Anti-corruption opponent Bill Browder feared Trump would hand him over to Putin after Helsinki’s comments
An American-born ex-hedge treasurer Bill Browder says he fears that the then president of the United States will surrender to the Russian authorities Donald Trump After the Russian president Vladimir Putin presented a strange interrogation option during their infamous 2018 summit HelsinkiFinland.
In an excerpt from his upcoming book reported in TimesBrowder recalled being in the United States during the Trump Summit and receiving a series of incoming text messages, emails, and other messages from anxious friends offering him temporary housing and shelter.
“What the hell was going on? I found the earliest email about the Trump-Putin summit in Finland. The subject was concise:” Putin is talking about you now. “
Thousands of miles away, Putin had appealed to Mr. Browder in response to a question from a U.S. journalist asking if he could consider extraditing 12 Russians accused of interfering in Russia’s 2016 election. America to trial.
He said he would allow 12 Russians – all military intelligence officers – to be questioned by the US authorities if he could get his own people to interrogate Mr Browder.
Trump replied, “I think it’s an amazing offer.”
To Mr. Browder, who often became Putin’s target because he defended anti-corruption legislation. Sergei Magnitsky Act, such an answer was ominous, and he quickly told his wife that he had to leave the United States immediately.
“If he got me, he would throw me in a Russian prison, where I would be tortured and eventually killed. These were things I knew for sure, “he wrote.” I didn’t know if Trump would make this “incredible offer” and if he tried to see if American legal institutions were strong enough to oppose him. “
He spent the rest of the day explaining why Putin wanted him back Russia to several television channels, but remained “horrified” by the possibility that Trump would comply and order his arrest for extradition to Russia.
The next day, Mr. Browder wrote that he felt like “the floor had fallen from under” after his then White House spokesman. Sarah Huckabee Sanders Trump told reporters that Trump was still considering an exchange, but was relieved when a State Department spokesman called the proposal – and Putin ‘s allegations against Browder and others – “completely absurd.”
Sergei Magnitsky was a tax adviser commissioned by Mr Browder to find out how his firm, Hermitage Capital Management, had inadvertently become embroiled in $ 230 million in tax fraud against the Russian state. When Magnitsky found evidence that Russian government officials were behind him, he was arrested and imprisoned. In 2009, he died in prison, apparently beaten to death by prison police after months of assault.
Since then, Mr. Browder has led efforts to set up Magnitsky’s law countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada, imposing sanctions on Russian authorities believed to have been involved in his killing and initial fraud.