Moscow has warned the U.S. Administration that replacement of Jackson-Vanik Ammendment with Magnitsky blacklist is 'unacceptable', Russian Presidential Aide Yuri Ushakov said on Sunday, RIAN reports.
A group of influential U.S. senators, including former Republican presidential candidate, John McCain, proposed in mid-March to introduce a blacklist of Russian officials allegedly linked to Hermitage Capital lawyer Magnitsky’s death, in a Moscow pre-trial detention center in November 2009, in exchange for the cancellation of the Jackson-Vanik amendment.
The projected Magnitsky bill is an ostensible anti-Russian move and if this bill is passed Russia will introduce retaliatory measures, Ushakov continued.
Magnitsky was arrested on tax evasion charges in November 2008, just days after accusing police investigators in a $230 million tax refund fraud, and died after almost a year in the Matrosskaya Tishina pre-trial detention center in Moscow.
