© AP Photo/ Jae C. Hong
Canada's version of the Magnitsky Act
approved by the Senate upper chamber was an irrational measure driven by a dubious character accused of fraud, the Russian Embassy in Ottawa said in a statement.
"In defiance of common sense S-226 is hastily signed into law," the embassy said in a tweet Wednesday. "Irrational act sponsored by fugitive fraudster & tax evader and Russia-haters."
On Tuesday, Canada's Senate in a final reading passed the bill, titled "Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act (Sergei Magnitsky Law)," which aims to impose restrictive measures on foreign nationals allegedly responsible for human rights violations.Should Bill S-226 receive royal assent, it will enable Canada to "sanction, impose travel bans on and hold accountable those responsible for gross human rights violations and significant corruption."
Director of the North America Department at the Russian Foreign Ministry Georgiy Borisenko told Sputnik last week that Moscow will take tit-for-tat measures in the event Ottawa expands its blacklist of Russian officials following the adoption by Canada of a Magnitsky-style law.
Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer with Hermitage Capital Management, was arrested on suspicion of participation in a tax evasion scheme and died in a pre-trial detention center in Moscow in 2009. In late 2012, the United States adopted the
Magnitsky Act, imposing travel bans and economic sanctions against Russian officials allegedly involved in the lawyer's death.
Comment: Here's what Putin had to
say about America's Magnitsky Act back in 2012:
"A person died; it has been clear for some time that Mr. Magnitsky died in prison. That is a tragedy that we regret. What, are you telling me that nobody dies in their prisons? Maybe more people die in their prisons than in ours. In European prisons? In the U.S.?Listen, it's been eight years and Guantanamo is still not closed; people are held without a trial or an investigation, like in the Middle Ages; prisoners walk around in chains and shackles! People who open secret prisons, legalize torture without investigations! And now these people are now accusing us of somehow not being good enough!
Comment: Here's what Putin had to say about America's Magnitsky Act back in 2012: