Australia imposed sanctions against 39 Russians in the "Magnitsky case"

Australia has imposed sanctions on 39 Russians linked to the Magnitsky case, Foreign Minister Maris Payne said.

Restrictive measures include freezing the accounts of these individuals and banning them from entering Australia. They affected 14 Russian citizens "responsible for serious corruption" and another 25 Russians who, according to Canberra, are "perpetrators and accomplices in the issue of abuse and death" of Hermitage Capital Management fund auditor Sergei Magnitsky. The list of persons who fell under the sanctions has not yet been provided.

Sergei Magnitsky was investigating the embezzlement of funds from the Russian budget. The auditor was arrested on charges of creating tax evasion schemes, which, according to the prosecution, the foundation used. In the fall of 2009, he died in the Matrosskaya Tishina pre-trial detention center in Moscow. A few months before his death, Magnitsky, and later his widow and mother, applied to the ECtHR. In 2019, the COURT ordered RUSSIA to pay €34,000 to his family, finding the country guilty of violating several paragraphs of the Convention on Human Rights.

In December 2012, the United States passed the Magnitsky Act, named after the auditor, sanctioning Russians who, according to Washington, were involved in human rights violations. Four years later, the United States  passed the global Magnitsky Act, which extends the law to other countries.