The White House reviewed the petition for the repeal of the Magnitsky Act, which collected more than 200 thousand signatures, and published an official response stating that the petition will not be granted.

“The [US Presidential] administration intends to fully implement the Magnitsky Act.” It reflects our support for human rights and our position that those responsible for human rights violations must be held accountable,” the US State Department said in a statement in response to the petition.

A petition demanding the repeal of the so-called Magnitsky Act was posted on the corresponding section of the White House website in April of this year. Its authors demanded that the act be repealed because, as they stated, it was adopted as a result of lobbying by the head of the Hermitage Capital fund, William Browder, and the ex-head of Yukos, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, whom the authors of the petition called swindlers.

More than 204.5 thousand people signed the petition.

Hermitage Capital lawyer Sergei Magnitsky died in the Matrosskaya Tishina pre-trial detention center in November 2009, where he was accused of involvement in organizing the illegal return of 5.5 billion rubles. allegedly overpaid income taxes for 2006. Magnitsky himself claimed that the crime attributed to him was committed by an organized group consisting of investigators, judges and tax officials.

Some of the individuals named by Magnitsky were included in the “Magnitsky list.” The US defendants were banned from entering the country and their American assets were seized. The corresponding law - the Magnitsky Act - was adopted by the US Congress and signed by President Barack Obama in December 2012.

The White House refused to satisfy the petition to repeal the Magnitsky Act