Red Notice

  None of them ever replied.

  It didn’t matter to the authorities that Novaya Gazeta had published Sergei’s unedited prison diaries on its front page, and that everyone read them.

  It didn’t matter that Sergei’s name had been mentioned in 1,148 articles in Russia and 1,257 articles in the West since his death.

  It didn’t matter that Sergei’s murder violated the social contract everyone had accepted: if you didn’t get involved in anything controversial—politics, human rights, or anything to do with Chechnya—then you could get on with life and enjoy the fruits of the authoritarian regime.

  The Russian authorities were so wrapped up in their cover-up that they ignored the most emotive aspects of Sergei’s story. He was just a middle-class tax lawyer who bought his Starbucks coffee in the morning, loved his family, and did his tax work in his cubicle. His only misfortune was to stumble across a major government corruption scheme and then behave like a Russian patriot and report it. For that he’d been plucked out of his normal life, incarcerated in one of Russia’s darkest hellholes, and then slowly and methodically tortured to death.

  It didn’t matter that any Russian could just as easily have been Sergei Magnitsky.

  I’d suspended disbelief, wishfully thinking that Russia was beyond the Katyn principle of massive state-sponsored lying, but it wasn’t. Evil hadn’t withered under the bright lights of publicity.

  If I wanted to get any justice for Sergei, then I was going to have to find a way to get it outside of Russia.

  * * *

  1 The predecessor organization of the KGB and FSB.

  32

  Kyle Parker’s War

  But how does one get justice in the West for torture and a murder that took place in Russia?

  Since the British government had proved to be so unhelpful, I needed to broaden my scope. Given my personal history, the next logical place to turn was the United States.

  I made several appointments for early March 2010 in Washington, DC, arriving on the second of the month. Washington was cold and drizzly. My first meeting was with Jonathan Winer, a top international criminal lawyer. Before going into private practice, Jonathan had been the deputy assistant secretary of state for narcotics and law enforcement—commonly referred to in Washington as the “DASS for drugs and thugs.” He’d been responsible for US foreign policy regarding narco-traffickers and the Russian Mafia. He’d been effective, and a real tough customer.

  I went to his downtown office on the morning of March 3. Based on his reputation, I was expecting a tall, rugged Clint Eastwood type of character, so when I arrived at his office I thought I’d gone to the wrong place. The person before me was a five-feet-six-inch, middle-aged, balding man with a long, narrow face who reminded me of one of my favorite economics professors from college. He hardly looked like the crime-fighting superhero I’d been imagining.

  Jonathan ushered me into his office. We sat and he politely asked me to go through the whole story. He listened intently, periodically scribbling notes on an index card, not saying a word. Only when I was done did he start talking, which was when I began to see how he’d earned his reputation.

  “Have you been to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on this yet?” he fired at me in a low, staccato voice.

  “No. Should I have?”

  “Yes. Add them to the list.” He put a check mark next to one of the notes on his index card. “What about the House Committee on Investigations?”

  “No. Who are they?” I was starting to feel inadequate.

  “It’s a House committee that has virtually unlimited subpoena powers. Add them to the list too. What about the US Helsinki Commission?”

  “Yes, I’m seeing them on my last day in Washington.” I felt a little better that I wasn’t totally failing the test. I somehow wanted this man’s approval even though I’d only just met him.

  “Good. They’re important. I want to hear about that meeting when it’s over.” He put another check mark in his notes. “What about the State Department? Are you seeing anyone there?”

  “Yes, tomorrow. Someone named Kyle Scott. He runs the Russia desk.”

  “That’s a start. They won’t give you anyone more senior until later, but it works for now. It’s important that you know what you’re going to say to Kyle Scott.” Jonathan paused. “Do you have a plan?”

  Every question he asked made it more and more clear that I had no idea what I was doing. “Well, I’d intended to tell them the story of what happened to Sergei,” I said meekly.

  Jonathan smiled benevolently, as if he were talking to a child. “Bill, Scott will have a detailed intelligence report on you and Sergei. With the resources of the US government, he’ll probably know more about your story than you do. As far as the State Department is concerned, the primary purpose of this meeting is damage control. They’ll be trying to figure out if this situation is serious enough to force the government to act. Your objective is to show them that it is.”

  “All right. How do I do that?”

  “It all depends on what you want from them, Bill.”

  “What I really want is to create consequences for the people who killed Sergei.”

  Jonathan rubbed his chin for a few seconds “Well, if you really want to put the cat among the pigeons, I’d ask them to impose Proclamation Seventy-seven Fifty. It allows the State Department to impose visa sanctions on corrupt foreign officials. Bush created it in 2004. It would really get under the Russians’ skin if they were slapped with that.”

  The 7750 idea was brilliant. Visa sanctions would cut right to the core of what it meant to be a Russian crook. When communism ended, corrupt Russian officials spread across the globe, filling up every five-star hotel from Monte Carlo to Beverly Hills, spending their money as if it were their last day on earth. If I could convince the US government to restrict their travel, then it would send shock waves through the Russian elite.

  “Would the State Department actually do that?” I asked.

  Jonathan shrugged. “Probably not, but it’s worth a shot. Seventy-seven Fifty has rarely been used, but it’s on the books, and it’ll be interesting to see how they justify not implementing it with the evidence you have on this case.”

  I stood. “Then I’ll do it. Thanks so much.” I left Jonathan’s office feeling empowered. I was still a Washington outsider, but now at least I had a plan—and an ally.

  I arrived at the State Department on C Street the following morning. The plain, hard-angled building looked more like an elongated cinder block than the seat of US diplomatic power. After passing through a lengthy security screening, I was greeted by Kyle Scott’s secretary, who led me down a series of drab, linoleum-covered corridors, her black high heels clicking rhythmically. Finally, we reached a door labeled OFFICE OF RUSSIAN AFFAIRS.

  She opened the door and held out her hand. “Please.” I went into a small suite, and she led me to the corner office. “Mr. Scott will be right with you.”

  Normally a corner office is meant to convey some sort of seniority, but as I settled in, I realized that it was the only sign that Kyle Scott had any status. His room was cramped and only big enough for a desk, a love seat, a small coffee table, and a couple of chairs. I took the love seat and waited.

  After a few minutes Kyle Scott entered, an assistant in tow. “Hello, Mr. Browder.” Kyle Scott was about my height and age and had close-set, brown eyes. His white shirt, red tie, and gray suit were standard-issue US government bureaucrat. “Thank you so much for meeting me today,” he said, generously not acknowledging that I was the one who had asked for the meeting.

  “No, thank you for making the time for me,” I replied.

  “I have something here that I think will make you very happy,” he said with a conspiratorial smile. The assistant—a young woman wearing a gray pantsuit and a bright red silk scarf tied around her neck—wrote notes in a spiral notebook. Scott twisted to grab an overstuffed manila folder off his desk—a folder, no doubt, that
contained all of his briefing material on Sergei and me, just as Jonathan had predicted. Scott brought his knees together, placed the folder on his lap, and removed a sheet of paper from it.

  I was intrigued. “What is it?”

  “Mr. Browder, each year the State Department publishes a human rights report, and this year, there are two very strong paragraphs in the report about the Magnitsky case.”

  I’d heard that organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International had whole teams working throughout the year on strategies for getting their cases into this document—and here was Kyle Scott handing it to me on a silver platter.

  While this may have been a big deal in other cases, it wasn’t in ours. The Russian government couldn’t have cared less about a couple of paragraphs in a US government human rights report. The Russians were actively covering up a massive crime, and the only thing they cared about—the only thing that would get their attention—was real-life consequences.

  Kyle Scott watched me expectantly for my reaction.

  “Can I read what’s been written?”

  He handed me the sheet of paper. The paragraphs were reasonably punchy, but they were just words.

  I looked at Scott and said politely, “These are really great. Thank you very much. But there’s something else I wanted to ask you.”

  Scott shifted uncomfortably in his chair, and the assistant peeked up from her notes. “Sure, what is it?”

  “Actually, Mr. Scott, I’ve been studying the US statutes and have come across something I think would work very well in the Magnitsky case: Proclamation Seventy-seven Fifty, the one that can be used to ban corrupt foreign officials from coming into America.”

  He sat up stiffly. “I’m aware of that order. But how is it applicable here?” he asked defensively.

  “It’s applicable here because the people who killed Sergei are obviously corrupt, and therefore would be captured under the proclamation. The secretary of state should ban their entry into the US.”

  The assistant wrote feverishly, as if I’d spoken three times as many words. This was not how they had expected the meeting to go. Jonathan Winer had been right.

  This was not what they wanted to hear because ever since Barack Obama had become president in 2009, the main policy of the US government toward Russia had been one of appeasement. The administration had even created a new word for it: reset. This policy was intended to reset the broken relations between Russia and the United States, but in practical terms it meant that the United States wouldn’t mention certain unpleasant subjects concerning Russia so long as Russia played nice in trade relations and nuclear disarmament and various other areas. Sure, the US government could put a few paragraphs in a report to demonstrate “concern” over human rights abuses, but the main policy was for the United States to do absolutely nothing about them.

  I was asking for something completely at odds with this policy, and Scott was suddenly in uncomfortable territory. “I’m sorry, Mr. Browder, but I still don’t see how Seventy-seven Fifty applies to the Magnitsky case,” he said evasively.

  I knew Scott was in a tough spot, but instead of backing down I pushed harder. “How can you say that? These officials stole two hundred and thirty million dollars from the Russian people and then killed the whistle-blower. They’ve laundered all of that money, and now parts of the Russian government are engaged in a massive cover-up. Seventy-seven Fifty is tailor-made for a case like this.”

  “But, Mr. Browder—I don’t—it would be impossible to prove that any of these people did any of the things that you claim,” he said firmly.

  I tried to keep calm but was finding it more and more difficult. “The two paragraphs you just showed me mention several of these officials by name,” I said pointedly.

  “I—I—”

  My voice started to rise. “Mr. Scott, this is the most well documented human rights abuse case since the end of the Soviet Union. It’s been independently recognized that a number of Russian officials were involved in Sergei’s death. I’d be happy to take you through it.”

  This meeting had gone completely off track for Scott, and now he wanted it to end. He motioned to his assistant, who stopped writing, and stood. I stood too. “I’m sorry, Mr. Browder,” he said, ushering me toward the door, “but I have to get to another meeting. I’d be glad to discuss this with you another time, but I simply can’t at the moment. Thank you again for coming in.”

  I shook his hand knowing full well that I wouldn’t be returning to his office anytime soon. His assistant awkwardly escorted me out of the building without saying a word.

  I left the State Department frustrated and upset. I wandered east, toward my next meeting near the Capitol, and eventually found myself strolling along the National Mall under slate-gray skies. Two heartland-looking young men, all of twenty years old, in blue blazers with brass buttons and khaki slacks, walked toward me in the middle of a heated discussion. They still had pimples, yet here they were in Washington playing government. This wasn’t my world. Who was I to think that I had a chance of making things happen in Washington? It had been obvious how little I knew when I met Jonathan, and it was confirmed by this unpleasant meeting with Kyle Scott.

  I had several more meetings that day, but went through them in a daze, and none produced any real results. All I could think about was flying back home to London.

  Before leaving Washington, I had my last appointment, this one with Kyle Parker at the US Helsinki Commission. This was the same man who had failed to put Sergei’s case in President Obama’s briefing packet back when Sergei was still alive, so I wasn’t expecting a warm reception. I kept the meeting only because Jonathan Winer had made such a big deal about it when we went through my list of meetings.

  I remembered Kyle Parker as a man in his early thirties who had weary eyes that appeared to have seen much more than his age suggested. He spoke perfect Russian and had a firm grasp of everything that was going on inside Russia. He could just as easily have worked for the CIA as for this obscure congressional human rights committee.

  I made my way to the Ford House Office Building on D Street, one block away from the train tracks and the interstate. This ugly gray box of a building with zero architectural charm was far from the center of Capitol Hill in arguably the US government’s worst piece of real estate. As I made my way into the building, I couldn’t help but think that this was where they stuck all the orphan congressional institutions that weren’t part of mainstream power circles.

  Kyle Parker met me at security and brought me to an underheated conference room with all sorts of Soviet memorabilia displayed on the bookshelves. He sat at the head of the table in an awkward silence. I took a breath to break it, but he cut me off.

  “Bill, I just want to say how sorry I am that we didn’t do more to help Sergei last year. I can’t tell you how often I’ve thought about him since he died.”

  I wasn’t expecting that, and I took a moment before saying, “We tried, Kyle.”

  He then said something so un-Washington-like that I still can’t believe it to this day. “When you sent out the tribute to Sergei after he died, I rode the Red Line home reading it over and over. I was heartbroken. You’d just been here four months earlier pleading for help. I cried, right there on the train. I read it to my wife when I got home. She cried too. This murder—it’s one of the worst things that’s happened since I started my career.”

  I was stunned. I had never heard anyone in government speak in such an emotional and human way. “Kyle, I don’t know what to say. It’s been the worst thing for me too. The only way I can get up in the morning is to go after the guys who did this to Sergei.”

  “I know, and I’m going to help you.”

  I took a deep breath. This Kyle was completely unlike anyone I had ever met in Washington.

  I wanted to tell him about what had happened at the State Department, but before I could, Kyle launched into a one-sided brainstorming session. “Bill, I want to make a l
ist of every person involved in Sergei’s false arrest, torture, and death. Not just Kuznetsov and Karpov and the other thugs at the Interior Ministry, but the doctors who ignored Sergei’s pleas, the judges who rubber-stamped his detention, the tax officials who stole Russian money. Everyone who’s directly culpable in Sergei’s death.”

  “That’s easy, Kyle. We have that information and the documents to back it up. But what would you do with it?”

  “I’ll tell you what I’d do. I’d organize a congressional fact-finding trip to Moscow and have the US embassy call each person on that list requesting a meeting to discuss the Magnitsky case. I’m not sure many would agree, but it would shock the Russian authorities to no end that the United States is paying such close attention to Magnitsky’s death.”

  “I like that idea, but I could see a lot of reasons why it wouldn’t get off the ground. However, we could use the list in a different way.”

  “I’m listening.”

  I told him about Jonathan Winer, Proclamation 7750, and the meeting with Scott at the State Department.

  As I spoke, Kyle wrote everything down. “That is a great idea.” He tapped the point of his pen on his notepad. “How did the person at the Department react?”

  “Not well. As soon as I said ‘Seventy-seven Fifty,’ he deflected and obfuscated and shooed me out of his office.”

  “I’ll tell you what. I’m going to talk to Senator Cardin and ask him to send a letter to Secretary Clinton requesting her to invoke Seventy-seven Fifty.” Kyle paused and looked me straight in the eye. “Let’s see if they treat a United States senator the same way.”

  33

  Russell 241

  On returning to London I gathered the team to tell them about what had happened in Washington. I knew they needed good news. Everything we’d done inside Russia had gone nowhere. I didn’t try to cheer them up as they took their seats. Instead I just told them the entire Washington story, ending with the idea of visa sanctions and Senator Cardin’s letter to Hillary Clinton.