"It's bullshit," Browder says when told that his presentations of the documents are false.
But Nekrasov continues to find more contradictions and discrepancies. He discovers evidence that Browder's website eliminated an earlier chronology that showed that in April 2008, a 70-year-old woman named Rimma Starova, who had served as a figurehead executive for Browder's companies, reported the theft of state funds.
Nekrasov then shows how Browder's narrative was changed to introduce Magnitsky as the whistleblower months later, although he was then described as an "analyst," not yet a "lawyer."
As Browder's story continues to unravel, the evidence suggests that Magnitsky was an accountant implicated in manipulating the books, not a crusading lawyer risking everything for the truth.
A Heated Confrontation
In the documentary, Nekrasov struggles with what to do next, given Browder's financial and political clout. Finally securing another interview, Nekrasov confronts Browder with the core contradictions of his story. Incensed, the hedge-fund executive rises up and threatens the filmmaker.
"I'd be very careful going out and trying to do a whole sort of thing about Sergei [Magnitsky] not being the whistleblower, it won't do well for your credibility on this show," Browder said. "This is sort of the subtle FSB version," suggesting that Nekrasov was just fronting for the Russian intelligence service.
In the pro-Browder account published at the Daily Beast on July 25, Browder described how he put down Nekrasov by telling him, "it sounds like you're part of the FSB. ... Those are FSB questions."
But that phrasing is not what he actually says in the documentary, raising further questions about whether the Daily Beast reporter actually watched the film or simply accepted Browder's account of it. (I posed that question to the Daily Beast's Katie Zavadski by email, but have not gotten a reply.)
The documentary also includes devastating scenes from depositions of a sullen and uncooperative Browder and a U.S. government investigator, who acknowledges relying on Browder's narrative and documents in a related case against Russian businesses.
In an April 15, 2015 deposition of Browder, he, in turn, describes relying on reports from journalists to "connect the dots," including the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), which is funded by the U.S. government and financial speculator George Soros. Browder said the reporters "worked with our team."
While taking money from the U.S. Agency for International Development and Soros, the OCCRP also targeted Ukraine's elected President Viktor Yanukovych with accusations of corruption prior to the Feb. 22, 2014 coup that ousted Yanukovych, an overthrow that was supported by the U.S. State Department and escalated the New Cold War with Russia.
OCCRP played a key role, too, in the so-called Panama Papers, purloined documents from a Panamanian law firm that were used to develop attack lines against Russian President Vladimir Putin although his name never appeared in the documents.
After examining the money-movement charts published by OCCRP about the Magnitsky case, Nekrasov notes that the figures don't add up and wonders how journalists could "peddle these wooly maths." He also observed that OCCRP's Panama Papers linkage of Magnitsky's $230 million fraud and payments to an ally of Putin made no sense because the dates of the Panama Papers transactions preceded the dates of the alleged Magnitsky fraud.
The Power of Myth
Nekrasov suggests that the power of Browder's convoluted story rested, in part, on a Hollywood perception of Moscow as a place where evil Russians lurk around every corner and any allegation against "corrupt" officials is believed. The Magnitsky tale "was like a film script about Russia written for the Western audience," Nekrasov says.
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