Mikhail Khodorkovsky has called on the U.S. to ban visas and freeze assets for nearly 30 officials connected to the death of imprisoned lawyer Magnitsky reports Henry Meyer of Bloomberg.

In a statement sent to New York by email, Khodorkovsky’s defense team said, “To ensure the deaths of both Aleksanyan and Magnitsky were not in vain, actions must be taken against those responsible for the abuses of their human rights. This is the only way to achieve some justice for victims and to dissuade further tragedies in Russia.” They added that Aleksanyan’s death “was not an accident, but the product of cruel and inhuman treatment he received at the hands of Russian prosecutors and prison officials during a prolonged unlawful imprisonment,”

Head of Hermitage Capital Bill Browder said, “The Aleksanyan case, the Magnitsky case and hundreds of others like it are now all widely accepted in Washington as good reasons why it would be unconscionable to repeal Jackson-Vanik without putting some other strong human-rights legislation in place against Russia. There is a preponderance of evidence that he was deliberately and systematically denied medical care over a long period of time.”

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