July 16, 2018. Russian President Vladimir Putin then met US President Donald Trump in Helsinki, the capital of Finland. The two leaders held a private meeting that lasted more than two hours, followed by a joint press conference during which a journalist questioned the Russian head of state about the extradition of twelve Russian agents who had been indicted by a US judge but remained in Moscow. Putin insisted that there should have been a “mutual effort” between the two countries, and suggested that US courts should be a bargaining chip to pursue his ruling. And mentions a specific name: Bill Browder.
It is not accidental. Businessman Phil Broder worked in Russia in the 1990s, was expelled from Moscow in 2005, and has since been working to defend a law that bans Russians involved in human rights abuses or corruption schemes. Available in 2012, When the United States used the first unilateral embargo (called the Magnitsky Act after an activist killed by the Kremlin) vs Russia since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Vladimir Putin was reportedly furious and, in response, imposed a ban on child adoptions between Moscow and Washington. But it didn’t stop. Since then, the Russian president has tried to sit in the dock Bill Browder, and there have even been two trials against the businessman. Unmanned.
They came to nothing, but Vladimir Putin did not give up. The objective is clear: to extradite Bill Browder to Russia and serve his sentence – 20 years at hard labor. It might have happened four years ago in Madrid. When the entrepreneur He were detained By the Spanish authorities, Based on an arrest warrant issued by Interpol. But it was a scare two hours after being taken to a police station in the Spanish capital.
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