By Max Colchester and Stephen Kalin 

LONDON -- The U.K. government issued sanctions against dozens of Russian and Saudi nationals for alleged human-rights abuses, extending British legislation along the lines of the U.S.'s Global Magnitsky program targeting corrupt actors and human-rights offenders.

British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said Monday that 49 individuals and organizations would face travel bans and asset freezes, under a new sanctions system Britain is putting in place post-Brexit. Previously the U.K. followed European Union and United Nations sanctions regimes.

Sanctioned entities included 25 Russian nationals that the British government says were involved in the death of tax auditor Sergei Magnitsky in 2009 and 20 Saudi nationals allegedly linked to the killing in Turkey of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. It was the first time the U.K. has sanctioned people from longtime ally Saudi Arabia for human-rights abuses.

Also targeted were two Myanmar generals involved in violence against the Rohingya people and two organizations that operate in North Korea.

"You won't be able to launder your blood money in this country," Mr. Raab said in the House of Commons on Monday.

The Saudis on the list were sanctioned for alleged involvement in the 2018 killing of Mr. Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist critical of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's policies, inside the kingdom's Istanbul consulate. Saudi Arabia didn't immediately respond to the sanctions on Monday.

Among them are Saud al-Qahtani and Ahmed Asiri, top advisers to the crown prince alleged to have directed the operation, the Saudi consul-general in Istanbul, and the 15-man team that flew to Turkey to conduct the killing. Most of them were sanctioned previously by the U.S. Treasury and State departments, and have been charged by Turkey in court proceedings that began in absentia last week.

Prince Mohammed, whom the CIA and many Western governments have concluded ordered the killing, wasn't sanctioned. The crown prince has cast the killing as a rogue operation and denied any involvement.

The British government also announced sanctions against 25 Russians it alleged were involved in the death of Mr. Magnitsky, who died at 37 years old in a Moscow jail after investigating tax corruption among Russian officials.

Mr. Magnitsky had been imprisoned on charges of tax evasion linked to a case against Hermitage Capital, a hedge fund founded by William Browder, a U.S. investment manager who had become an outspoken Kremlin critic. Mr. Magnitsky and Hermitage denied the charges, saying Mr. Magnitsky was imprisoned because he had uncovered corruption.

The Russian Embassy in the U.K. tweeted on Monday that for foreign investigators, prosecutors and judges, the threat of U.K. sanctions was "an assault on judicial independence."

The U.K. sanctioned Aleksey Vasilyevich Anichin, who led a probe against Mr. Magnitsky and, the U.K. said, contributed significantly to his death. It also targeted Oleg Silchenko, another official who also played a role in Mr. Magnitsky's death, the U.K. said.

British authorities are battling a reputation for turning a blind eye to illicit cash flowing though London's high-end property market and financial system. The U.K. in 2018 passed the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act, which provided the foundation for the U.K. government to impose sanctions after its withdrawal from the EU. Britain left the bloc in January this year.

The act, which included a "Magnitsky amendment," enables the U.K. government to impose sanctions related to human-rights abuses, similar to the Global Magnitsky sanctions program in the U.S. However, up until Monday, the sanctions legislation had been more focused on halting money laundering and financial crime, rather than human-rights abuses.

The U.S. Magnitsky Act was signed into law in 2012 and was intended to only target human-rights abusers in Russia. The law was a precursor to the U.S. government's more expansive Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, which was approved in 2016 by Congress.

Mr. Raab said last year that the U.K. would go further and follow in the U.S.'s footsteps and pass its own Magnitsky Act. The new regime presented Monday doesn't include sanctions for corruption at this stage, Mr. Raab said.

"These sanctions are a forensic tool, they allow us to target perpetrators without punishing the wider people of a country that may be affected," said Mr. Raab.

Canada and Baltic states have approved their own versions of the Magnitsky Act. The EU is also working on a version.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the U.K. government action signaled its "continued global leadership on the promotion and protection of human rights."

Mr. Pompeo said Washington would "continue to seek out additional allies and partners to jointly leverage all tools at our disposal to deny access to the U.S. and international financial systems to all those who engage in serious human rights abuses."

--Courtney McBride in Washington contributed to this article.

Write to Max Colchester at max.colchester@wsj.com and Stephen Kalin at stephen.kalin@wsj.com

 

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

July 06, 2020 14:55 ET (18:55 GMT)

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