I was sure he was expecting me to say two weeks or something similar. Instead, wincing, I replied, «Tomorrow morning at ten a.m».
«Oh». He sounded surprised. «How important is this, Bill?»
«Very. Sergei’s widow and son are with me on the train to Brussels. We’re heading there to watch the vote tomorrow. It would break their hearts if the Russians found another way to deny them justice».
There was a silence on the other end as he contemplated staying up well into the night to write this opinion. «Bill, you’ll have it by ten a.m. tomorrow. We won’t let the Russians take this away from the Magnitsky family».
The next morning, at exactly 10:00 a.m., Geoffrey Robertson sent in his legal opinion. It destroyed the Russians’ arguments point by point.
I called the assistant and asked if the letter sufficed. He thought it was perfect, but he didn’t know if it would convince the president of the Parliament to go ahead with the vote later in the afternoon. I’d done a lot to shelter Natasha and Nikita from all the political intrigue in the West, and I prayed that they wouldn’t have to see it that day.
At 4:00 p.m. I met Natasha and Nikita at the entrance to the Parliament and took them up to the balcony of the plenary hall. Beneath us were the 751 seats of the parliamentarians, laid out in a broad semicircle. As we sat, we put on our headphones and clicked through the channels of the roughly twenty different simultaneous translations in which the Parliament conducts its business.
At 4:30 p.m., Kristiina Ojuland, the Estonian MEP[18] who sponsored the Magnitsky resolution, suddenly appeared on the balcony. Breathlessly, she told us that Geoffrey Robertson’s opinion had indeed convinced everybody, and that the vote was going ahead as planned.
Kristiina then disappeared to introduce the resolution. We spotted her in her purple dress among the beehive of parliamentarians below. She stood and began her speech. Like many other speeches I’d heard before, she went through Sergei’s story and the Russian government’s cover-up, but then she did something unexpected. She pointed toward us and said, «Mr. President, we have with us in the visitors’ gallery today the late Sergei Magnitsky’s wife, together with his son and his former boss, Mr. Bill Browder. I am pleased to welcome our guests».
Then completely unexpectedly, the entire chamber of seven-hundred-odd parliamentarians stood, turned toward us, and erupted in applause. Not polite applause, but real, thunderous applause, which carried on for nearly a minute. I felt a lump in my throat and goose bumps on my arms as I watched tears welling up in Natasha’s eyes.
The vote went through and there wasn’t a single objection in the entire European Parliament. Not one.
Early in this book, I said that the feeling I got from buying a Polish stock that went up ten times was the best thing to ever happen to me in my career. But the feeling I had on that balcony in Brussels with Sergei’s widow and son, as we watched the largest lawmaking body in Europe recognize and condemn the injustices suffered by Sergei and his family, felt orders of magnitude better than any financial success I’ve ever had. If finding a ten bagger in the stock market was a highlight of my life before, there is no feeling as satisfying as getting some measure of justice in a highly unjust world.
Acknowledgments
My opponents have engaged in a lot of crazy speculation regarding how I’ve managed to achieve some measure of justice for Sergei Magnitsky. The Russian government has alternately accused me of being a CIA agent, an MI6 spy, a billionaire who has bribed every member of Congress and the European Parliament, and part of a Zionist conspiracy to take over the world. Of course, the truth is much simpler. The reason why this campaign has worked is because anyone with a heart who has heard about Sergei’s ordeal has wanted to help.
A number of people have done so publicly, and writing this book has given me the opportunity to acknowledge many of them. But for every person named in these pages, there are countless others who have gone unnamed but whose tireless work behind the scenes has been crucial to the success of this campaign. I was hoping to use this section as an opportunity to thank all of these people. However, I’ve decided that I do not want to risk exposing anyone else to the intimidation, harassment, and threats from Russia that follow those who publicly support the Magnitsky cause. The time to acknowledge all of those who have contributed will come, but only when the threat of retaliation from Russian organized crime and the Putin regime subsides.
So for now, to every one of you who has given their time and energy to the campaign, I hope you all know how grateful I am for your support. To all the politicians in the United States, Canada, and across Europe; to the men and women at the European Parliament, PACE, and OSCE; to all the lawyers who joined me in this fight for justice, often working pro bono; to the journalists who worked courageously and tirelessly to get the truth out; to the NGOs and individuals from around the world who pushed their governments to act; to the brave Russian activists who continue to risk their lives to fight for the betterment of their country; to my friends and colleagues, whose support has helped me over the years; and to anyone who has been moved by the Magnitsky story and expressed your care in any way you could, please know that I cannot express just how much I cherish the contributions you have made and the hard work you have done. All of it has mattered and has made a difference. None of what this campaign has been able to achieve would have been possible without you.
Finally, and most importantly, I need to thank the true heroes of this story — the Magnitsky family. It was tragedy that brought us together, and while I would give anything to undo what happened to Sergei, I am grateful for your friendship. Your bravery and determination in the face of unspeakable grief is awe-inspiring, and I know that Sergei would be proud of each one of you.
About the Author
Bill Browder, founder and CEO of Hermitage Capital Management, was the largest foreign investor in Russia until 2005. Since 2009, when his lawyer Sergei Magnitsky was murdered in prison after uncovering a $230 million fraud committed by Russian government officials, Browder has been leading a campaign to expose Russia’s endemic corruption and human rights abuses. Before founding Hermitage, Browder was a vice president at Salomon Brothers. He holds a BA in economics from the University of Chicago and an MBA from Stanford Business School.
