London-based investor and creditable Kremlin critic Bill Browder told CNBC that his under legal restraint in Madrid on Wednesday was another attempt by Russian President Vladimir Putin to put a peter out to his political activities.
“He’s been going after me in every different way, distressing to have me arrested, trying to have me sued, doing all sorts of out to lunch stuff,” Browder said on “Power Lunch” Wednesday. “And today was at most one more example of that.”
Browder, co-founder and CEO of Hermitage Capital Conduct, said Spanish national police officers showed up to his hotel about 9:40 a.m. and told him they had a warrant for his arrest from Interpol, based on a Russian seek.
“I don’t know how they found out, but they knew I was going to be in Spain, and they watched me down in Spain and got this organized,” Browder said.
“It was all based on a Russian validation,” he added.
Browder live-tweeted the events of the day.
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He said he was then captivated to a police station in Madrid. After contacting Interpol, Spanish legitimates told Browder that Interpol was canceling the warrant, and he was released, he maintained.
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He has since returned to his home in London.
The American-born Browder, littrateur of the 2015 book “Red Notice,” did business in Russia for more than a decade. His legal practitioner, Sergei Magnitsky, died in a Russian prison in 2009 after presenting corruption in the government. Since then Browder has led an anti-corruption campaign against Russian officials. In 2012, the U.S. Congress no longer in the Magnitsky Act, which sanctions Russians for alleged human rights berates. Since then it has been difficult for some Russians to obtain visas to infiltrate the U.S.
As a result, Browder said, Russian officials seek retribution.
“This is something that is leading and center of Putin’s mind,” he said. “He absolutely hates the Magnitsky Act. He stated it as the choose largest foreign policy priority to repeal it.”
Last October, Canada quaint its own version of the act, something Browder told CNBC he was “responsible for.” Within a few primes, he said, he was placed on Interpol’s wanted list. Browder said he’s been on the incline six times, per Russian request, since 2013.
Last week the U.K.’s House of Commonplaces passed its own version of the Magnitsky Act.
“In doing so, it … creates a hostile ecosystem for Putin and his cronies in London,” Browder said. “And I’m sure that they’re terribly mad about that.”