The nature of kingship in William Shakespeare’s play Macbeth follows the events that occur during Macbeth’s unlawful rise to the throne......The themes of greed, arrogance and excessive political ambition are still, very relevant to the world today. Shakespeare got it right - his story of Macbeth still applies to today's world....
On Wednesday 26th July, financier Bill Browder was due to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee......Browder’s testimony, which received relatively little coverage, is extraordinary with a senator calling it one of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s “most important” hearings......In it he describes a Russian system of government that operates in the shadows using corruption, blackmail, torture and murder - all led by Vladimir Putin........Browder said: “Effectively the moment that you enter into their world, you become theirs.”
Bill Browder’s Senate Judiciary Committee Testimony....
"Chairman Grassley, Ranking Member Feinstein, and members of the committee, thank you for giving me the opportunity to testify today on the Russian government’s attempts to repeal the Magnitsky Act in Washington in 2016, and the enablers who conducted this campaign in violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, by not disclosing their roles as agents for foreign interests.Before I get into the actions of the agents who conducted the anti-Magnitsky campaign in Washington for the benefit of the Russian state, let me share a bit of background about Sergei Magnitsky and myself.I am the founder and CEO of Hermitage Capital Management. I grew up in Chicago, but for the last 28 years I’ve lived in Moscow and London, and am now a British citizen. From 1996 to 2005, my firm, Hermitage Capital, was one of the largest investment advisers in Russia with more than $4 billion invested in Russian stocks.Russia has a well-known reputation for corruption; unfortunately, I discovered that it was far worse than many had thought. While working in Moscow I learned that Russian oligarchs stole from shareholders, which included the fund I advised. Consequently, I had an interest in fighting this endemic corruption, so my firm started doing detailed research on exactly how the oligarchs stole the vast amounts of money that they did. When we were finished with our research we would share it with the domestic and international media."
in July 2003, Putin arrested Russia’s biggest oligarch and richest man, Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Putin grabbed Khodorkovsky off his private jet, took him back to Moscow, put him on trial, and allowed television cameras to film Khodorkovsky sitting in a cage right in the middle of the courtroom.......On November 13, 2005, as I was flying into Moscow from a weekend away, I was stopped at Sheremetyevo airport, detained for 15 hours, deported, and declared a threat to national security.....
Sergei Magnitsky was moved to a maximum security prison called Butyrka, which is considered to be one of the harshest prisons in Russia.....Sergei Magnitsky died on November 16, 2009, at the age of 37.....Sergei Magnitsky was murdered as my proxy. If Sergei had not been my lawyer, he would still be alive today...... the murder of Sergei Magnitsky was done to cover up the theft of $230 million from the Russian Treasury. I knew that the people who stole that money wouldn’t keep it in Russia.....In 2010, I traveled to Washington and told Sergei Magnitsky’s story to Senators Benjamin Cardin and John McCain. They were both shocked and appalled and proposed a new piece of legislation called The Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act. This would freeze assets and ban visas for those who killed Sergei as well as other Russians involved in serious human rights abuse......
In November 2012 the Magnitsky Act passed the House of Representatives by 364 to 43 votes and later the Senate 92 to 4 votes. On December 14, 2012, President Obama signed the Sergei Magnitsky Act into law.......Putin was furious. Looking for ways to retaliate against American interests, he settled on the most sadistic and evil option of all: banning the adoption of Russian orphans by American families.
Since 2012 it’s emerged that Vladimir Putin was a beneficiary of the stolen $230 million that Sergei Magnitsky exposed. Recent revelations from the Panama Papers have shown that Putin’s closest childhood friend, Sergei Roldugin, a famous cellist, received $2 billion of funds from Russian oligarchs and the Russian state. It’s commonly understood that Mr. Roldugin received this money as an agent of Vladimir Putin....Based on the language of the Magnitsky Act, this would make Putin personally subject to Magnitsky sanctions....There are approximately ten thousand officials in Russia working for Putin who are given instructions to kill, torture, kidnap, extort money from people, and seize their property.
Since its passage in 2012, the Putin regime has gone after everybody who has been advocating for the Magnitsky Act./////One of my main partners in this effort was Boris Nemtsov......In 2015, Boris Nemtsov was murdered on the bridge in front of the Kremlin....The lawyer who represented Sergei Magnitsky’s mother was thrown off the fourth floor of his apartment building.....Vladimir Kara-Murza, also traveled to law-making bodies around the world to make a similar case.... in December of 2016, Vladimir was poisoned......Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in 2013 : “It’s too bad that Sergei Magnitsky is dead and Bill Browder is still alive and free.”.....
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/bill-browders-senate-judiciary-committee-hearing_uk_597ee55ce4b02a4ebb7675a6