OFAC Announces Sanctions for Russia-Related Human Rights Violations

The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned five people and one entity under the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act for Russia-related human rights violations, Treasury said in a May 16 notice. The sanctioned people include Russian government investigators and members of the Chechen Republic’s Terek Special Rapid Response Team.

OFAC sanctioned Elena Anatolievna Trikulya, an investigator with Russia’s Investigative Committee, and Gennady Vyacheslavovich Karlov, the deputy section chief of the committee, for “efforts to conceal the legal liability for the detention, abuse, or death” of Sergei Magnitsky, OFAC said. Magnitsky was an attorney who exposed a Russian government “tax fraud scheme” before being arrested by Russian officials in 2008 and dying in a Moscow detention center, the notice said.

OFAC sanctioned the Terek Special Rapid Response Team and its commander, Abuzayed Vismuradov. The team killed and tortured people who tried to “expose illegal activity” by Russian officials, OFAC said, and also detained and tortured “persons they believed to be LGBTI.” Vismuradov led an operation that detained and tortured people because of “their actual or perceived LGBTI status,” OFAC said.

OFAC also sanctioned Sergey Leonidovich Kossiev, the head of the Corrective Colony 7 (IK-7) penal colony in the Republic of Karelia, and Ruslan Geremeyev, the former deputy commander of the Sever Battalion in Chechnya, the personal guard for Ramzan Kadyrov, the head of the Chechen Republic. Both Kossiev and Geremeyev committed “gross violations of internationally recognized human rights,” OFAC said.

In a statement, Sigal Mandelker, Treasury’s under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said Treasury “is committed to addressing broader human rights violations across Russia.”

A report on the Russian Television RT website said Russia will retaliate with reciprocal countermeasures. The report called the police special response team "the local equivalent of a SWAT team," and said a spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin called the U.S. sanctions move "destructive."