Russian attorney Andrei Pavlov has been named as a “candidate for the killing” of Alexander Perepilichnyy, a Russian national who became a Swiss informant on corruption allegation and then died under mysterious circumstances in Surrey, England, in November 2012.
Pavlov is considered to be the lawyer for the “Klyuev Group,” an alleged organized crime syndicate responsible, say U.S. officials, for perpetrating a $230 million Russian tax fraud in 2007 and then covering its tracks by framing and murdering the whistleblower who exposed the crime, Russian tax attorney Sergei Magnitsky. In 2012, U.S. Congress passed a law named for Magnitsky that aims to freeze any American assets, and ban from entering the United States, Russian officials implicated in the affair.
The Daily Beast has reported extensively on Pavlov in the last few months. Leaked emails and attachments revealed that he retained the legal services of the London branch of Debevoise & Plimpton, a white-shoe U.S. law firm, for the purpose of keeping his name off of European sanctions on Russia and rebutting the accusations made against him, primarily by William Browder, the CEO of the Hermitage Fund, which Magnitsky represented and whose corporate documents were allegedly used in the $230 million fraud. Pavlov’s lead counsel at Debevoise, Weiss reported, is none other than former British Attorney General Lord Peter Goldsmith. Also, acting on Pavlov’s behalf, Debevoise subcontracted the services of private investigation firm GPW & Co., whose chairman is Andrew Fulton, formerly British foreign intelligence agency MI6’s station chief in Washington, D.C.
—Michael Weiss
Read it at The Guardian
