Washington, DC - Today the State Department submitted to Congress, as required by the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act, the second annual report outlining the U.S. Government’s actions to implement the Act. As part of this report, the State Department, in concert with the Treasury Department, added additional names to the list of persons who have been determined, based on credible information, to meet the criteria described in the Act.

The criteria include persons involved in the criminal conspiracy uncovered by Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer who died of medical neglect on November 16, 2009, after a year in pre-trial detention in a Moscow prison, after he uncovered a large tax fraud scheme perpetrated by Russian officials. The criteria also include individuals responsible for Magnitsky’s detention, abuse, or death, and those who engaged in subsequent cover-up efforts. Additionally, the criteria also cover persons responsible for extrajudicial killings, torture, or other gross violations of human rights against whistleblowers and individuals attempting to exercise, defend, or promote their internationally recognized human rights and freedoms in the Russian Federation. The list now comprises 34 names, including 16 individuals added in the past year.

Persons on the list are ineligible for visas and to be admitted to the United States. Their property and interests in property subject to U.S. jurisdiction are blocked, and transactions in such property or interests in property are prohibited.

The names may be found here: http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/OFAC-Enforcement/Pages/20141229.aspx