Lucy Komisar Submission

Inquiry into targeted sanctions to address human rights abuses
Submission 110
jscfadt@aph.gov.au
Statement attached. If you print out copies, please be aware of and retain the hyper-text links which
connect to the supporting documentation.
Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade
Dear Chairman Fawcett, Chairman Andrews and members of the Committee,
I am Lucy Komisar, a New York investigative journalist whose beat is corporate and financial corruption,
with a particular focus on the offshore bank and corporate secrecy system. I have spent most of a decade
investigating William Browder. I first wrote about Browder in 2014 for 100Reporters, an investigative
website run by a former New York Times financial reporter, in a story that exposed his use of transfer-
pricing to cheat Russia of taxes and minority investors of profits from Avisma, a Russian titanium
company. My story on Browder’s Magnitsky hoax was published by 100Reporters in 2017. Browder,
who refused to be interviewed, raised no public or legal challenge to either article.
In another area, I won a Gerald Loeb Award, the major U.S. prize in financial journalism, for a highly
praised story in The Miami Herald about how the Florida Banking Department helped Ponzi schemer
Allen Stanford move money offshore with no regulation. As an accomplished journalist with articles
published in major U.S. media, I have been a member of the (U.S.) Council on Foreign Relations since
1994.
My concern about human rights dates from my time as a college student, when I spent a year 1962-3 as
editor of the “Mississippi Free Press,” a civil rights weekly in Jackson at the height of the civil rights
movement. A chapter in a book about journalists working in Mississippi at the time recounts my work. In
1970-71, I was a national vice president of NOW, the major American feminist organization.
Then, I was for 20 years from 1974 to 94 a member of the board of the writers’ organization PEN
American Center and active on its human rights committee, including going to Uruguay to investigate,
co-author a report and write press articles to draw attention to its repression of the press. A commitment
to human rights has run through my life.
Your Terms of Reference
# “The advantages and disadvantages of the use of human rights sanctions, including the effectiveness of
sanctions as an instrument of foreign policy to combat human rights abuses.”
I studied international human rights policies as a grantee of the MacArthur Foundation (John D. and
Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation grant for research and writing in peace, security and international
cooperation, 1990-91) I found that human rights sanctions had an impact in countries where the internal
business sector, which supported the government in power and had its ear, pressed it for change. My
study dealt with sanctions in the 1980s against Chile under Pinochet and South Africa under apartheid,
promoted by political movements in the U.S. and internationally, where resulting reforms led to elections
Submission 110
and democratic change. Even so, the South Africa sanctions were voted by the U.S. Congress, but
opposed by the Reagan administration. In 1989, the U.S. General Accounting Office said in a report that
the sanctions against South Africa had been only partially enforced by the Reagan administration.
In the other countries I studied, El Salvador, Zaire, Turkey and South Korea, with a focus on the same
period, the 1970s and 80s, the main international actor was also the U.S., but it supported those countries’
repressive governments. This included the self-styled human rights administration of Jimmy Carter which
avoided targeting countries with “security” issues. I once asked Carter’s human rights official Patt Derian
if she would write a book about Carter’s human rights regime. She replied, “It would be a very short
book!” So, we don’t know if a U.S. human rights sanctions policy would have made a difference. South
Korea later had important domestic pressures for change, which ultimately led to democratic reform, but
the human rights situations in the other countries -- El Salvador, Zaire/Democratic Republic of the Congo,
Turkey -- are as bad or worse.
# “Any relevant experience of other jurisdictions, including the United States regarding their Global
Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act (2016).”
Actions on sanctions by western countries generally follow the lead of the U.S., which created the
Magnitsky Act you now consider copying. American sanctions under the Global Magnitsky Act are not
targeted at governments or officials who might be pressured into changing their practices but are seen as
weapons to force regime change for reasons not related to human rights. Targeted governments hunker
down and blame the sanctioning government for their citizens’ suffering. Note Venezuela, Iran and
Nicaragua. Or sanctions are used to punish a country deemed a political adversary. Note Russia. None of
them are the world’s top human rights violators.
Here is the Treasury Department’s list of sanctioned countries. It says that “The sanctions can be either
comprehensive or selective, using the blocking of assets and trade restrictions to accomplish foreign
policy and national security goals.” They are not about human rights. The Magnitsky page doesn’t include
a list, so I link to this media list.
Human rights violators that are allies of the U.S. are not targeted. Note Egypt, Honduras and Saudi
Arabia, except for the case of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, known and liked by key U.S. opinion-makers,
which led to 18 people banned under the Magnitsky Act. In even Myanmar gets only 7 people cited for
the slaughter of the Rohingya. There are two from U.S. ally Turkey.
The fact the U.S. has rejected and says it will block the attempt of the International Criminal Court to
look into gross human rights violations in Afghanistan, where it could be proved a human rights violator,
makes it clear that it views human rights politics as a foreign policy weapon, not a value to defend.
The Global Magnitsky Act of 2016 is an expansion of the Magnitsky Act of 2012 which targeted
Russians on a list provided by William Browder.
The 2012 act (Sec. 404) directs the President to report to Congress, publish, and update a list of
each person who the President determines: (1) is responsible for, or benefitted financially
from, the detention, abuse, or death of Sergei Magnitsky, participated in related liability
concealment efforts, or was involved in the criminal conspiracy uncovered by Sergei
Magnitsky; or (2) is responsible for extrajudicial killings, torture, or other human rights
violations committed against individuals seeking to promote human rights or to expose illegal
activity carried out by officials of the government of the Russian Federation. Requires the
President to consider information provided by the chairperson and ranking member of each of the
Submission 110
appropriate congressional committees and credible data obtained by other countries and
nongovernmental organizations, including those inside Russia, that monitor such government's
human rights abuses.
(Sec. 405) Makes an alien on such list ineligible to enter or be admitted to the United States.
Revokes any visa issued for such person.
Here are sections of the Act, which repeat Browder’s charges, but with no evidence:
*8) On July 6, 2011, Russian President Dimitry Medvedev's Human Rights Council announced the
results of its independent investigation into the death of Sergei Magnitsky. The Human Rights Council
concluded that Sergei Magnitsky's arrest and detention was illegal;
Kirill Kabanov, head of the HRC working group, in a U.S. court deposition repudiated that claim. He said
a preliminary statement was based largely on Browder’s documents and that though the Magnitsky Act
referenced the work of the Council, “the Council has not issued any reports, statements or conclusions.”
*he was investigated by the same law enforcement officers whom he had accused of stealing Hermitage
Fund companies and illegally obtaining a fraudulent $230,000,000 tax refund;
(The $dollar signs used here and after refer to U.S. dollars.)
There was no evidence provided that Magnitsky accused anyone. Those officers were working on the
Hermitage tax evasion case and Magnitsky was the accountant responsible.
*he was beaten by 8 guards with rubber batons on the last day of his life;
There was no evidence provided that Magnitsky was beaten by anyone.
* (9) The systematic abuse of Sergei Magnitsky, including his repressive arrest and torture in custody
by officers of the Ministry of the Interior of the Russian Federation that Mr. Magnitsky had implicated
in the embezzlement of funds from the Russian Treasury and the misappropriation of 3 companies
from his client, Hermitage Capital Management,
The European Court of Human Rights in August said the arrest was justified in the investigation of
Browder’s tax evasion. “The Court observes that the inquiry into alleged tax evasion, resulting in the
criminal proceedings against Mr Magnitskiy, started in 2004, long before he complained that prosecuting
officials had been involved in fraudulent acts.” The Court concluded that Magnitsky’s “arrest was not
arbitrary, and that it was based on reasonable suspicion of his having committed a criminal offence.”
There was no evidence provided of torture of Magnitsky or any statement implicating the officers.
So, the assertions of the Magnitsky Act are made with no evidence. And in some cases directly refuted.
My research, documented below, proves they are false.
Like the Global Act, the Magnitsky Act does not require any evidence, any charge sent to the target, any
opportunity for the target to challenge the charges, any independent court, any due process. That used to
be called a Star Chamber. In fact, former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul wrote in his 2018
book, “From Cold War to Hot Peace,” addressed that. He also pointed out that the Magnitsky Act was
part of a deal that had nothing to do with human rights.
Submission 110
He said, “Once Russia joined the WTO, Jackson-Vanik put the United States in a particularly awkward
position. If we were still applying trade restrictions when Russia joined, we would be in noncompliance
with our WTO obligations. Russia, in turn, could discriminate against our companies.” He said, “No one
on the Hill was prepared to do Russia any favors, even if American companies would be the biggest
losers of doing nothing. And then our legislative experts discovered a lifeline — the Magnitsky Act.”
McFaul wrote that he learned that the U.S. could put people on a visa-ban list for human rights violations,
without enacting new legislation. He had the intelligence community, State Department, and Treasury
scrutinize Browder’s list to see if they had enough evidence to make these individuals subject to a visa
ban.
Of the sixty or so people on his list, they identified a dozen to ban from travel to the United States. But he
said Browder was upset that the action was not made public. Nor the targets’ assets frozen. And of course
Magnitsky’s name would not be highlighted.
McFaul said, “Bill and I had a philosophical disagreement. I did not believe that the U.S. government
should be able to seize individuals’ private property without due process. They should have the right to
defend themselves in a court of law. Bill disagreed. He vowed to push on with his campaign in Congress.
I wished him luck.”
McFaul realized clearly that this so-called human rights act was a human rights violator.
And so the Act would be the “Russia and Moldova Jackson-Vanik Repeal and Sergei Magnitsky Rule of
Law Accountability Act of 2012.” The Magnitsky Act was political cover for a trade bill.
Browder ended up getting 18 people on the first Magnitsky List. No evidence, no due process. The kind
of law one of the human rights targeted officials or governments might happily use against political
opponents and say, “this copies American law!”
The first 18 people named, from Wikipedia, which is more accessible than the U.S. government site
which does not link to list of all the Magnitsky Act accused:
Artem (aka Artyom) Kuznetsov, a tax investigator for the Moscow division of the Ministry of
Internal Affairs. Pavel Karpov, a senior investigator for the Moscow division of the Ministry
of Internal Affairs. Oleg F. Silchenko, a senior investigator for the Ministry of Internal
Affairs Olga Stepanova, head of Moscow Tax Office No. 28. Yelena Stashina [ru], Tverskoy
District Court judge who prolonged Magnitsky's detention. Andrey Pechegin, deputy head of the
investigation supervision division of the general prosecutor's office. Aleksey Droganov. Yelena
Khimina, Moscow tax official. Dmitriy Komnov, head of Butyrka Detention Center, Aleksey
Krivoruchko, Tverskoy District Court judge, Oleg Logunov, Sergei G. Podoprigorov, Tverskoy
District Court judge, Ivan Pavlovitch Prokopenko , Dmitri M. Tolchinskiy, Svetlana Ukhnalyova,
Natalya V. Vinogradova, Kazbek Dukuzov, Chechen acquitted of the murder of Paul Klebnikov,
Lecha Bogatyrov, implicated by Austrian authorities as the murderer of Umar Israilov.
Mostly tax investigators, prosecutors, judges. How are they responsible for or beneficiaries
of the death of Sergei Magnitsky? They were the people going after Browder’s tax evasion!
To get details about them, check out the list of 60 targets listed by U.S. Senator Ben Cardin, a cosponsor
of the Magnitsky Act. It includes my notes commenting on the charges, none of which he supports with
evidence. And none of which the targets were allowed to refute.
Except one, the second on the first list, Pavel Karpov. Which raises questions about the rest of them.
Submission 110
The only time a Magnitsky Act target had a day in court was in London 2013, when a Russian Interior
Ministry officer, Pavel Karpov, who Browder put on the Magnitsky List, sued him for defamation. Here
is a key finding of Justice Simon from his ruling.
Justice Simon dismissed the case, because though he thought Karpov had been libeled, he said that as
someone who lived in Moscow, he did not have a reputation to defend in the UK. It was a jurisdiction
question.
But he said: “The Claimant has achieved a measure of vindication as a result of the views I have
expressed on his application. The Defendants are not in a position to justify the allegations that he
caused, or was party to, the torture and death of Sergei Magnitsky, or would continue to commit, or
be party to, covering up crimes. To use the expression in Olswang's letter of 1 August 2012, the record, at
least in so far as it is presently set out in the pleadings, has been 'set straight'. I recognise that this will
not prevent a repetition of the libel, which an order of the Court would do, at least in this jurisdiction;
however, nothing in this judgment is intended to suggest that, if the Defendants were to continue to
publish unjustified defamatory material about the Claimant, the Court would be powerless to act.”
Browder spun the verdict to say he had won, and the British newspaper The Guardian essentially took
Browder’s dictation without noting what the judge’s ruling actually said.
Browder now is using his fabrications to support Australian passage of a Magnitsky Act, allegedly to
promote human rights. The Karpov case shows how dangerous it is and contrary to human rights to enact
Submission 110
a law that provides no due process for defendants. Your Australian domestic courts would not do that.
You should not thereby tarnish and destroy the legitimacy of international law.
If Australia believes it needs another human rights law, it should write one worthy of the name and not
call it after Magnitsky, who you will see in the evidence that follows would be indicted in your country as
an accessory to major financial crimes.
The main submission below proves how the basic assertions of the U.S. Magnitsky Act are false, created
by William Browder to cover up his financial corruption and used by its sponsors in the U.S. Congress for
their own goals, to support a foreign policy hostile to Russia. Unless you want to believe that they are
truly ignorant about the facts below. I don’t think so, as I have sent them documented information and
received no replies.
You say that if my submission makes allegations against another person, you may decide to make it
confidential. Or the person would be given an opportunity to respond, and both documents would be
published together.
I strongly support that second option. I want this document to be made public and for you to request
and include William Browder’s responses. I will reply to any objections he raises. You should be aware
that he has attempted to avoid answering questions on the facts I detail, including by evading a subpoena
to testify in U.S. federal court. See this video clip of him running away from a process server. Finally,
Judge Thomas Griesa ordered him to appear for a deposition in 2015. If he answers the points I raise and
provides verifiable documentation, it will be the first time he has ever done so, an important contribution
by your committee.
My Submission
“Before a certain kind of soulless charlatan, our brains surrender themselves, as
long as he promises that he is fighting on our side.”- Graeme Wood, The
Atlantic (U.S.), February 2020.
What follows details how William Browder defrauded Russia of more than $70 million, is linked to
a $230 million swindle of the Russian Treasury, and, seeking Western support to block justice for
his crimes, forged documents claiming Russian authorities killed his accountant Sergei Magnitsky.
It is heavily documented. It is long and detailed. But you are charged with an internationally
significant decision, and I believe you ought to examine all the evidence before you decide it. If you
do, you will be the first parliament that has done so.
Former Russia investor William Browder is an American-born tax-expatriate who in 1998, when he
started making large profits in Russia, traded his citizenship for a passport in the UK, which unlike the
U.S. does not tax offshore earnings. He has inflamed Western-Russian relations with a story of the
Kremlin-ordered murder of his “lawyer” Sergei Magnitsky who he paints as a whistleblower against
Russian government corruption. His story is a fake.
Browder doctored and forged forensic reports and withheld photos that show Magnitsky, his tax-fraud
accountant, was not a martyr beaten in a Russian prison but someone who was detained in the
investigation of the tax evasion he managed for Browder (who did not raise international protests while
Magnitsky was in prison), and then died of badly treated disease.
Submission 110
But for Browder, the real purpose of Magnitsky Acts he has promoted in Australia and around the world
is to use the name as a political tool to build a wall against Russia’s attempt to have him answer for tax
evasion and illicit stock buys that now reach U.S. $100 million. And evidence suggests possibly another
scam that cost the Russian Treasury $230 million.
The U.S. Congress passed the Magnitsky Act, blocking Russia from using the international legal system –
Interpol -- to arrest Browder and return him to Russia for justice. But the documents I obtained – copied
and linked here -- show that everything about his Magnitsky story, including his alleged murder, was
fabricated.
First, to start with the lies in his document to you: “My (1) lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, (2) uncovered a
massive fraud committed by Russian government officials that involved the theft of US $230 million of
state taxes. (3) Sergei testified against the officials involved and was (4) subsequently arrested by them,
imprisoned, (5) systematically tortured and (5) killed in Russian police custody on November 16, 2009.”
And (6) “Following Sergei Magnitsky’s death, the Russian authorities covered up his murder.”
1. Magnitsky was not his lawyer, he was his tax accountant, listed on the first page of each of his
three testimonies filed in U.S. federal court as “auditor.” Browder had to admit under oath in
court (in this video clip) that Magnitsky didn’t go to law school or have a law degree. Here is his
diploma from the Finance and Economics Academy in Moscow.
2. He did not uncover a massive fraud. That was the tax refund fraud in which companies engaged
in collusive lawsuits, “lost” the suits, and “agreed” to pay damages equal to their entire year’s
profits. They then requested a full refund of taxes paid on the now zero profits. There is no
evidence that Magnitsky uncovered the fraud or that he accused officials of committing it and
was arrested by them. It was first revealed by a Russian Rimma Starova in April 2008 and then
reported in The NYTimes and the Russian paper Vedomosti in July 2008 before Magnitsky
mentioned it in October 2008 pre-arrest testimony.
3. His testimony did not accuse any officials.
4. So, he could not have been arrested by anyone accused, since no one was accused.
5. There is no proof Magnitsky was tortured or killed in Russia police custody. That is shown in
forensic reports and photos below.
6. There was no murder. Browder has never proved it and no independent authority or investigator
has ever claimed or documented a murder.
The following pages and hyperlinks provide documentary evidence that the statements by Browder are
egregious lies. Including the claims in the Magnitsky Act which I have indicated to you.
First, examine Browder’s Magnitsky death fabrication, contradicted by documents he forged or withheld
from the public, including forensic photographs of Magnitsky’s body with no marks on it and an English
translation of a forensic report he provided which falsifies the Russian text.
I’ve already shown that Browder calling Magnitsky a lawyer is false. He was an accountant. I will also
provide information about Browder’s own massive tax evasion and illicit stock-buys and then the tax
refund fraud which are the crimes he seeks to cover up with the fake death story.
Submission 110
Brief Introduction to the Magnitsky death fabrications

There is no evidence Magnitsky was tortured or killed in prison. Browder has never provided such
evidence to you or anyone. The not-before published photos show here that Magnitsky, allegedly beaten
to death for an hour 18 minutes the night before by eight baton-wielding riot squad thugs, didn’t have a
life-threatening mark on his body.
Magnitsky’s body on a cot in the hospital ward; the forensic report with more photos.
Script says: The position of the corpse of Mr. S. L. Magnitsky.
Here is a doctored sentence on page 5 of the forensic report Browder provided to Physicians for Human
Rights, Cambridge, Mass., so it could write an account of the reasons for Magnitsky’s death. It notes as
“illegible” words that show there were no beating marks on Magnitsky’s body. The deleted parts of the
true translation are underlined:
“The cadaverous spots are abundant, bluish-violet, diffuse, located on the back surface of the neck, trunk,
upper and lower extremities, with pressure on them with a finger disappear and restore their original
color after 8 minutes. Damage not found on the scalp.” The doctored line reads, “The cadaverous spots
are abundant, bluish-violet, diffuse, located on the back surface of the neck, trunk, upper and lower
extremities, (illegible) not found on the scalp.” The original Russian shows nothing illegible.
I will discuss the fake death story more in detail.
How Browder’s Magnitsky death story changed
Browder initially did not claim Magnitsky had been murdered. He started out staying that Magnitsky had
simply died, left alone uncared for in a room. But after a few years, he declared that Magnitsky had been
tied up and beaten by rubber baton-wielding government thugs until dead. Sometimes he altered that to
Submission 110
say Magnitsky had been tortured to death by guards. He never provided evidence for any of the stories,
and government officials and most reporters didn’t ask. Here are some variations:
Browder in December 2009 tells Chatham House, London, about the circumstances of Magnitsky’s death
in November: “I don’t know what they were thinking. I don’t know whether they killed him deliberately
on the night of the 16th, or if he died of neglect.”
“They put him in a straight-jacket, put him in an isolation room and waited 1 hour and 18 minutes until he
died.” December 2010, San Diego Law School.
Browder didn’t adopt the “Magnitsky was beaten to death” story till 2011, when he started campaigning
for the Magnitsky Act to block Russia from collecting the money authorities documented he stole via
evaded taxes and illicit stock buys. He had the help of former State Department official Jonathan Winer,
who was then a senior director for APCO, the international public relations firm which also represented
Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the Russian oligarch, once the richest man in Russia and a major transfer-pricing
tax evader. Winer would include his client by name in the Magnitsky Act protections he wrote and
Congress enacted.
With the Magnitsky Act campaign, the story got dramatic: “They put him in an isolation cell, tied him to
a bed, then allowed eight guards guards beat him with rubber batons for 118 min until he was dead.”
December 2011, University of Cambridge Judge Business School.
“….they put him in an isolation cell, chained him to a bed, and eight riot guards came in and beat him
with rubber batons. That night he was found dead on the cell floor.” July 2017, U.S. Senate Judiciary
Committee.
There was no evidence to explain the dramatic changes in Browder’s story. All the prison, forensic and
medical investigations had been done in 2009 and 2010. He pointed to nothing new. The only thing new
was his campaign for the Magnitsky Act, which required the fabrication of a Magnitsky death story.
Submission 110
Graphic by Michael Thau.
Here’s how Browder created the Magnitsky death story

Browder posted and widely distributed this composite of photos of bruises on Magnitsky’s hand and knee
from a Russian forensic investigation that started November 17th, 2009, a day after the accountant’s death
the night before.
Submission 110
He got them from Russian forensic Report 2052 which features those images and more.
doing public relations for Hermitage, posted them to Google Cloud.
Report 2052 said, “There are circular abrasions in the wrist area.” It detailed: “DAMAGE. On the
right upper limb, in the projection of the wrist joint, a circulatory unevenly expressed bluish-
violet bruise with clear boundaries was found, with a width throughout 0.7 cm; the surrounding
soft tissue is somewhat swollen, slightly swollen. On the left upper limb in the projection of the
wrist joint a circulatory located, sometimes intermittent bluish-violet bruise, with a width of 0.5
to 1.0 cm; soft tissues around are slightly swollen, the boundaries of the bruise are clear; against
the background of the bruises described above, there are multiple strip-like horizontally located
abrasions.”
It said, “A bruise located on the inner surface of the right lower limb in the projection of the ankle
joint appeared 3-6 days before the time death, it is not possible to establish the sequence of
causing all the other 'injuries because they were received in the same short time before death.”
It concluded, “[T]hese injuries in living persons do not entail a temporary disability or a
significant permanent loss of general disability and are not regarded as harm to health, they are
not in a cause and effect relationship with death.”
Those bruises are cited in other forensic reports which attribute them to wearing handcuffs and kicking
and hitting against cell doors.
No other injuries found
The same report includes schematic drawings of Magnitsky’s body on which to note other relevant
marks or injuries.
The report said, “There were no marks or injuries noted on his head or torso…No other injuries
were found on the corpse ... ”
If Browder had the wrist and knee photos from that report, he had these drawings, but he didn’t make
them or the full report public.
Submission 110
That report said, “The cadaverous spots are abundant, bluish-violet, diffuse, located on the back
surface of the neck, trunk, upper and lower extremities, with pressure on them with a finger
disappear and restore their original color after 8 minutes. No damage to the scalp was found.
Bones of the facial skeleton, cartilage of the nose to the touch are intact.”
It said, “The mucous membrane of the vestibule and the oral cavity is bluish-gray, without
damage, the frenum of the lips without hemorrhage and damage. The teeth are natural, whole,
there are no traumatic injuries of the teeth…” And, “The bones of the limbs are intact to the
touch.”
It said, “The temporal muscles are grayish-red, moist, shiny, without hemorrhage. The bones of
the cranial vault are not damaged. There is no blood between the bones of the skull and the dura
mater.”
More Photos
If he was provided the Russian forensic reports, he would also have this Report 224 with photographs of
Magnitsky’s head and torso.
These photos clearly expose Browder’s fabrications. They show Magnitsky’s body on a cot in the
hospital ward, with closeups of his torso and chest. Like the schematic drawing, there is not a mark on
them, not what one would expect on a body that had just been subject, as Browder claimed, to more than
an hour of beating by baton-wielding thugs.
Script: The situation in the [hospital] ward, viewed towards the door.
Submission 110
The position of the
Chest image of Mr. S. L. Magnitsky.

Submission 110
Browder testified before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee in July 2017, that “…. they put him in an
isolation cell, chained him to a bed, and eight riot guards came in and beat him with rubber batons.”
Since there are no marks on the head or torso, only a few bruises on wrists and knees, that would mean
that the “eight riot guards” Browder said attacked Magnitsky with rubber batons were all aiming for his
arms and legs and none for his head or torso, a rather unlikely proposition even if you could figure out
how eight men surrounding Magnitsky when he was (depending on the Browder version, handcuffed or
tied up or in a straitjacket) and all aiming for those spots avoided hitting other parts of the body or even
each other.
Even Magnitsky’s lawyer Dmitri Kharitonov did not believe the bruise stories. He told filmmaker Andrei
Nekrasov, “Both knuckles on Sergei’s hands show deep abrasions and bruises. I think he was simply
banging on the door with all his force trying to make them let him out, and none paid attention.”
Browder didn’t give Physicians for Human Rights or post or distribute the body photos or drawings that
contradict his claim that Magnitsky was beaten. (A list of items he gave PHR is at page 2-3 of its July
2011 report.) This is the year Browder created his “beaten by 8 thugs” story.
Details on doctoring the forensic report
Browder doctored and forged a key part of the forensic report which he provided in English translation to
the Physicians for Human Rights. The translation of the Russian forensic report he gave PHR includes a
forgery designed to eliminate evidence that the accountant was not beaten in prison.
The Russian document is 2011.06.15 Заключение эксперта №555.10, created under the authority of The
Russian Forensic Examination Center of The Ministry of Healthcare and Social Development of The
Russian Federation, 12/13, Polikarpova st., Moscow, Expert Opinion No. 555/10 (additional medical
forensic examination) "
Document "2011 08 17 Medical expertise No 555 - 10 ENG" states on page one that it is "Expert Opinion
No. 555/10 (additional medical forensic examination)". The Browder version has the same title and
information, but it contains this forgery, the insertion of the word “illegible” to delete a section that
makes it clear that bruises on Magnitsky’s body were not related to beating, that they were from “lividity”
which routinely occurs in a corpse, and that there was no scalp damage.
Here is the translated text of the Report 555-10 that Browder gave PHR. It’s the only time any marks on
the body are mentioned. The link to Browder’s English translation of the forensic document shows the
faked section highlighted on page 5.
Submission 110
Screenshot page 5 English 555-10 where the disputed paragraph is highlighted in yellow.
The key Russian paragraph is at the top of page 10 of the document "2011.06.15 Заключение эксперта
№555.10".
Screenshot page 10, Russian 555-10 where the totally legible lines are highlighted in yellow.
Submission 110
The true text is:
Cadaveric rigidity is well expressed in the muscles of masticatory muscle system, in the neck muscles and
the limbs. Cadaveric lividities are abundant, livid purple, diffused, located on the back surface of the
neck, the body, upper and lower limbs, when pressed with a finger disappear and restore their original
color after 8 minutes. No damages found on the scalp. The bones of the facial skeleton, the nasal
cartilages are unbroken to the touch.
The report was doctored to remove the words "when pressed with a finger disappear and restore their
original color after 8 minutes. Damages” and replace them with "(illegible) not found on the scalp."
So, you get: Cadaveric lividities are abundant, livid purple, diffused, located on the back surface of the
neck, the body, upper and lower limbs, (illegible) found on the scalp. Could be results of a beating! But
it’s a fake!
The Russian words that were omitted from translation in the doctored English document are "при
надавливании на них пальцем исчезают и восстанавливают свою первоначальную окраску через 8
минут. Повреждений на волосистой части головы не обнаружено."
There is nothing illegible in the Russian text.
Here is the document with the Russian section, which can be run through a translator: Трупные пятна
обильные, синюшно-фиолетовые, разлитые, располагающиеся на задней поверхности шеи,
туловища, верхних и нижних конечностей, при надавливании на них пальцем исчезают и
восстанавливают свою первоначальную окраску через 8 минут. Повреждений на волосистой части
головы не обнаружено. Кости лицевого скелета, хрящи носа на ощупь целы. Глаза закрыты.
Note that this section is also complete in Report 2052 which Browder did not translate for PHR, though
he provided its wrist and knee photos, which means he had it.
What the American pathologist who analyzed Browder’s documents said
Did the purple spots section matter? Dr. Robert C. Bux, then coroner/chief medical examiner for the El
Paso County Coroner’s Office in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and a board-certified pathologist, was the
forensic expert on the team that wrote the Physicians for Human Rights report on Magnitsky’s prison
treatment and death. Bux told me, “I do not think that these spots are contusions. Contusions will not go
away and can be demonstrated by incising or cutting into the tissues under the skin. These are reportedly
all on the posterior aspect of the neck, body and limbs and may represent postmortem lividity when the
body was viewed by the prosecutor of the autopsy.”
Dr. Bux said, “If this is lividity (red purple coloration of the skin) it is not yet fixed and will blanch to a
pale skin color and red purple coloration will disappear. If the body is then placed face up i.e. supine then
after a few minutes then it will appear again. This is simply due to blood settling in the small blood
vessels and a function of gravity.”
But that is not what a layman reading Browder’s forged “illegible” might have thought.
Dr. Bux added, “Having said all of this, I have never seen any autopsy photographs demonstrating
this, and while photographs should have been taken to document all skin abnormalities as well as
all surfaces of the body to document the presence or absence of trauma, I do not know if
photographs were taken and withheld or never taken.”
Submission 110
The PHR said, “A full and independent review of the cause of death of S.L. Magnitsky is not possible
given the documentation presented and available to PHR.”
The PHR autopsy protocol cited on the first page in the attachments of the Medical Assessment claims
that there are “photo tables on 2 sheets” and “schematic representation of injuries on 1 sheet. However, if
they exist, they were not available for the present review.”
But, they do exist, and if Browder got the Russian forensic reports, he got Report 224 with the body
photos. He did not send them to the PHR analysts. Browder posted and distributed PowerPoints
with the hand and knee photos, but not the no-marks-on-the-body outlines from the same Report
2052.
Asked if there was evidence that Magnitsky was "beaten to death by riot guards," Dr. Bux told me,
“I have no evidence to suggest that this occurred.” For the record, PHR said Magnitsky’s death was
from untreated serious illness. Even without the body photos, its experts could not claim a beating. No
independent experts have ever claimed a beating.
Manipulating the death certificate
Still promoting his “they killed him” story, Browder posted a deceptive photo of the death certificate that
indicated a “closed craniocerebral injury?” meaning a past injury, though the line below it said, “No
signs of a violent death detected.” In a PowerPoint, he circled “closed craniocerebral injury?” in red, with
the other text too small to read. He claimed it as evidence that Magnitsky was beaten.
The true document told a different story. And you can get it by clicking on the url at the bottom right of
Browder’s own “evidence” post.
Submission 110
So, he knew he was claiming a lie and almost daring anyone who read the document to find him out.
The forensic documents, which Browder or his Russian associates would have read, tell where that
craniocerebral injury came from. They include a July 5, 2010 interview with Magnitsky’s mother Natalya
Magnitskaya in this May 12, 2010 forensic report. She told investigators, “In 1993 - I can’t say a more
accurate date, S.L Magnitsky had a craniocerebral injury. He slipped on the street and as a result hit his
head, after which he had headaches for some time.”
The investigators obtained the full medical records. From several reports, including the cited one and this,
the truth is:
“On February 4, 1993, at about 08:40 a.m.., in his house entrance he slipped and fell down
hitting his head, lost consciousness for a short time, vomited, attended for emergency help by an
ambulance which took him to the City Clinic Hospital (GKB). Was examined by the neurosurgeon
in the reception ward, craniogram without pathema. Diagnosis: brain concussion, recommended
treatment to be taken on an out-patient clinic basis.
Neurosurgeon examination on February 4, 1993 – clinic brain concussion. Should be treated
at home under the supervision of neurologist.
Abstract from the inpatient medical record – injury on 04.02.1993, admitted on February 11,
1993, discharged on February 25, 1993. Diagnosis: Closed craniocerebral injury. Medium severity
brain contusion. Linear skull roof and base fracture. Injury after fall. The patient lost consciousness
and vomited.”
There is more about continued complaints of headache and neck pain, follow-up exams and treatment.
Submission 110
Therefore, Browder’s assertion that the “closed craniocerebral injury” came from a beating was a
fabrication. See more details about the 1993 injury which I highlighted on P 29 of Report 555-10 in
English, which Browder provided to Physicians for Human Rights. The PHR report did not include this
information.
The baton claim forgery
Browder argues that proof Magnitsky was beaten is in a forensic report mentioning a blunt hard object.
The forensic report (item 12 on page 24 of 555-10) asks if the abrasions and swelling on hand and leg,
deemed the result of the impact and sliding of a blunt heavy object, were caused by what witnesses
testified was a psychotic incident in which he hit a wooden day-bed against the metal bars of the cell.
Browder preferred to say the injuries were caused by a rubber baton, though he didn’t explain why those
injuries were only on wrists and knee and how someone could be beaten to death with only abrasions and
swelling on wrists and knee to show for it. To promote that claim, he forged a document about the use of
handcuffs to say it was about the use of a baton, albeit singular, not eight.
I collaborated with journalist Michael Thau who initiated the baton investigation and created the graphics
to demonstrate Browder’s forgery.
Here is the Browder claim.
Submission 110
Note the source note at the bottom says “Reports on the use of handcuffs and rubber baton, 16 November
2009, Moscow Public Oversight Commission Report.” That is a lie. The words “rubber” and “baton” do
not appear in the POC report.
Submission 110
From Browder’s website, in Russian, D309 appears, in this translation, to be an offical form titled About
the application
of handcuffs
issued by the
Russian
government to
be filled out and
provide an
explaination and
justifification for
incidents in
which a prisoner
is subjected to
the “special
means” of being
handcuffed.
Apart from not
mentioning
batons or saying
anything about
Magnitsky being
beaten, it
explicitly states
that he was placed in handcuffs out of concern that during a psychotic incident he would harm himself.
This is corroborated by the report about Magnitsky’s imprisonment and death by the Moscow Public
Oversight Commission, a civil society group charged with investigating prison conditions. Its report of
Magnitsky’s death, accepted and posted by Browder, says that on the night he died, Magnitsky began to
act very erratically, the doctor thought his behavior “looked like acute psychosis and delirium of
persecution,” so “[t]hey called for psychiatric emergency” and “[t]hey put handcuffs on Magnitsky’s
hands.”
However, then Browder presents a PowerPoint document titled “Report on the Use of Rubber Batons,”
with a link to a D310 which purports to be a permission to use batons.
Submission 110
However, that document is a forgery, a photoshopped D309, with the title and details still about
handcuffs, not batons, but the phrase “a rubber baton was applied” replacing “special means were
applied.” Here is an English translation of the fake.
Submission 110
Submission 110
The counterfeit repeats the reason for applying handcuffs and cites no sections of the law on use of
batons, which would not in any event apply to Magnitsky’s case.
Browder’s D309 and D310 refer to two laws:
Article 45 of the Federal Law "On the custody of suspects and accused of committing crimes"
and Article 30 of the Law of the Russian Federation "On institutions and bodies that carry out criminal
penalties in the form of imprisonment."
Article 45 approves the use of special means in places of detention in the following cases:
Rubber batons can be used
1) to repel an attack by a suspect or accused on staff members of detention facilities and other persons;
2) to curb the riots or group violations of the established regime of detention;
3) to prevent unlawful actions of a suspect or an accused who defies the legal requirements of employees
of places of detention in custody or other employees of institutions and bodies of the penitentiary system,
as well as employees of internal affairs agencies engaged to ensure law and order;
4) for the release of hostages, captured buildings, premises, structures and vehicles;
5) in order to prevent the attempt of the suspect or the accused to escape from the place of detention or
from the convoy;
6) to prevent the suspect or the accused from harming others;
7) to prevent the suspect or the accused from attempting to harm himself.
Handcuffs can be used in the cases stipulated by clauses 3, 5 – 7. In the absence of handcuffs, prison staff
may use improvised means of binding.
Submission 110
Article 30 does not approve the use of rubber batons at all, but it does approve the use of handcuffs to
prevent the suspect or the accused from attempting to harm himself. “8) in convoy, guarding or escorting
convicted persons and persons in custody, supervising convicts serving sentences in penal colonies if
they, by their conduct, give reason to believe that they intend to escape or harm others or themselves…”
Here are the Russian websites where the laws are described:
Article 45 of the Federal Law "On the custody of suspects and accused of committing crimes."
Article 30 of the Law of the Russian Federation "On institutions and bodies that carry out criminal
penalties in the form of imprisonment." The English translations.
The #7, to prevent self-harm, is invoked on Browder’s D309 and D310, both labeled about the use of
handcuffs. Browder’s forgers didn’t bother to change the header of the fake baton document.
The document D309.pdf is authentic. Browder used D309 as a template when he forged D310;
handwritten words from D309 were traced and then inserted in D310. The main purpose of D310 was to
mention a rubber baton, so Browder inserted " a rubber baton was applied.” But no reason is given for
that on the counterfeit D310 form, which would have been expected were the form authentic. Browder’s
forgers didn’t bother to change that line; instead it just repeats the reason for handcuffs.
The forger delated some lines in D309 and in the resulting space inserted three more signature lines.
Including one very careless and obvious forgery.
Another Browder forgery

In the Public Oversight Commission report, p 17, there is a reference to “Testimony of DPNSI Officer
Dmitry Markov (Fyodorych).” In Russian, Markov is Марков. In the common way Russian signatures
are written, that would be Markov D.F.
DPNSI is the Russian abbreviation "ДПНСИ", which stands for "Дежурный Помощник Начальника
Следственного Иизолятора", translated as "On-duty Assistant to the Head of the Detention Unit."
Detention Unit refers to the pre-trial detention unit where Magnitsky died. Every detention unit has a
head who is responsible, but that person works 40 hours a week, and the detention unit operates 24/7.
At any hour there are three people who can substitute for the head of the unit. On the night Magnitsky
died, the DPNSI was Dmitri Fyodorovich Markov. Марков.
Browder’s forged D310 paper claims “a rubber baton was applied” to Magnitsky. The time given on the
document is 20 hours, or 8pm. According to the Public Oversight Commission, at 7:30pm Magnitsky
was left unattended without medical support and at 8:48pm an emergency team arrived. When
emergency doctors entered the special cell, Sergei was sitting on the cot, with his eyes unfocused.
He felt very badly. There is nothing that indicates “a rubber baton was applied.”
Beyond that, the forged D310 paper gets the key signatory’s name wrong! It calls him Маркин
(bottom right) on the photo. In Latin letters, it’s Markin F.F.
To the left of the name is ДПНСИ /DPNSI, the acronym for On-duty Assistant to the Head of the
Detention Unit. Under “DPNSI of shift #4,” it says (in translation) “major of int serv,” for internal
service, which means police.
Submission 110
So, the individual referred to as Markov in the POC report and Markin in the fake Browder
document is the same DPNSI, the on-duty assistant, the same person.
Here are Russian cursives. Notice the last two letters in the document signature. (The Russian letter
that looks like p is pronounced like the English r. The Russian letter that looks like b is pronounced
like the English v. The cursive letters that look like the English “UH” are pronounced “in.”)
Would Марков (Markov) misspell his own signature as Маркин (Markin)? No, but he didn’t sign
this fabricated “rubber baton” paper, and the forger probably misremembered or took sloppy notes
of the name in the POC report.
Submission 110
Fake “Markin” signature is bottom right.
The cell phone fantasy

Finally, Browder embroidered the killing story in a fantasy (but allegedly true) sequence in his 2015 book
“Red Notice.” He writes that just after midnight November 16, 2009, he got a cell phone message of
screaming.
Browder was in London: “That night, at 12:15 a.m., the voice mail alert on my BlackBerry vibrated.
Nobody ever called my BlackBerry. No one even knew the number. I looked at Elena and dialed into voice
mail.…I heard a man in the midst of a savage beating. He was screaming and pleading. The recording
lasted about two minutes and cut mid-wail.”
Submission 110
From Browder’s book:
At 12:15 am in London it was 3:15 am in Moscow. Browder writes, “As soon as the sun came up, I called
everyone I knew. They were all okay. The only person I couldn’t call was Sergei.” We are meant to
believe that the screaming was Sergei being beaten to death early that morning November 16th. (This
book is labeled non-fiction by the respectable publisher, Simon & Schuster.)
There are several problems with this story. Forget the part about “nobody knew the number.” So, who
could call it? Was Magnitsky, who Browder says was tortured in prison [See 60 Minutes March 12, 2017,
“tortured for 358 days”] allowed to have a cell phone? Australian prisoners can’t have them. Did he never
call during the year of claimed tortures? Browder cites no other calls. Or did Magnitsky suddenly obtain a
cell phone and during the alleged one-hour-18-minutes killer beating by government thugs phone
Browder? While he was, according to various Browder stories, handcuffed, tied up, or in a straightjacket?
The Magnitsky “screaming and pleading” was a recorded voice mail. Did Browder post this important
“evidence” or make it public? No.
Submission 110
And the timing, death early in the morning November 16th, contradicts his D309 and D310 documents
which say handcuffs were put on Magnitsky November 16th at 7:30pm and removed at 8pm that evening.
The Public Oversight Commission writes about his final day. The report is detailed about medical
interventions, but here are key times.
“On November 16, 2009, at 5:22pm, he was driven in an ambulance car to Matrosskaya Tishina [prison].
7:00pm. The patient behaves inadequately. Talks to a "voice," looks disorientated, and shouts that
someone wants to kill him. His condition is diagnosed as psychosis. The emergency doctor was called
(order N 904253). There are no body damages apart from traces of handcuffs on the wrists.
7:30pm He was left unattended without medical support.
8:48pm Emergency team arrived. When emergency doctors entered the special cell, Sergei was sitting on
the cot, with his eyes unfocused. He felt very badly.
9:15pm. The patient was surveyed again as his condition deteriorated. When the psychiatrist was
examining the patient the latter's condition deteriorated sharply. He lost consciousness. The reanimation
procedure was started (indirect heart massage and ventilation of lungs using the Ambu pillow). The
patient was transferred to the special room where he was received an artificial ventilation of lungs and a
hormones injection. Reanimation procedure lasted 30 minutes.
At 9:50pm the patient died."
The commission reported no evidence of beating. It could not have occurred during the 1hr 18min
sequence Browder recounted (giving him the benefit of 7:30 to 8:48pm instead of 4am - ?), or the
emergency team would have encountered a bloodied, broken corpse.
Note: Browder invented a paragraph in the English translation of the POC report he gave PHR that is
different from the notarized translation filed in U.S. federal court. He added a section claiming Magnitsky
said that an Interior Ministry officer, Kuznetsov, and other officers could be involved in a 2007 $230
million theft from the Russian Treasury and that his investigation of this is why they prosecuted him.
Browder posted it on his website, and the Wall Street Journal linked to the same counterfeit. That fake
section at the top of page 3 was an attempt to connect Magnitsky’s arrest to the fraud against the Russian
Treasury instead of to the Hermitage tax evasion. Since evidence is not required by the U.S. Magnitsky
Act, Kuznetsov was put on Browder’s Magnitsky List.
At this point it’s almost an anticlimax to say the Russian forensic experts’ conclusion in Report 555-10
which Browder gave PHR was that Magnitsky had heart disease (arteriosclerosis), diabetes, hepatitis, and
pancreatitis, some illnesses predating his arrest. In the reports linked here, the Russian forensic and
medical experts wrote detailed criticism of their own doctors’ treatment of Magnitsky, saying that it
wasn’t timely or adequate and that “the shortcomings in the provision of the medical assistance to S.L.
Magnitsky” caused his death. But that’s not the story Browder is trying to sell Australia.
Browder ignores Magnitsky in prison
Ironically, while Magnitsky was in prison, Browder showed little interest in him. In October 2009, 11
months after Magnitsky's arrest, Hermitage Capital posted a professionally produced video about a $230
Submission 110
million tax theft on YouTube. The arrest of a "lawyer and accountant" is only briefly mentioned at the
very end, not a word about the torture, nor anything about Magnitsky’s alleged exposing of the tax refund
fraud.
Although Browder later would say that he got notes Magnitsky wrote about terrible conditions, he did not
go for help to well-known human rights organizations such as Amnesty International or Human Rights
Watch nor contact the Russian NGOs such as Memorial or the Moscow Helsinki Group. Zoya Svetova, a
prominent Russian human rights activist wrote in a 2014 article for Browder ally Mikhail
Khodorkovsky’s "Open Russia," "I knew nothing about Sergei Magnitsky. I didn't hear from Hermitage
Capital either. We also visited Butyrka prison, (...) but we were not asked for help by Magnitsky's
lawyers."
Browder admits under oath in U.S. federal court that he didn’t even keep in touch with Magnitsky’s
lawyers, though his fictional book promotes another story.
Moreover, Magnitsky felt that his “employers” were selling him out. A Russian journalist who talked to
Magnitsky in detention said in a deposition for U.S. federal court that Magnitsky told him his employers
were trying to get him admit to things that had nothing to do with his case.
Submission 110
Deposition by Oleg Lurie, U.S. federal court, Oct 8, 2015.

Mark Cymrot, Washington lawyer for the defendant in the Justice Department’s Prevezon case, in U.S.
federal court Southern District of New York in 2015, asked Browder if Firestone Duncan, the accounting-
law firm that employed Magnitsky as an accountant for Browder and represented Magnitsky in prison,
provided him with statements to sign.
In his deposition Browder said, “I don't know what you're talking about.”
Cymrot: “Did you consult with Mr. Magnitsky's lawyers from time to time?
Browder: “No.
Cymrot: “Somebody on your team do that?
Browder: “Possibly. I don't know.
Cymrot: People at Firestone Duncan would have, right?
Browder: “Surely.
Cymrot continued: “So did anybody coordinate on your behalf with Firestone Duncan about the -- the
defense of Mr. Magnitsky?
Browder: “I don't know.
Cymrot: “You don't know?
Browder: “I don't remember.
Cymrot: “You were being criminally prosecuted along with Mr. Magnitsky at that time. You didn't pay
attention?
Browder: “I don't know. I don't remember.
Cymrot: “Did you ever have somebody suggest to Mr. Magnitsky that he should take responsibility for
the Saturn and Dalnaya Steppe tax returns?
Browder: “I don't remember.”
Submission 110
Could Browder, in danger of conviction for massive tax-evasion, not remember if he attempted to get
Magnitsky to take the fall? That leads us to this.
Why did Browder create the Magnitsky hoax?

Browder doctored and forged forensic reports and withheld photos that show Magnitsky was not a martyr
beaten in a Russian prison but someone who died of badly treated disease. He did it to build an
international political wall to prevent Russia from arresting him and perhaps collecting on $70 million
owed from his tax evasion and illicit stock buys. Continued Russian investigations, with extensive bank
documentation, have turned up evidence moving the total to $100 million. He was found guilty of tax
evasion in Russia in 2013.
Browder engaged in financial corruption through an offshore network that is typical for financial thieves
and money launderers. He built his Russian investment fund Hermitage on offshore shells, including
in the British Virgin Islands, set up by of Panama Papers fame. Here
are links to proofs, including a story that explains the documents.
In the common layered offshore system, these shells owned Cyprus tax haven shells, including Kone and
Glendora, which in turn owned Browder’s Russian shells.
Here’s how Browder, investing in Russia from 1996 to 2005 through his Hermitage Fund, cheated Russia.
A Russian law limited purchases of shares of Gazprom, the Russian energy conglomerate, to nationals,
requiring foreigners to get them in London as American Depository Receipts, for more money and in less
quantity. which handled Hermitage accounting,
told me that in 1996, the firm developed for Browder “a strategy of how to buy Gazprom shares in the
local market, which was restricted for foreign investors.”
He set up shell companies in the Russian republic of Kalmykia. Using sham directors paid for the use of
their names and papers, they were registered as “owned” by Russians, and they bought shares of
Gazprom. They also held other stocks in Russian companies that Browder had purchased for himself and
clients. Shares and money were moved between Kalmykia and his Cyprus shells to allow a claim for a 5%
Russia profits tax instead of 15% under the Russia-Cyprus double taxation treaty. That was tax fraud, as
the low rate was allowed to legitimate Cypriot companies, not pass-throughs owned by foreigners. The
profits would eventually end up in Browder’s British Virgin Islands shell, safe from taxes and Russian
investigators.
The disabled workers scam
Another scam was especially cynical. Kalmykia had tax write-offs for companies where at least 50% of
employees were disabled. Browder claimed that his Kalmykia shell companies hired disabled workers.
This would lead to taxes of 5% instead of 50% on profits from stocks the shells held. Magnitsky
organized the scam, going to Kalmykia to find disabled workers.
In 2001, Browder’s shell Saturn declared on its tax returns that a majority of its Kalmykian employees
were disabled by war injuries. Authorities investigated. Investigators started looking at this in 2002. A
Kalmykian arbitration court in February 2003 found that the employees listed as disabled did not work for
the company and moreover were not capable of doing the work of stock analysts that the tax filing
asserted. The court pointed out that three employees claimed as disabled “expert analysts” were working
at other locations as physical laborers. It found Saturn had just paid to use their work documents.
Submission 110
Browder also took a deduction for investing in the local Kalmykia economy, but he just moved assets
from one shell to another.
Asked about claiming the disabled, Browder said in a sworn deposition in U.S. federal court in 2015 that
he had been advised by Arthur Andersen (which would in 2002 collapse after the Enron scandal) and
Firestone Duncan, where Magnitsky worked, that this was ok.
Mark Cymrot questioned Browder: “And the tax regimes in — that were set up in Kalmykia
required the hiring of basically Afghan war veterans who had disabilities, right?
Browder: There were — there were two tax incentives in Kalmykia. There were two tax
incentives that we relied on or that Hermitage Fund relied on. The first was the Kalmykian tax
regime, which allowed the companies to pay lesser tax than in other regions, and the handicapped
tax benefit which allowed a reduction in the federal tax rate… Handicapped tax regime required
that more than 50 percent of the employees qualify under certain rules of definition of
handicapped individuals.
Cymrot: So, you represented on the Saturn tax returns that a majority of your Kalmykian
employees were physically challenged persons?
Browder: Yes.
He said the tax filing was done by Firestone Duncan, the accounting firm where Magnitsky
worked.
Cymrot: Who came up with the idea that you could use this tax regime?
Browder’s testimony April 15, 2015 in U.S. federal court Southern District of New York.
Submission 110
Browder: we were advised by Arthur Andersen, Firestone Duncan, Ernst & Young and various
other firms that this was a proper way of organizing our affairs.
Cymrot pointed out that a Russian court found the three employees listed in the return stock
analysts were working at other locations as physical laborers. That “Bukayev has no education or
qualifications. Badykov is a worker. Byatkiyev is a machine engineer.” The court found that
Browder’s company, Saturn, had evaded taxes of $20 million.
Cymrot: So who signed the tax returns that made those representations?
Browder: I did.
Other companies really did hire the disabled. Browder’s didn’t.

He appealed the Russian court decision. In May 2003, it was upheld; the court assessed $20 million in tax
and interest, though it dropped a fine.
But Browder knew how to finesse the tax bill. He transferred Saturn to an associate to bankrupt it. That
was accomplished by selling the company to
Browder’s
first major investor who owned Republic National Bank, and for HSBC, Browder’s Hermitage trustee.
Browder admitted the transfer. He said in his court deposition, “We registered his -- his corporate name or
his personal name or something.” Saturn was replaced by another shell company, Parfenion, which would
figure in Browder’s tax refund fraud story.
The tax refund fraud: Browder’s hidden role

The money owed by the tax and stock-buy frauds reached $70 million. To build a political wall against
arrest, Browder fabricated a story based on the invented persecution of his accountant, Sergei Magnitsky,
who he called his lawyer and who he said was arrested in 2008 and later beaten to death for accusing
government officials of stealing $230 million from the Russian Treasury in 2007.
He had no evidence for any of that and it was contradicted by facts I will describe. Furthermore, the tax
investigations that led to Magnitsky’s arrest had started in Kalmykia in the 2002, with the first court
ruling in 2003, and Magnitsky did not make any such charges against government officials during his pre-
arrest interrogations.
Browder’s fabrication was complex and detailed. He declared that Magnitsky had discovered a tax refund
fraud committed by Russian officials. Indeed, that was a scam in which companies engaged in collusive
lawsuits, “lost” the suits, and “agreed” to pay damages equal to their year’s earnings. They then requested
a full refund of taxes paid on the now zero profits. The swindles were stopped after Russian authorities
realized what was happening.
In June 2007, police investigating Browder’s Kalmykia tax evasion did a search of the offices of
Hermitage and its tax accounting firm, Firestone Duncan, where Magnitsky worked. Later, the tax crimes
office charge Browder’s partner Ivan Cherkasov with underpaying $44 million in dividend withholding
taxes. Browder wrote in his 2015 book that the first thing he did was retain the best tax lawyer he knew,
Sergei Magnitsky. Except Magnitsky had been his accountant for ten years! And he would have handled
the withholding taxes!
Later, Browder’s Magnitsky story shifted. Two years later, it was no longer about Cherkasov and
dividend withholding taxes. He told the U.S. Judiciary Committee in July 2017 that after the June search,
Submission 110
“I hired the smartest lawyer I knew in Russia, a young man named Sergei Magnitsky – he was 35 years
old – to investigate who did what and how we could stop them. Sergei went out, investigated and came
back with an astounding conclusion. The conclusion he came back with was that the purpose of stealing
our companies was to try to steal our assets, which they didn’t succeed in doing. However, they did
succeed in stealing $230 million in taxes that we paid to the Russian government from the Russian
government.”
The search was June 4th, the bogus lawsuits in July, notification to the company registration addresses
were late July, but Browder’s book states that he and Magnitsky found out about the theft of the
companies only in October 2007. What happened between July and October?
The $230 million tax refund fraud would not occur till the end of December, seven months after the
“smartest lawyer” started investigating. There is no evidence that the goal of the crooks was to steal shell
companies with no assets (had they done no due diligence?) and then switch schemes when the first didn’t
pan out! There is also no documentation for “Magnitsky’s discovery.” No memo, no email, no statement,
no testimony, nothing.
Here’s what really happened. Moscow lawyer , who worked on the collusive legal cases,
told me, in several hours-long interviews in New York, that he was approached by ,a
convicted felon, who proposed to hire him. wanted him to obtain a court order based on an
invented liability for the Hermitage companies, which would then lead to a claim for a tax refund.
said the refund application would require detailed information from the companies’ books for the
year, which he said pointed to inside involvement.
went to prison for the tax refund fraud. At his interrogation, , talked about the role of
and also recalled getting documents from a man he knew only as , as in
, who was the agent of the unnamed client.
The collusive lawsuits against Hermitage shell companies were filed in July 2007, and registered
letters were sent to their legal addresses in late July informing them of the suits. A receipt for one,
filed as evidence in U.S. federal court, is dated July 24, 2007. The receipt envelope is addressed to a
company mailbox which Magnitsky later confirmed as the true address. Browder took no action.
Submission 110
This receipt was filed as sworn evidence in the Prevezon case.
Financial documents for 2007-08 for HSBC Private Bank, which owned about 10 percent of Hermitage,
state that as of July 27, 2007, Hermitage had added $7 million to a fund for legal expenses related to
getting back Russian companies Hermitage owned. The document said others had taken control of the
companies to create fraudulent liabilities and facilitate the fake lawsuit payouts. That was the tax refund
scheme. Albert Dabbah, chief financial controller for HSBC, confirmed the documents’ authenticity in a
deposition (marked from p75) to U.S. federal court in 2015. That means HSBC, and Browder, knew about
the tax refund fraud plan five months before it happened!
Powers of attorney were provided by Browder’s Cyprus shells to , cited by as his
collaborator. Here’s the power of attorney (translation) from Browder’s Kone Holdings. Browder claims
the powers of attorney are forgeries, but , employed at the Cyprus company formation
agent that set up the shells, swore in a deposition in U.S. federal court that she recognized her signature.
Then the three Browder shell companies were sold to a new figurehead owner July 31, 2007 per this sale
agreement. See the reference to , a Browder shell company in Cyprus which was the owner of
the Kalmykia shell .
Submission 110
July 24 (the lawsuit notice) and July 27 (Hermitage statement about legal expenses) occurred before the
July 31 sale to a “new” owner. That means the law suits were filed against Browder’s shell companies
before they were “stolen,” ie, transferred to a new owner, which explains why the suits gave the
companies’ old address for receipt of legal papers.
Parfenion share sale agreement (bill of sale) dated July 31, nearly two months after the June
search.
The July 24 lawsuit notice and July 27 HSBC document show Browder knew of the scheme and the suits
before the sale. And he didn’t immediately go to court to challenge them.
Browder would say the Hermitage companies were stolen, re-registered by corrupt police or officials
using documents taken in the June searches. That would be impossible under Russian incorporation
procedures.
The applicant for a company registration normally would be the head of the permanent executive body of
a registered legal entity or someone entitled to act on his behalf. If a re-registration involves a change in
ownership, that must be documented, with, for example, a bill of sale.
There are two ways to change the owners/shareholders of an LLC, which is what Browder’s companies
were (OOO in Russian):
Submission 110
The old and new shareholders (or their representatives with power of attorney) go to a notary and certify
their signatures on the share sale agreement (like the Parfenion share sale agreement above) and on an
application form for changing shareholders. In seven working days, the new shareholder is registered in
the Register of Companies.
Or the shareholder can be changed by increasing the share capital of the company. The old shareholder
registers that decision in the Register of Companies. The additional amount of share capital is paid by the
new shareholder. Then the old one leaves the company, and the new shareholder remains. The procedure
can be done remotely, with personal presence not required. Registering a change of shareholder in this
way takes 3 weeks.
After the company owners are changed, the designated official must fill out and submit forms for re-
registration to ЕГРЮЛ (Yegryul), which is the acronym for Единый Государственный Реестр
Юридических Лиц, or Unified State Register of Legal Entities, the Russian Register for LLC companies.
Russian law requires a director, owner/founder, shareholders, or bankruptcy receiver to register or re-
register a company. The papers can be submitted by mail or via the internet. Re-registration is the change
of records in Yegryul, which follows the documented transfer of company ownership.
But it can’t be done by some policemen or government officials armed with a sheaf of company
documents, stamps and seals! Browder has never produced an alternative bill of sale or other documents.
The companies were, according to Magnitsky, not officially re-registered till September. Magnitsky, in
June 2008 testimony, says that after “rulings dated 3 and 7 September 2007 by the Arbitration Court of
Saint-Petersburg and Leningrad Region” the companies were “were re-registered on 11 September 2007
and 20 September 2007 under new legal addresses in Moscow.” The rulings related to the collusive
lawsuits. If that is true, the companies till then would have been registered as owned by with
their old addresses.
Magnitsky testified that he received the law suit notifications only on October 16, which conflicts with
the earlier July date on the notification receipt, sent to an address he confirms is correct. He
didn’t explain why mail was apparently not picked up for months.
In his June 2008 testimony, Magnitsky said: “In mid-October 2007, as there was another
inspection underway targeting correspondence sent to the legal addresses at per.Staropimenovsky,
Building 13/2, Floor 6 and Moscow, ul.Obraztsova, Building 19/9, which were the places of
registration for Parphenion, Limited Liability Company, Realand, Limited Liability Company,
and Machaon, Limited Liability Company, it was revealed that several letters had been delivered
to the address at per.Staropimenovsky and contained court rulings to the effect that the
Arbitration Court of Saint-Petersburg and Leningrad Region scheduled a court hearing, based on
the lawsuits filed by Logos Plus, Closed Joint Stock Company, as well as copies of the very
claims brought forward against Parphenion, Limited Liability Company, Realand, Limited
Liability Company, and Machaon, Limited Liability Company. That was found out on 16
October 2007.”
The address was correct, per.Staropimenovsky. But the receipt date, as filed in U.S. federal court, was
July 24 (see photo above), not October. And the companies had been re-registered in September 11 and
20. Is he saying someone finally picked up mail that had been sitting there for a couple of months? And is
he lying about not getting the July 24th lawsuit notice receipt?
Submission 110
told me, “In October the whole Browder team knew about these claims and didn’t appeal the
decision [allowing the take-over of his companies] which had been granted.” That October 16 notice said
there would be a hearing October 22. Hermitage sent no lawyer to the hearing. said, “They did
nothing till the money was paid out of the budget [the Russian Treasury]” at the end of December.
A Browder complaint filed December 3 said, "The documents of the commercial companies that were
seized during the search in the criminal case were used to attempt to steal money in the amount of more
than 9 billion rubles!" In December 2007, U.S. $1 was about 25 Russian rubles, therefore 9 billion rubles
is about $360 million. $230 million was claimed in the tax refund fraud at the end of that month, so it’s
not clear what the larger number represents.
Browder’s legal document claimed it was about an attempt to steal money from his companies, which he
knew was untrue as his story is predicated on the thieves using his company documents, which he says
were seized. But he had sent the assets out of the country in 2006, and anyone who had the financial
documents would know that his investment shells had no assets. He said so in his book here. So that claim
was a fake.
“Red Notice” says at the time of the lawsuits the shell companies were empty.
Browder’s complaint says that the true owners of the companies , learned
about these lawsuits by pure chance, and long after the fact. Not true, as the lawsuit notice went to the
companies’ legal addresses, from which people, who monitored the mailboxes, got
them.
Recall that HSBC in July 2007 had filed a document that said others had taken control of the companies
to create fraudulent liabilities and facilitate the fake lawsuit payouts. That was the tax refund scheme.
Submission 110
Browder’s much later claim that Magnitsky uncovered the fraud was a way of covering up that Magnitsky
was involved in it. There is no evidence, no document, no press report, no information provided to
independent anti-corruption groups that proves Magnitsky uncovered the fraud or that he accused officials
of committing it. It more likely suggests that Browder was a participant in the fraud or at least that
Magnitsky was involved.
Here are key events relating to discovery of the tax refund fraud that show Magnitsky didn’t
“uncover’ or “reveal” it. And suggest that he and Browder might be involved.
April 3, 2008, an article about an investigation of the Hermitage companies for tax evasion appeared in
the independent Russian newspaper Kommersant (English text). The story said Hermitage shells had been
used in tax scams and for illicit purchase of shares of Gazprom.
The next day, Bloomberg News ran a story in which Browder accused the Russian police of a massive
attempted fraud, saying that they had seized documents and equipment, were involved in bogus court
cases based on forged documents, the aim of which was to sue Hermitage subsidiaries for hundreds of
millions of dollars. He claimed that the police had “nearly” made off with the loot.
What does he mean that police “nearly” got the loot? The financial documents needed to re-register the
companies showed that they were empty shells. Browder admits that the assets had been sent out of the
country in 2006, a time when authorities were ramping up investigations into his tax evasion and stock-
buy fraud. This appears to be a too hasty response to attack the government charges.
Then this. , a pensioner living in Kazan, capital of the Republic of Tatarstan in southwest
Russia, also saw the Kommersant article. She was the “hired name” sham director of the three cited
Browder shell companies which now were owned by , a British Virgin Islands shell. The
companies had been re-registered by Russian shell, , used in the tax refund scheme, and
then transferred to
She was concerned the trail would lead to her, and to put herself in the clear, she went to the local police.
She told them about the fake re-registration of the companies and false certificates of debt in the amount
of 13.5 million rubles (that would be equivalent to the companies’ profits) that were key elements of the
tax refund fraud. doesn’t talk about a theft of companies by outsiders and certainly not by
government officials, but links the scam to , Browder’s Cyprus shells. Her 9th
complaint; English
A Hermitage press release dated September 16, 2008, since removed from its website but saved by the
, claimed that in April had filed a complaint with the Russian Interior Ministry
in Kazan “falsely accusing representatives of HSBC’s companies of the theft of state funds.” Browder’s
shell companies were legally “owned” by HSBC as the Hermitage trustee. was accusing Browder
of the scam.
Submission 110
Note the last line: “April 2008: files a criminal complaint with the Russian Interior….”
Browder responded by fabricating the complex “theft of companies by government officials, tax refund
fraud” story. In June 2008, Magnitsky was interrogated about the transfer and re-registration of the
companies. Browder’s website, Russian Untouchables, would brazenly claim that, “Sergei stated that he
had discovered evidence of theft of Hermitage Fund companies and
violations of the law by officers .” This is his url:
Magnitsky names and their role in the thefts (5 June 2008)
In fact, Magnitsky didn’t name anyone. But Browder’s link goes only to Russian text. Fortunately, you
can see what he really said in his translated testimony filed in U.S. federal court, which requires
translations to be by independent professionals, sworn and notarized. Browder’s url label was a fake.
made a second statement to police July 10th that the re-registered companies appear to have
stolen 5.4 billion rubles from the state. That would be the $230 million they had paid in taxes. Her
statement; English .
Two weeks later, July 24th, Hermitage director h filed a complaint in Russia about the fraud,
seven months after it occurred, and Browder gave an account to the New York Times and the Moscow
newspaper Vedomosti. Neither story mentions any discovery or role by Magnitsky, later anointed by
Browder as “the whistleblower,” though he would not be arrested till November 2008. If he had revealed
the fraud in his June testimony, this was the time to say so. But he hadn’t. The first time Magnitsky
mentions the fraud is in testimony October 2008, but he mentions no officials’ names. And when
Magnitsky was arrested, Browder didn’t trumpet to the world that it was because he had “blown the
whistle” on the tax refund fraud. It took Browder a while to invent that story.
Submission 110
In November 2008, Bloomberg Businessweek said that two subsidiaries of , a fund

created by , had been used in a tax refund fraud in 2006, but that the
company had not filed a complaint. The source obviously was Browder. He had hired
lawyer two months earlier to find evidence of that Rengaz fraud. But Moscow left the job
in May 2009 without finding what Browder wanted. That is why London attorney Neil Micklethwaite of
Brown Rudnick filed a declaration in July 2009 in U.S. federal court in the Southern District of New
York seeking judicial assistance to conduct discovery to get information from Renaissance he said
Hermitage needed to defend against two cases in Russia.
Browder curiously writes in his 2015 book, “Red Notice” that in early December 2007, one of his
associates told him about a phone call from the president of , who
offered to fraudulently bankrupt the Hermitage companies Browder would later say were stolen to engage
in the tax refund fraud. The conversation occurred before the fraudulent Treasury payout at the end of the
month.
It seemed odd, but in fact, there was a connection. Lawyer told me that he and the same
“professionals” were involved in tax refund frauds involving Renaissance and Hermitage companies. He
added, “When Browder created shell companies in Kalmykia, he used the same address for them as did
Renaissance -- if we look at the addresses of companies created at Ulitza Lenina and Kolnikova. And
according to documents filed, they were the same people, , who did this for
a few years before.” told me he had set up liabilities both for companies owned by
for the Hermitage companies.
The facts set down and document here support the case that Browder and Magnitsky were involved in the
fraud he blames on Russian officials.
I quoted Pavlov in a 2017 exposé of Browder in 100 Reporters. Two months later, Browder put Pavlov –
who had worked on the tax refund collusive lawsuits in 2007 and had no possible connection to the death
of Sergei Magnitsky more than two years later -- on his U.S. Magnitsky sanctions List. It was both a
punishment and a way to keep him from visiting the U.S. to talk to reporters as he had talked for many
hours to me. Of course, no way for him to challenge the sanction.
The posthumous trial
Browder writes: “Following Sergei Magnitsky’s death, the Russian authorities covered up his murder,
….In the most extreme miscarriage of justice, the Russian government put Sergei Magnitsky on trial three
years after they killed him; the first trial against a dead man in the history of Russia.”
In fact, Russian law allows a family to request a trial to rehabilitate the reputation of a deceased person,
and that is what happened. Magnitsky was found guilty for his role in Browder’s tax evasion, but he was
not convicted and the case was dismissed because he was deceased. The Justice Department had to amend
its Prevezon complaint in September 2015, two years after it first filed it, when questioning in Browder’s
2015 deposition revealed that he had been lying. DOJ first claimed Magnitsky had been convicted, then
deleted that and said, “Magnitsky was declared guilty, though the case was dismissed due to his death.”
Submission 110
This shows how the DOJ changed its complaint, with its own red markings showing revisions. Note
the next section that President Obama signed the Magnitsky Act, though it was based on Browder’s
claims here proved fake and apparently never checked.
Browder says the Australian law he seeks “should be named after Sergei Magnitsky, whose ultimate
sacrifice led to the introduction of Magnitsky Acts around the world.” But Browder has shown no interest
in human rights, only in targeting his enemies. He wants this law as part of an international campaign to
block the Russians from going after him for his tax and stock frauds. Why would the Australian
Parliament name a human rights law after an accountant who managed a company’s tax evasion and is
linked to a massive fraud on a national treasury? Aren’t there Australians who deserve that honor?
Finally, Browder appends a series of reports and resolutions from other countries, including the 2014
report by PACE, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, “Refusing Impunity for the
Killers of Sergei Magnitsky.” He doesn’t say that it was refused as evidence in the Prevezon trial by
Judge William H. Pauley, U.S. judge in the Southern District of New York.
Pauley ruled in 2017, “It… suffers from a lack of trustworthiness, having read it. … There's no evidence
that an actual hearing with the appropriate procedural safeguards was actually conducted.”
He said, “One of the events that may have colored the investigation from the outset is William Browder's
interference with the assembly's work…..[T]he Gross report is replete with statements from witnesses that
are sympathetic to Magnitsky and Browder, among others. There's several individuals who were paid and
directed by Hermitage to investigate Magnitsky-related events who were interviewed by Gross.”
“While Gross cites certain conversations he had with Russian officials and the documents he received
from them, those references are eclipsed by the statements and opinions by Browder, Hermitage, and
other self-interested parties.”
Submission 110
He said, “Most troubling is that the report's author, Andreas Gross, refused to appear for deposition in this
action, citing humiliation as the reason. He appears unable to stand behind and defend the findings and
conclusions of his report, a decision which only undermines the credibility and trustworthiness of that
report.”
“In other words, the Gross report is some piece of work and I mean that in hyperbole.”
I hope, as Judge Pauley did, that this committee and the parliament takes Browder’s declarations not as
truths but as claims to investigate and which he must prove.
If parliamentarians and their staffs, including lawyers who care about evidence, read this submission and
its links to documents, they will see that Australia is the target of a master deceiver who is using the
shield of human rights to protect his corrupt wealth. They should defend the country’s honor by refusing
his self-serving entreaties.
Browder has a habit of threatening and vilifying political and government figures who express doubts or
oppose him. Note his warning to Netherlands Foreign Minister Stef Blok in 2018 that, “Being against the
Magnitsky Act is often a career ruining position. @ministerBlok should study what happened to former
Canadian Foreign Minister Stephane Dion for vociferously blocking Magnitsky in Canada.”
See his attack on a member of the European Parliament at a hearing last year. When French member
Nicolas Bay said his own investigation showed “inconsistencies in what Mr. Browder saying,” a nice way
of saying he was lying, Browder was furious and riposted: “I knew there would be question from the FSB
[the Russian Security Agency] fed here.”
Submission 110
Browder’s attacks French European Parliament member Bay in this video clip at 2:43.
That bullying defamatory language is familiar, the language of a thug, not a human rights advocate. The
Australian Parliament should not be intimidated into endorsing the fake scenario of a financial fraudster
to cover up his crimes.
The drama of this amazing conman ought to be penned by writers with the literary talents of an Agatha
Christie, an Arthur Conan Doyle, or Australia’s great crime writer Jane Harper. But I hope that Australian
journalists will use the information provided here to tell the truth about the Browder hoax. I would be
pleased to answer questions and provide further evidence the committee requires. I especially look
forward to answering Browder’s attacks on my submission.
Lucy Komisar
More about The Browder Hoax at The Komisar Scoop.

Lucy Komisar Submission

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Inquiry into targeted sanctions to address human rights abuses

There was no evidence provided that Magnitsky was beaten by anyone.

3. His testimony did not accuse any officials.

Brief Introduction to the Magnitsky death fabrications

Graphic by Michael Thau.

Here’s how Browder created the Magnitsky death story

The position of the

Chest image of Mr. S. L. Magnitsky.

The true text is:

There is nothing illegible in the Russian text.

Another Browder forgery

Fake “Markin” signature is bottom right.

The cell phone fantasy

From Browder’s book:

7:30pm He was left unattended without medical support.

At 9:50pm the patient died."

Deposition by Oleg Lurie, U.S. federal court, Oct 8, 2015.

Why did Browder create the Magnitsky hoax?

Other companies really did hire the disabled. Browder’s didn’t.

The tax refund fraud: Browder’s hidden role

This receipt was filed as sworn evidence in the Prevezon case.

In November 2008, Bloomberg Businessweek said that two subsidiaries of , a fund

The posthumous trial

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