So we're not much clevererer thereafterer, are we?
That's it for today, folks!
In the last two weeks there has been much commentary about the revocation or cancelling of Bill Browder's "visa" (rather his Electronic System of Travel Authorisation permit, or ESTA) by the United States, after Russia had issued an Interpol arrest warrant against him, a measure that could have significantly hindered the activities of a major critic of Russia's Vladimir Putin. Browder (pictured) now has his ESTA back, but it may be interesting to ask the question of exactly how and why it was taken from him even for the short time it was. Or seemed to have been...
Browder, originally a US, later (since about 30 years now) a British citizen, set up Hermitage Capital Management, an investment fund, back in the 1990s, and acquired shares in many Russian companies, planting seed capital as well as gaining a foothold in strategically important firms.
Shares in Gazprom were eventually in Hermitage's portfolio too. So Browder was in on a lot of information about what was going down in the Russian economy. He even had corruption-related information in abundance.
He wanted to force change related to this on elite groups that had very good connections, and their counterattack swept him aside. He was banned from visiting Russia since 2006 (since 2012 Russian authorities are seeking to have him "visit" but this time they want him as an extradited criminal, slight difference there). Meanwhile, Browder's auditor, Sergei Magnitsky, died in a Russian prison in 2009 under very questionable circumstances.
A billionaire with an agenda, Browder didn't stop there, and lobbied hard for legislation in the United States to sanction individuals related to Magnitsky's death. The result is the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2012 adopted by the US Congress. (Since 2012 Estonia and Canada also introduced similar legislation, and Lithuania is likely to do so in November.)
Russia alleges in return that basically for all the wrongdoing that Browder accuses Russian individuals of, he personally is responsible, including for the death of Magnitsky (while in a Russian prison, mind you, under circumstances that Russian prosecutors thereby themselves acknowledge to be questionable, ironically).
Russian authorities have attempted on several occasions by now (and for a while managed this time, on October 19) to have Browder placed on the Interpol international wanted list.
And then the ESTA revocation happened.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc? Preceded by it, therefore caused by it? How high was the level of involvement in the decision on the US side? Did it happen automatically? Or was it a decision by "the Trump administration" whom Browder also often criticises?
It's hard to assess, really.
Browder said here that "he was alerted to the move (the Interpol warrant) by an email from the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), stating that his “global entry status” had been revoked." This supposedly happened on October 19 -- Browder himself points to October 19 as the date of the email notification in question, and concludes in the video embedded here that "strangely, the US visa system appears to be intertwined with the Russian Interpol list."
But then US Customs and Border Protection (CBP, the agency working under DHS) said that:
"William Browder's ESTA [visa waiver travel authorization] remains valid for travel to the United States. His ESTA was manually approved by CBP on Oct. 18 — clearing him for travel to the United States."
The timeline doesn't add up easily. It would take some interesting explanation for it to be true, given the email that went out subsequently, on October 19. Browder himself says he thinks the date of October 18 indicated by CBP is wrong. So he called someone at DHS to explain:
"I spoke to somebody there who refused to give me any information on why this happened and encouraged me to write a Freedom of Information Act request if I really wanted to find out."
So we're not much clevererer thereafterer, are we?
That's it for today, folks!
Comments
Post a Comment