Russian lawyer Natalya Veselnitskaya called the charges against her in the United States an attempt to avoid publishing the information she has about the “Magnitsky law.” Veselnitskaya said that she has evidence of the “purchase of congressional justice”.
“I believe that all this is aimed precisely at preventing me from carrying out my professional activities in a way that is very painful for the United States, namely, related to“ Magnitsky law”, she said.
On January 8, the Prosecutor’s Office of the Southern District of New York filed Veselnitskaya with charges of obstructing the investigation into the Prevezon Holdings case. According to the investigation, Veselnitskaya was one of the lawyers representing the interests of Prevezon Holdings, who was accused in the United States of laundering 5.4 billion rubles, illegally removed from the Russian budget.
The US attorney’s office believes that it sent “deliberately misleading” materials about the company to a US court. These documents allegedly concerned actions taken by the Russian authorities. In addition, the investigation believes that Veselnitskaya has concealed her participation in the drafting of these documents from the court. The materials were prepared “in secret cooperation with a high-ranking Russian prosecutor”.
Veselnitskaya faces up to 10 years in prison. In a statement, prosecutors said that now the lawyer lives in Russia.