Russia warns US against publicising Magnitsky list

Russia has warned the US over a list of Russian officials banned from entering America because of alleged human rights abuses, which it says could severely damage relations.

A spokesman for President Vladimir Putin said it was a negative move.

The US imposed the sanctions after Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky died in jail in 2009 in disputed circumstances.

The US Treasury later published the list which includes 18 people, 16 of them linked to the Magnitsky case.

The list includes people involved in Mr Magnitsky's trial and prosecution as well as officials deemed to have participated in recent Kremlin moves to restrict Russians' political rights.

Mr Magnitsky was arrested in 2008 for tax evasion after accusing Russian police officials of stealing $230m (£150m) from the state through fraudulent tax rebates. His family and rights groups say he was badly beaten and denied medical treatment in custody.

The Magnitsky Act passed by Washington in 2012 blacklists Russian officials accused of involvement in his death. The names have up to now been kept secret.

In response, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a Russian law barring Americans from adopting Russian orphans.

More recently the Russian foreign ministry has drawn up its own blacklist of US officials who are alleged to have committed human rights violations.

Sources say that the counter-measures will be "symmetrical" and should be in place by Saturday.

Accounts frozen

"The appearance of any lists will doubtless have a very negative effect on bilateral Russian-American relations," President Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

Those affected by the American measures have had their US accounts frozen and have been added to a list of people who will be denied US entry visas. Some European nations are taking similar measures.

Mr Peskov said that despite Russia's unhappiness over the measures, co-operation between the two sides would continue, because there were "still numerous prospects for further development".

Correspondents say that the argument threatens to cast a shadow over a visit to Russia by President Obama's National Security adviser Tom Donilon, who is to hold high-level talks in Moscow on Monday.

The posthumous trial of Mr Magnitsky - who died aged 37 in pre-trial detention after developing pancreatitis - opened in Moscow in March but was adjourned shortly afterwards.

Legal experts say they are unaware of any precedents for the trial of a dead man in Russian history.

Source: BBC News (12/04/2013): http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22124145