Microsoft Word - Final Red Notices Conference Report.docx

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Spotlight on a Critical Threat: The Abuse

and Exploitation of Red Notices, Interpol

and the U.S. Judicial Process by Russia

and Other Authoritarian States

Conference Report

Convened by the Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center

at the Schar School of Policy and Government of George Mason University

November 28, 2018

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About TraCCC

The Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center (TraCCC) is the first center in the United States

devoted to understanding the links among terrorism, transnational crime and corruption, and to teach,

research, train and help formulate policy on these critical issues. TraCCC is a research center within the

Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University.

Visit traccc.gmu.edu for more information

Contact TraCCC at [email protected] or 703-993-9757

This report on The Abuse and Exploitation of Red Notices, Interpol and the U.S. Judicial

Process by Russia and Other Authoritarian States summarizes a conference featuring

distinguished scholars, legal professionals, and government officials. The conference

looked at a critical threat for the United States and other democratic countries whose

judicial systems and legal institutions are often misused by authoritarian regimes. A

particular cause for concern is the abuse of Interpol’s Red Notices by Russia, China,

Turkey and other authoritarian countries to harass their political and economic opponents

worldwide. The report contains a list of recommendations and suggestions to mitigate the

problem. The conference report was written by Dr. Yulia Krylova, a research scholar at

TraCCC, and edited by Louise Shelley, Director and Judith Deane, Deputy Director of

TraCCC at George Mason University.

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Table&of&Contents&

Executive Summary!..............................................................................................................!2!

Foreword: Dr. Louise Shelley, Director of TraCCC!.............................................................!5!

Introduction: Dr. Mark J. Rozell, Dean of the Schar School of Policy and Government!.....!6!

Opening Remarks: Matthew Heiman, Associate Director for Global Security at the National

Security Institute (NSI) of the Antonin Scalia Law School!.............................................................!7!

SESSION ONE: Setting the Stage, Identifying Major Violators!....................................................!8!

Thomas Firestone, Baker and McKenzie, LLP!....................................................................................!8!

Robert L. Deitz, Professor of Public Policy at George Mason University!.........................................!11!

SESSION TWO: Abuse of Red Notices and the Interpol System!.................................................!13!

Introduction by the panel moderator Ariel Cohen, Atlantic Council!..................................................!13!

Melissa Hooper, Human Rights First!.................................................................................................!13!

Ismail Shahtakhtinski, Founder and Principal Partner, I.S. Law Firm!...............................................!15!

Bruce Misamore, Former CFO/Deputy Chairman Management Committee, YUKOS Oil company!17!

Bruno Min, Senior Policy Advisor, Fair Trials!..................................................................................!18!

SESSION THREE: Judicial Interference!.....................................................................................!22!

Introduction by the panel moderator Michael Geffroy, the Scalia Law School!................................. !22!

Jaimie Nawaday, Kelley, Drye and Warren, LLP!..............................................................................!24!

Tom Firestone, Baker McKenzie!.......................................................................................................!25!

Benjamin Wittes, Editor in Chief, Lawfare!........................................................................................!27!

SESSION FOUR: Red Notices in Context!.....................................................................................!30!

Introduction by the panel moderator Ellen Laipson, Director of the International Security Program at

the Schar School and Distinguished Fellow & Chairman Emeritus, Stimson Center!.........................!30!

Michael Chertoff, Former Secretary of Homeland Security and Executive Chairman, The Chertoff

Group!.................................................................................................................................................!30!

Ben Emmerson, QC, International Lawyer!........................................................................................!31!

Suzanne Spaulding, Senior Advisor, CSIS and Former Under Secretary DHS!..................................!33!

CONCLUDING SESSION: Solutions and Recommendations!...................................................... !35!

Introduction by the panel moderator Paul Massaro, the Helsinki Commission!..................................!35!

Charles Davidson, Publisher of The American Interest!......................................................................!35!

Bruno Min, Senior Policy Advisor, Fair Trials!..................................................................................!36!

Louise Shelley, Director of TraCCC!..................................................................................................!37!

Participant Biographies!.................................................................................................................!39!

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Executive Summary

Overview of the problem

The abuse and exploitation of Red Notices, Interpol and the U.S. judicial process by authoritarian

regimes constitute a rapidly growing problem for the United States and other democratic societies.

This problem is especially evident in the cases of political asylum seekers whose applications are

denied by the U.S. immigration authorities based on abusive Red Notices requested by

authoritarian governments. There are multiple ways in which nondemocratic states abuse the U.S.

judicial system, including, but not limited to:

• the misuse of Section 1782 of Title 28 of the U.S. Code that allows a party to a legal

proceeding outside the United States to apply to an American court to obtain evidence for

use in the non-U.S. proceeding;

• the misuse of Chapter 15 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code that allows representatives of a

foreign insolvency proceeding to bring an ancillary action in the United States, as well as

to conduct further discovery regarding the debtor’s property and assets;

• sabotage by authoritarian regimes of MLAT (mutual legal assistance treaty) requests filed

by U.S. prosecutors in criminal and civil forfeiture cases in the United States.

Change of Policy Under the Trump Administration

Apart from furthering their corrupt interests, kleptocratic and authoritarian states abuse Interpol and

the judicial process in rule-of-law countries, such as the United States, in order to undermine public

confidence in the idea of an impartial and independent judiciary, to destroy the credibility of

democratic systems in general, and to diminish public trust in the concept of the rule of law. They

also undermine the practice of democratic societies serving as safe havens for individuals threatened

in their home countries. This poses a severe national security threat not only for the United States,

but also for the entire community of rule-of-law countries. Another threat to national security relates

to the export of economic criminality from kleptocratic states through corrupt interference and

manipulation of national laws and law enforcement mechanisms in the United States and other

democratic countries.

Recommendations for Further Actions

GENERAL STRATEGY

• Advocate for Congressional responses to address the current gap in the judiciary’s

awareness about new threats that kleptocratic states pose for democratic institutions and

the legal system in the United States. Providing legislative suggestions to address these

problems should be at the top of the advocacy agenda.

• Increase information sharing among government agencies engaged in international law

enforcement cooperation and policing, immigration courts, and other public actors.

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Information sharing between various public actors and agencies could potentially serve as

a solution for cases in which U.S. immigration courts are required to enforce sometimes

unjust judgements of foreign courts in authoritarian states.

• Rethink the roles of Western enablers of judicial interference. It is important to raise

awareness of the role played by prestigious law firms and other enablers in the West who

represent the interests of kleptocratic states in international litigations and transactions,

helping them to manipulate the judicial and legal systems in democratic countries.

RESEARCH AND TRAINING

• Further research into the problem of abusive Red Notices and the misuse of Interpol,

as well as judicial interference by kleptocratic states. There is insufficient research and

analysis of the new threats and challenges to democratic institutions posed by kleptocratic

states that abuse international organizations, such as Interpol, in their corrupt interests.

• Education and training of immigration judges on the abuse of Red Notices by

nondemocratic regimes. Training programs are critical for preventing harassment of

political dissidents, human rights activists, journalists, and whistleblowers who fled

authoritarian countries. It is necessary to develop tailored training programs for

immigration legal professionals, with a range of speakers, including immigration lawyers

who specialize in defense and removal of abusive Red Notices.

INTERPOL’S REFORMS

• Collect statistics and create databases regarding abusive and noncompliant Interpol

Notices. Currently, there are no exact statistics available regarding abusive and

noncompliant Interpol Notices. The lack of statistics in this area, in turn, makes it

difficult to conduct research into how effectively Interpol identifies and prevents its abuse

by authoritarian states. The lack of statistics also makes it difficult to evaluate recent

reforms made by Interpol.

• Develop comprehensive mitigation plans and risk assessments for the misuse of

Interpol. It is important to identify the current vulnerabilities and potential risks in the

Interpol Notice and information processing systems. Interpol can address this issue by

making it much harder to get a Red Notice, for example, by setting a higher standard of

proof and requiring a personal certification from a domestic minister of justice or

attorney general in the requesting country. Interpol might also consider revising the class

of crimes for which Red Notices are available.

• Develop human skills and strengthen tech capacities to identify and remove abusive

and noncompliant Notices from the system. Currently, Interpol’s bodies responsible for

the review procedure regarding Notices are significantly understaffed. Interpol should

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invest more human and financial resources in identifying and removing abusive and

noncompliant Notices from the system.

• Further develop the Interpol repository of practice, including analytics regarding its

prior decisions. The existing Interpol repository of practice needs to be expanded in order

to provide transparency regarding its prior decisions.

• Assess the possibility of introducing bonds by the National Central Bureaus requesting

Red Notices. Such bonds can be used to pay compensations to victims of abusive Red

Notices.

PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS

• Develop public-private partnerships (PPP) in the sphere of the review procedure

regarding Interpol Notices. Private law firms could provide pro bono services in

reviewing Interpol Notices. Such measures can potentially increase the quality and

thoroughness of its review procedure and alleviate the problem of abusive Red Notices.

• Introduce legislative incentives for the development and implementation of PPP in this

arena. It is also necessary to remove barriers to PPP that exist within law enforcement

agencies.

• Engage civil society organizations and legal professionals in policy discussions related

to the abuse of Red Notices, Interpol and the judicial process by authoritarian regimes.

It is important to invite various stakeholders from the private and nonprofit sectors to

discussions about new threats posed by kleptocratic states to democratic institutions.

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Foreword: Dr. Louise Shelley, Director of TraCCC

I want to welcome you all to this conference that puts a spotlight on the critical threat of the

abuse and exploitation of Red Notices, Interpol and the U.S. judicial process by Russia and other

authoritarian states. This conference is organized by the Terrorism, Transnational Crime and

Corruption Center (TraCCC) with the support of the National Security Institute of the Antonin

Scalia Law School at George Mason University.

It is a very timely topic because on November 21

, 2018, there was the election for the President

of Interpol. Ahead of Interpol’s presidential election, many critics raised alarms about the

candidature of Alexander Prokopchuk, a general in Russia’s Interior Ministry. Thanks to the

media attention and political pressure, the Russian candidate lost the election to the South

Korean candidate Kim Jong Yan. This election brought to the fore the problem of the abuse of

Red Notices by Russia and other states which we will discuss today.

This is a very timely conference on an issue that has deserved much more attention because the

United States is currently dealing with abuse of its legal process that had not been anticipated

earlier. This conference convenes both professionals who have worked on the problem of the

misuse of Interpol and victims of abusive Red Notices as well as individuals who have examined

interference by other states in the American and British legal processes. I became personally

aware of the abuse of Red Notices in a recent legal case in the United States where I served as an

expert witness. I want to thank all the speakers who generously donated their time to share their

unique perspectives on this issue.

This conference will discuss how Red Notices and the judicial process are being abused here in

the United States and how it has become a threat to our national security. This topic is

particularly important because the judicial process and the rule of law in our society are the

central pillars of our democracy. The conference suggests that the United States needs to pay

much more attention to the question of how we can strengthen Interpol and its system of Red

Notices and understand and address efforts to address interference in the legal process. I look

forward to today’s discussions of these issues that are very important for our country and other

democratic states.

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Introduction: Dr. Mark J. Rozell, Dean of the Schar School of Policy and

Government

The Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University is honored to host this

conference which convenes a distinguished group of professionals engaged in a common cause.

The Schar School houses the Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center (TraCCC),

as well as other research centers and institutes, such as the Hayden Center for Intelligence, Policy

and International Security; the Center for Regional Analysis; and the Stephen S. Fuller Institute

for Research on the Washington Region’s Economy, among others. The Schar School is one of the

ten schools and colleges at George Mason University, with about 2,000 students on two campuses

in Arlington and Fairfax. We have a wide variety of programs, starting from undergraduate to PhD

programs in political science, public policy and biodefense.

We are delighted to collaborate today with the National Security Institute of the Antonin Scalia

Law School at George Mason University. We have already worked together on several projects

and it is a very productive collaboration for the Schar School at George Mason University. I would

also like to thank the speakers for contributing their time and expertise to this event. I also want to

congratulate Dr. Shelley and TraCCC scholars on their contributions to policy debates on a

national and global scale, as evidenced by the very substantial media coverage of their work.

The Schar School cares very deeply about projecting our scholarly research externally. We care

very deeply about the scholarly community and our contributions to the academic literature. In

addition, scholars at the Schar School are very good at projecting the value of their research to the

outside world by contributing to various policy debates at the local, national, and international

levels. TraCCC has really been at the forefront of promoting its research and analysis that have a

significant impact on the policy world. Welcome to the Schar School and George Mason

University and thank you for your attendance.

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Opening Remarks: Matthew Heiman, Associate Director for Global Security

at the National Security Institute (NSI) of the Antonin Scalia Law School

On behalf of the National Security Institute, I want to thank and welcome the audience for

attending the conference. I also want to thank our distinguished speakers and panelists. The

National Security Institute is housed within the Scalia Law School at George Mason University. It

includes experts and academics who are focused on national security topics, starting from

intelligence and homeland security to cybersecurity and emerging technology. Our experts and

academics write about these topics. They speak about these topics. They teach about these topics.

The National Security Institute is also responsible for guiding the national security curriculum at

the Scalia Law School. In addition, we are focused on developing and proposing practical solutions

to real-world problems, which is the motivating energy behind what the National Security Institute

does. Given our mission, we are delighted to support today’s event. We are happy to be working

with the Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center at the Schar School. We look

forward to our continued collaboration and to today’s discussions.

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SESSION ONE: Setting the Stage, Identifying Major Violators

Thomas Firestone, Baker and McKenzie, LLP

It is the first major conference dedicated to the subject of the Interpol abuse, which is an extremely

important topic. Interpol is the International Criminal Police Organization established in 1923. It

is headquartered in Lyon, France. Unlike its popular movie portrayals, Interpol does not arrest

people. Its main function is to disseminate law enforcement information among member countries.

As of today, 194 countries are members of Interpol and they participate in its work through their

National Central Bureaus (NCBs) represented by local and national law enforcement officers.

Interpol provides training and data analysis, but its main function is to disseminate information

among law enforcement agencies from member countries, mainly through its system of Notices.

There are different types of Notices. For example, Black Notices seek information on unidentified

bodies. Blue Notices seek information on the location of persons of interest in criminal

investigations. Red Notices seek information on the location and arrest of persons wanted by legal

jurisdictions with a view to their extradition and criminal prosecution in the requesting country.

The abuse of Red Notices constitutes the main problem that we are concerned with today.

Cooperation between law enforcement around the world is essential to identify and prosecute

transnational criminal organizations. Unfortunately, Interpol is subject to abuse by various bad

actors. The problem with Red Notices is that it is extremely easy to issue a Red Notice. At the

same time, it is extremely difficult for victims of abusive Red Notices to remove them from

Interpol. Apart from arrests, there are several collateral damages of abusive Red Notices for their

victims. First of all, it is very risky for subjects of Red Notices to travel internationally since they

can be arrested in a foreign country. Second, Red Notices brand their subjects as criminals to the

entire world. Finally, Red Notices make it very hard for subjects to do business, to get a loan, or

to find a job.

Indeed, Red Notices can really sabotage the lives of people targeted by governments in non-

democratic countries for political or economic reasons. It gives such governments an extra

mechanism to harass their opponents worldwide. This is an issue that has come to the fore recently

for a number of reasons. Based on my working experience, I distinguish at least three factors that

have led to this situation over the last 15 years. The first one is the impact of 9/11 on promoting

international law enforcement cooperation. 9/11 was a real push to facilitate and expedite

international police cooperation, with a focus on catching terrorists and preventing other terrorist

attacks, with insufficient attention paid to its potential negative effects and abuse.

Second, the collapse of the Soviet Union accelerated the rise of transnational organized crime,

human trafficking, and money laundering. This, in turn, focused attention on the importance of

international law enforcement cooperation and the development of new technology to facilitate

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information sharing. In addition, the collapse of the Soviet Union facilitated the rise of a new and

particularly pernicious form of organized crime – illegal corporate raiding, which is called

reiderstvo in Russian. What distinguishes reiderstvo from ordinary organized crime is that it relies

on the abuse of the legal system and corruptly obtained judicial orders to seize businesses and their

assets. In many ways, the abuse of Interpol is the international equivalent as it uses the international

criminal justice system to harass people. In many corrupt countries, it is easy to obtain criminal

charges that can be used to get Red Notices against the target individuals to pressure them into

transferring their assets to raiders.

Third, there are several technological developments analyzed in the 2013 and 2018 reports

published by Fair Trials.

These technological developments make it easier to disseminate Red

Notices and Diffusions, which are collectively referred to as Interpol alerts. For example, through

the I-link system, member countries can submit Red Notices and Diffusions, with the related

information accessible to the police around the world. As a result, we can see the rise in the number

of Red Notices. In 2001, there were 1,418 Red Notices issued by Interpol.

In 2016, Interpol issued

12,878 Red Notices.

According to Fair Trials, currently, there are about 50,000 Red Notices

circulating in the world.

As for the ways to improve the Interpol system, the 2018 Fair Trials report has a number of

recommendations which are in various stages of implementation by Interpol.

In my opinion, over

the last five years, the situation in this area has improved. There is increased scrutiny of Red

Notices, which can be attributed to the work of such organizations as Fair Trials, as well as to

efforts by some of the people who have been victimized by Interpol.

In terms of curbing potential abuse, on the front end, Interpol can address this issue by making it

much harder to get a Red Notice. This could be done by setting a higher standard of proof and

requiring a personal certification from a domestic minister of justice or attorney general confirming

that they have reviewed the case and that the charges are not brought for a political purpose.

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Fair Trials. (2013). Strengthening Respect for Human Rights, Strengthening Interpol. London; Fair Trials. (2018).

Dismantling the Tools of Oppression: Ending the Misuse of Interpol. London.

Fair Trials. (2018). Dismantling the Tools of Oppression: Ending the Misuse of Interpol. London, p. 6.

Interpol. (2017). International Notices System, No. COM/FS/2017-02/GI-02. Geneva: Interpol.

Fair Trials. (2018). Dismantling the Tools of Oppression: Ending the Misuse of Interpol. London, p. 6.

Fair Trials. (2018). Dismantling the Tools of Oppression: Ending the Misuse of Interpol. London, p. 8.

We can see the rise in the issuance of Red Notices. In 2001, there

were 1,418 Red Notices issued by Interpol. In 2016, Interpol issued

12,878 Red Notices. According to Fair Trials, currently, there are

about 50,000 Red Notices circulating in the world.

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Interpol might also consider limiting types of crimes for which Red Notices are available. The real

goal of this system is to stop terrorism, violent criminals, drug traffickers and similar crimes.

Prohibiting Red Notices in cases arising out of white collar and non-violent crimes might help to

keep Interpol focused on the most serious forms of violent crime, terrorism and drug trafficking.

Another recommendation might be to prohibit the use of Red Notices when the location of their

subjects is known. There are cases where subjects of Red Notices live openly in foreign countries.

In such cases, instead of Red Notices, governments can send extradition requests.

On the back end, there are various ways to make it easier for victims of abusive Red Notices to

have their data and their Notices removed from the Interpol system. Interpol could put in place a

rule to remove Red Notices against individuals who are subjects of extradition requests denied by

the national court because of a determination of a politically motivated cases. It might also be

possible to create a system where subjects of Red Notices may go to national courts, the Ministry

of Justice, or some local agencies to get a declaratory judgment and review of their case. The

current problem is that there is no real judicial review of Red Notices, which allows for severe

violations of human rights. The creation of a judicial review system in the country where the

subjects are residing could solve this problem.

Finally, as the 2018 Fair Trials report notes, there is a problem of insufficient resources for the

review procedure in Interpol.

The Commission for the Control of Interpol’s Files (CCF) and the

Task Force which Interpol set up to review Red Notices are not adequately staffed to deal with the

current 50,000 Red Notices circulating in the world. Law firms throughout the world could

contribute to the review process on a pro bono basis. They could also help Interpol with its

repository of practice to provide transparency regarding its prior decisions. It may also be possible

for law firms to provide pro bono representation to individuals who are subjects of Red Notices.

Such measures can potentially contribute to Interpol’s transparency, increase thoroughness of its

review procedure, and alleviate the problem of abusive Red Notices.

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Fair Trials. (2018). Dismantling the Tools of Oppression: Ending the Misuse of Interpol. London, p. 34.

The current problem is that there is no real judicial review of Red

Notices, which allows for severe violations of human rights.

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Robert L. Deitz, Professor of Public Policy at George Mason University

It is useful to put Interpol into a larger context of the development of due process of law. It is no

accident that the Bill of Rights concerns process and procedure, not substance. From the beginning

of legal development, thinkers have understood that for a judgment to be legitimate, a court must

obtain personal jurisdiction over the defendant, whether in the criminal or civil context. How does

one obtain jurisdiction over somebody? If the defendant is part of a community, this issue is

relatively straightforward. But what if the defendant is residing in another state or country? The

International Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 U.S. 310 (1945) was a landmark decision of the

Supreme Court of the United States that set up the parameters for using so-called “long-arm

jurisdiction,” according to which a party may be subject to the jurisdiction of a state court if it has

“minimum contacts” with that state. Early on, courts tended to not really care how the defendant

got into court. In a famous case, Ker v. Illinois, 119 U.S. 436 (1886), the defendant was kidnapped

from Peru and found himself first in Hawaii, then in California, and ultimately in Cook County in

Illinois. This was the state of law until quite recently.

Interpol is roughly 100 years old. It was created to bring the rule of law to efforts to gain

jurisdiction over foreigners. Several years ago, there were severe problems with Red Notices, but

the situation has improved recently. It is inevitable that an organization like Interpol will be

misused by some people for a number of reasons. First of all, there is increasing recognition of the

rule of law. By misusing Interpol, abusers are trying to launder their conduct because any media

would approve of the use of the rule of law to further their interests. Second, undemocratic

countries increasingly attempt to undermine international institutions, so that they become

perceived to be illegitimate.

In our globalized world, there is no rational alternative other than an international organization to

legitimize the search for international criminals. Therefore, Interpol is needed. But it needs greater

protections and improvements inside the institution. One of the recommendations is to require

bonds by those requesting Red Notices. Some of these claims are illegitimate and there ought to

be a way for their victims to be compensated. It is not unusual for courts to require some sort of

bond to be filed in order to participate in some legal activity.

There are serious national security concerns with the Red Notice system in the sense that it is

known and common for them to be misused by bad governments. The rule of law is also a national

In our globalized world, there is no rational alternative other than an

international organization to legitimize the search for international

criminals. Therefore, Interpol is needed. But it needs greater

protections and improvements inside the institution.

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security issue. If international institutions cannot be trusted, that people do not have confidence in

their legitimacy, it will have harmful consequences to the nation’s security. People need

institutions and they need them to work honestly and fairly. Finally, if Interpol does not cure itself,

it will be cured for it. Some countries might not be willing to be associated with it or there might

be some splinter groups. This is why it is so important that the new leadership of Interpol takes

this issue seriously.

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SESSION TWO: Abuse of Red Notices and the Interpol System

Introduction by the panel moderator Ariel Cohen, Atlantic Council

The key objective of our discussion is to find the best mechanisms to ensure that authoritarian

regimes will not abuse Interpol to chase after their opponents, such as Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a

Russian opponent of the Putin regime and a former owner of the YUKOS oil company, who was

harassed and chased around the world. Another victim is Bill Browder, who was also harassed by

the Russian regime. These are the most prominent people who have fought back against the abuse

of Red Notices. However, there are many other people who do not have sufficient resources to

fight back. How can Interpol ensure through its internal and external mechanisms that Red Notices

and Diffusions are not abused for political purposes? How can we ensure that somebody “armed

with a court decision” does not harass, chase, or expropriate assets of their rivals or economic

competitors, whether it is in Russia or elsewhere? These are some of the questions that need to be

addressed.

Melissa Hooper, Human Rights First

In countries where I worked, including Russia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan,

I saw very clearly how their governments use fabricated criminal court cases and fraud cases

against their opponents, critics and dissidents. They use the same strategies across borders. The

way we see Interpol being coopted and changed by some of these authoritarian regimes relates to

the way they coopt other multilateral organizations, such as the United Nations Human Rights

Council and the Council of Europe. From a human rights perspective, the Red Notice abuse

intersects with asylum rights. According to international law, individuals who gained political

asylum cannot be sent back to their countries. Even countries that have not signed the related

international protocols and conventions are required to not send people back to the countries they

fled. However, right now, in the United States, there are situations where individuals requesting

asylum from the Russian government may be sent back based on Red Notices issued against them

by Russia. This is the problem that I have seen in many cases. In my presentation, I will give one

pre-reform case and several post-reform cases as my examples. By the reform, I refer to the

Working Group on the Processing of Information organized by Interpol in 2015 to improve its

mechanisms of information processing and the review procedure.

Before 2015, a sample case is that of Petr Silaev, a Russian environmental activist who was one

of the members in the Khimki forest movement who protested the destruction of this forest to build

a highway. In 2010, he was charged with hooliganism and left Russia for Finland. In 2011, he was

granted political refugee status in Finland. However, when he traveled to Spain on vacation in

2012, he was arrested and jailed in the well-known Soto del Real prison. He was charged with

terrorism based on a Red Notice requested by the Russian government. Under pressure from

international organizations such as Fair Trials, the Red Notice against Silaev was retracted. Yet, it

took him over 18 months to defeat the Red Notice. One of the problems in this case was the

accusation presented by Russia to Interpol. It alleged that Silaev joined a mob of 150 to 300 people

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that marched to the administration building, and using rocks and paint bombs did some damage to

the building. There was no evidence that Silaev did any damage. However, the alleged property

damage was sufficient to issue the Red Notice against Silaev. This case raises the question of what

type of criminal cases should be the basis for a Red Notice.

In 2015, there were attempts to reform the Interpol system in relation to asylum cases and asylum

claims. According to the new policy, the processing of Red Notices and Diffusions against

refugees will not be allowed if the status of a refugee or asylum-seeker has been confirmed; the

Notice/Diffusion has been requested by the country where the individual fears persecution; and

the granting of the refugee status is not based on political grounds vis-à-vis the requesting country.

The third condition deserves an entire conversation because it could be misused by a receiving

country to swallow up the asylum exemption itself. Apparently, it is related to Article 3 of

Interpol’s Constitution, which prohibits the organization from engaging in political matters.

After 2015, we can see other cases in relation to political asylum. For example, Nikita

Kulachenkov, who worked for Putin’s political opponent Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption

Foundation, was accused of stealing a $2 poster from a street artist. In 2016, he fled to Lithuania

where he was granted asylum. Later, he was arrested in Cyprus on a Diffusion notice submitted by

Russia. The fact that this was a Diffusion notice meant that the reform which prohibited granting

of Red Notices for grantees of asylum was of no help – because the Diffusion was processed under

the auspices of the countries’ bilateral relationship and requested outside of the Red Notice

process.

In yet another case, Alexey Kharis, a businessman from Russia’s Far East, was arrested on a Red

Notice in the United States. Alexey and his partner, Igor Borbot, used to have a very successful

business in Russia. In 2013, they started to blow a whistle on corrupt practices and bribe-taking

by the Ministry of Industry and Trade in the Far East. The Ministry raided their company and

seized their assets. In 2015, Russia’s authorities accused Alexey of a massive fraud of $200 million

dollars because of his refusal to cooperate with the FSB to falsely testify against his partner. As a

result, Alexey had to flee to the United States with his wife and children.

According to the new policy, the processing of Red Notices and

Diffusions against refugees will not be allowed if the status of a

refugee or asylum-seeker has been confirmed; the Notice/Diffusion

has been requested by the country where the individual fears

persecution; and the granting of the refugee status is not based on

political grounds vis-à-vis the requesting country.

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In the United States, his wife was accepted into a graduate program at the University of California,

Santa Cruz, and received a student visa, while Alexey received a work permit and started a new

business. He was also accepted by Stanford School of Business. To start a new life in the United

States, Alexey applied for asylum. Unfortunately, in 2015, the Russian government successfully

requested Red Notices against Alexey Kharis and Igor Borbot. Based on them, Igor Borbot was

arrested in New Jersey in 2016 and Alexey’s visa was revoked in 2017. When Alexey went to his

asylum interview in August of that year, he was arrested there. Moreover, he was refused bail

based on the Red Notice. In this case, there was no evidence that would hold up in a court of law

in the United States. There were just false accusations by the Russian government that Alexey was

involved in money laundering. Based on these allegations, Alexey may lose his opportunity to gain

asylum in the United States. His case is now being appealed and he remains in jail in California.

This case highlights a serious issue with U.S. immigration courts and points to the importance of

creating a system for exchange of information about asylum cases. To sum up my presentation, I

would like to quote Vladimir Gusinsky, a Russian media mogul and yet another victim of Red

Notices by Russia, who said: “The West must decide whether to sit by and make friends with Mr.

Putin or stand up for human rights and freedom of expression.”

Ismail Shahtakhtinski, Founder and Principal Partner, I.S. Law Firm

As an immigration lawyer, I often deal with individuals who applied for asylum and were reported

to Interpol through the Red Notice system by authoritarian countries from which they fled. It is

easy to issue a Red Notice because there are no rigorous checks or verification processes inside

Interpol. For example, in the case of Dogan Akhanli, who gained asylum and became a citizen of

Germany, how difficult was it for Interpol to find out that this case is politically motivated? It

suggests that currently, there is no rigorous review process within this organization.

Unfortunately, I am very skeptical of Interpol itself as an organization. There are many other cases

where individuals who are featured in the news as political dissidents or journalists became

subjects of Red Notices. Currently, in United States immigration courts, Red Notices are taken as

truth, which was not the case under the previous administration. Nowadays, it seems to be part of

a general policy to intimidate asylum applicants. It works in the following way: an individual

comes into the United States from the country of persecution and applies for asylum, claiming that

if he goes back to his country, he will be arrested. Then the country he fled requests a Red Notice

against that individual and he does get arrested but not in that authoritarian country, but instead,

by the United States.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

!“Putin is out to Get Me, Says Media Tycoon” (2001, April 24).!The!Guardian, available at

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/apr/24/russia.gilestremlett!

! ! ! !

16!

In such cases, the United States, unfortunately, is acting as a proxy for authoritarian regimes. Under

the United Nations convention, the location of refugees and asylum applicants must be kept

confidential. The most alarmingly trend, however, is that the United States government detains

asylum applicants who are subjects of Red Notices and immediately informs the country of their

persecution about their location. I was born and grew up in Azerbaijan during the Soviet times.

Most of my clients come as asylum applicants from Kazakhstan, Russia, Azerbaijan, and

Uzbekistan, which are the top Interpol abusers in the world. The most important question is what

we can do to fix this problem and let Interpol remain a channel for reporting criminals and a

platform for cooperation between law enforcement agencies in different countries.

In my opinion, Red Notices requested from countries known as human rights abusers should be

scrutinized, and the benefit of the doubt should be given to their subjects. There is no sense to ask

for additional certifications from judges or law enforcement agencies in authoritarian countries

that requested Red Notices because it will further legitimize their request. From my experience,

the most common charges in the Red Notices cases that I worked on are tax evasion and

embezzlement. The reason is that tax evasion and embezzlement are very difficult to disprove.

Also, in those cases, it is very easy for authoritarian governments to provide further certifications.

Corruption is so pervasive in these countries that one can buy any police report.

This is why Interpol must necessarily put under scrutiny those Red Notices that come from

countries with corrupt judicial and law enforcement systems. Also, their subjects should not be

detained in the United States, like in one of my cases where an asylum applicant from Azerbaijan

was reported to Interpol and the DHS counsel tried to argue that Interpol is an investigative agency.

This is simply not true. Interpol is just a channel for reporting individuals to law enforcement

agencies in other countries. Part of the problem with Interpol is that in popular culture, it is

described as an organization that conducts investigations and catches criminals. This suggests that

more education is needed among the general public and public officials about Interpol and its

functions.

The most alarmingly trend, however, is that the United States

government detains asylum applicants who are subjects of Red

Notices and immediately informs the country of their persecution

about their location.

! ! ! !

17!

Bruce Misamore, Former CFO/Deputy Chairman Management Committee,

YUKOS Oil company

I am a person who has been personally affected by the abuse of the judicial system by Russia. I

also represent employees of YUKOS who were harassed by the Russian government through the

Interpol system numerous times. In the case of rule-of-law countries, it is naive to accept verdicts

from countries that are obviously not rule-of-law countries. The reason is that rule-of-law

countries always feel that it is their obligation to enforce the law. In my case, not only did the

Russian government expropriate YUKOS in the largest expropriation operation in history, but they

also pursued a criminal case against Mikhail Khodorkovsky, its largest owner. Interpol issued

multiple Red Notices against YUKOS employees who had fled Russia or had been living outside

Russia working for YUKOS. In the YUKOS case, Red Notices were issued to pressure people to

testify against Mikhail Khodorkovsky. The latter had two different convictions that were totally

false and contradictory, but he ended up in prison for about 10 years.

In 2006, YUKOS decided to fight a battle to preserve its international assets. Once it was obvious

that Russia was going to expropriate the company, YUKOS put its international assets into a couple

of entities in the Netherlands. In 2006, YUKOS won its first big legal victory against the Russian

Federation in Holland. But the very same day, Russia announced a criminal investigation against

me and three other YUKOS-related persons, which was clearly fabricated to intimidate us. I am

still under criminal investigation by the Russian Federation. They tied my case to the

Khodorkovsky case. The latter will go on forever because the Russian authorities do not want

Khodorkovsky to return to the country. The criminal investigation that Russia launched against

me means that I must take severe precautions while I travel internationally. I often travel to testify

against the Russian Federation in international arbitration cases and the only way for me to do this

is to request a letter from the Minister of Justice or Minister of Foreign Affairs of the country I

travel to. This letter guarantees to protect me in situations where the Russians could use the existing

criminal investigation against me.

I have never had a Red Notice issued against me, but that does not mean that Russia cannot request

one if they want to intimidate me. As far as other YUKOS employees are concerned, recently,

Interpol made a decision that any case related to YUKOS is considered politically motivated.

According to Interpol’s Constitution, they ignore cases that they believe are purely political. My

experience has primarily been with Russia, but it happens in other post-Soviet countries too.

[W]hen Interpol deals with countries lacking the rule of law, such as

Russia that is infamous for its “telephone justice,” the organization

should not recognize the verdicts from those countries because they

are largely politically motivated.

! ! ! !

18!

In terms of recommendations, when Interpol deals with countries lacking the rule of law, such as

Russia that is infamous for its “telephone justice,”

the organization should not recognize the

verdicts from those countries because they are largely politically motivated. In most cases, they

have nothing to do with criminality. In the YUKOS case, it was all about white-collar crime

allegations, which were false. This is why it is important to figure out how to deal with

authoritarian countries who abuse Interpol for their own political purposes. My other concerns

relate to some prestigious international law firms that represent Russia’s interests in international

arbitration and court cases. Russia doesn’t show up as Russians in international courts or

arbitrations. They show up as highly respected international law firms. In my case, that has been

Clifford Chance, Cleary Gottlieb, Baker & Botts and Debevoise and Plimpton, among others.

These are the types of people that judges or arbitrators play golf with on weekends. In one recent

case, the Russians have hired Baron Peter Goldsmith of Debevoise and Plimpton, a former

Attorney General for England and Wales and for Northern Ireland, to represent their interests.

Such practices often facilitate the abuse of the international justice system by Russia and other

authoritarian states.

Bruno Min, Senior Policy Advisor, Fair Trials

Fair Trials is a global criminal justice watchdog, headquartered in London with offices in

Washington, D.C. and Brussels. We promote the right to a fair trial in criminal cases, in accordance

with international standards of justice. One of our important cross-border justice campaigns

focuses on Interpol. Its objective is to highlight the misuse of the system and to find ways of fixing

the problems. Fair Trials has been working on these issues since 2012, and we produced a major

report in 2013 in which we identified what we believed to be the main causes of the problems. In

2018, we published a new report that highlights some of the changes in the organization.

I want to start my presentation by clarifying some misconceptions about Interpol. The first

misconception relates to the role of Interpol’s President. This role is very much limited to a

figurehead and has very little or practically nothing to do with the day-to-day running of the

organization. For example, in 2016, the Chinese candidate Meng Hongwei was appointed as the

President and at that time, many critics raised alarms that China would use its position to abuse

Red Notices. However, in the case of Dolkun Isa, a Chinese Uyghur rights activist who had been

subject to an Interpol Red Notice for over a decade, the Commission for the Control of Interpol’s

Files removed it in February 2018 due to his previous refugee status in Germany. This case

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“Telephone justice” means informal influence or pressure exerted on the judiciary.

Fair Trials. (2018). Dismantling the Tools of Oppression: Ending the Misuse of Interpol. London, p. 6.

! ! ! !

19!

suggested to us that the role of Interpol’s President influence over the day-to-day functioning of

the whole organization might be exaggerated.

The second misconception relates to statistics. Russia is often cited as the worst abuser of Red

Notices and Diffusions. Also, according to some estimates, 97 percent of Red Notices are not being

checked properly.

However, the problem is that there are no exact statistics from Interpol that

can confirm these statements. We do not actually know how many Red Notices are requested by

each country. We do not know how many of those Red Notices and Diffusions are found to be not

compliant with Interpol’s rules. The statements that Russia, China, Turkey, or any other country

is the largest abuser of Red Notices are not based on reliable statistics.

As for the 97 percent of unchecked Red Notices, since 2013, there have been certain reforms

implemented within Interpol, which raise questions about the reliability of this statistic now. Some

of these reforms have been mentioned already, including the refugee policy, and new procedures

ensuring that Red Notices are checked before they are disseminated. In 2009, Interpol launched

the I-link system to disseminate alerts. The procedures for uploading Red Notices have changed

since then and now these requests are not visible until they have been reviewed by Interpol. Also,

Interpol set up the Notices and Diffusions Task Force (NDTF) consisting of around 30 people in

the General Secretariat to review Red Notices and Diffusions. The third major change was a major

overhaul on the Commission for the Control of Interpol’s Files (CCF). Those reforms helped its

procedures more transparent and much more efficient.

One reason for the bad publicity about Interpol is its lack of transparency. There are really no

statistics that helps us understand what is happening within the organization. As for positive

changes happening in Interpol, we do not have any statistics to assess their impact. Thus, we do

not know how many requests for Red Notices and Diffusions are being rejected by the General

Secretariat or how many cases are reviewed by the existing NDTF. This information is needed

especially because we are continuing to see cases in which Interpol has clearly failed to weed out

abusive requests for Red Notices. For example, in the case of Muhiddin Kabiri, a Tajik political

activist, there were public reports that he was claiming asylum in a European country, which would

have meant that according to Interpol’s refugee policy, a Red Notice request against him would

have been invalid. Yet, Interpol let Tajikistan issue a Red Notice against him. This raises the

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bromund, T., and Kopel, D. (2013). Necessary Reforms Can Keep Interpol Working in the US Interest. Heritage

Foundation Backgrounder, 2861, p. 12.

We do not actually know how many Red Notices are requested by

every country. We do not know how many of those Red Notices and

Diffusions are found to be not compliant with Interpol’s rules.

! ! ! !

20!

question: If Interpol is carrying out the review process, what kind of information and sources are

they relying on?

The other problem is a serious lack of staffing. The NDTF is a team of around 30 people, while

Red Notices get issued at the rate of over 10,000 per year, and last year over 50,000 Diffusions

were issued. The NDTF cannot review all of them. Another concern is that there is also a distinct

lack of support for the CCF. More and more people are litigating on the issue of Red Notices,

which means increased workload for the CCF. Also, there are new rules which, for example,

require the CCF to produce written decisions, that makes the work of the CCF more demanding

on its staff resources. Recently, the CCF’s budget was cut, whereas the number of the people in

the CCF has increased by one. Therefore, there are questions that need to be addressed, including

issues around how we are going to support the CCF and the NDTF in order to protect Interpol.

In my opinion, the solution to this problem is not to exclude some countries from Interpol.

Interpol’s work is crucial, because it helps to tackle the very real risks of dangerous organized

crime and terrorism, and Interpol is able to do this legitimately because of it is global coverage. If

you exclude some countries, it undermines the ability of this organization to perform its duties to

keep the world a safer place. The other problem is that the exclusion of some member countries

risks the creation of safe havens for criminals in countries like Russia or Turkey. And vice versa,

it might expose the streets of Berlin, Paris or New York to criminals who fled those countries. It

must also be recognized that authoritarian countries use alternative systems to catch political

dissidents. For example, Turkey launched its alternative terrorist search system called Terör

Arananlar, which looks like a counterfeit version of Interpol’s website. They have Notices coded

in various colors, depending on the amount of bounty on individuals listed in the Terör Arananlar

system. The website is available in Turkish, English, Arabic, and German, suggesting that the

website specifically targets diaspora communities, including those in which exiled dissidents have

found a safe place to live. There are also other systems at the regional level that authoritarian

countries abuse to harass political dissidents.

[I]n the case of Muhiddin Kabiri, who is a Tajik political activist,

there were public reports that he was claiming asylum in a European

country. Yet, Interpol let Tajikistan issue a Red Notice against him.

This raises the question: If Interpol is carrying out the review process,

what kind of information and sources are they relying on?

! ! ! !

21!

One of the answers to the problem of abusive Red Notices is for the authorities, including

immigration authorities, immigration courts, and law enforcement agencies, to be better sensitized

to the issues of Interpol’s abuse. There is a distinct lack of understanding of this issue amongst

certain public authorities, as we can see in the cases of multiple arrests in Spain on abusive Red

Notices and in the previously mentioned decisions made in the U.S. immigration courts based on

Red Notices issued against political opponents. This problem is particularly serious in relation to

asylum cases. In the case of Sayed Abdellatif, a political activist from Egypt, he who spent five

years in immigration detention in Australia, because under local laws the Red Notice prevented

him from applying from applying for asylum. The key solution in such cases is to sensitize and

take appropriate steps to prevent the abuse within democratic countries. There should be better

communication between different authorities at the country level because law enforcement

authorities who deal with international cooperation and policing are most likely to be aware of

Interpol’s difficulties, whereas immigration authorities are less likely to be informed about these

issues. This gap needs to be bridged.

In the case of Sayed Abdellatif, a political activist from Egypt, he

spent five years in immigration detention in Australia. The key

solution in such cases is to sensitize and take appropriate steps to

prevent the abuse within democratic countries.

! ! ! !

22!

SESSION THREE: Judicial Interference

Introduction by the panel moderator Michael Geffroy, the Scalia Law School

This session is devoted to foreign interference in our legal and judicial systems. The panelists will

offer their unique perspectives on this issue from their own practices, experiences, and outstanding

academic studies. Much has been written about the regime of President Putin and how it

manipulates the Russian law enforcement and judicial communities to support its kleptocratic

efforts. I can refer you to a great paper by Anders Åslund published by the Atlantic Council, where

he writes:

Russian state power legitimizes this lawlessness and gives it an official state sanction. This

makes it easier for these actors to successfully use the United States legal system, which tends

to give foreign governments the benefit of the doubt in legal cases. Thus, the Kremlin has

exploited the US judicial system to advance the Russia state’s corrupt corporate raiding and

expropriation schemes.

Just as the Russians have recently attacked our electoral system, they appear to abuse our legal and

financial systems to further the expropriation of private property, corporate raiding and political

persecution. In the United States, the Russian actors have misused various national laws. Just to

give some examples, Section 1782 of Title 28 of the U.S. Code allows a party to a legal proceeding

outside the United States to apply to an American court to obtain evidence for use in the non-US

proceeding. Chapter 15 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code allows representatives of a foreign

insolvency proceeding to bring an ancillary action in the United States and to conduct discovery

regarding the debtor’s property and assets. The principles of international comity support that U.S.

courts frequently enforce judgments of foreign courts.

The additional areas where Russia has made deliberate efforts to misuse the international and U.S.

legal systems are Interpol, Red Notices and the related processes. Interpol makes it possible for

194 member states to exchange information on criminal activity that crosses national borders and

to seek the location and arrest of wanted persons with a view to extradition and similar legal

actions. In principle, the Interpol system is an outstanding tool. Problematically, however, Red

Notices, Diffusions, and Blue Notices have increasingly been used not just by Russia, but by

several nations to target political opponents, journalists, or refugees, and to further their

kleptocratic ends. This is happening despite Article 3 of Interpol’s Constitution adopted in 1956,

which specifically prohibits the organization from engaging in matters of political, military,

religious, and racial character.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Åslund, A. (2018). Russia’s Interference in the US Judiciary. Washington, D.C.: Atlantic Council, p. 2.

! ! ! !

23!

The use of Red Notices has dramatically increased over time, partly because of technological

developments. In 1998, Interpol published 737 Red Notices.

In 2017, they published 13,048 Red

Notices.

The dramatic increase in Red Notices is due in part to the launch of the I-24/7 system,

which allows police agencies around the world to communicate directly with each other, not just

with Interpol. However, it also increases the opportunity for abuse. For example, in 2016,

following the coup in Turkey, the Turks requested the issuance of over 60,000 Red Notices, which

were declined by Interpol.

Recently, there have been many excellent academic works on the abuse of Interpol and foreign

interference in the U.S. judicial system published by the Atlantic Council,

the Henry Jackson

Society,

and the Heritage Foundation.

In April 2018, Sens. Pat Leahy (D-Vt.), Marco Rubio

(R-Fla.), John Cornyn (R-Texas), Steve Daines (R-Mont.), Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), Tom Cotton

(R-Ark.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) sent a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions citing

a Human Rights Watch finding that Chinese authorities are using Interpol Red Notices as a

justification to systematically harass political dissidents.

Several of them were living in the

United States. On November 25, 2018, the New York Times published an article about a travel ban

that the Chinese imposed upon Victor and Cynthia Liu and their mother Sandra Han, who are all

American citizens.

They went to visit their grandfather and were detained in China because the

Chinese wanted to locate and return their father for criminal prosecution. This suggests the

importance of this panel discussion for the United States and other democratic countries.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Interpol (1999). Annual Activity Report, p. 6, available at https://www.interpol.int/en/News-and-

media/Publications2/Annual-reports/1999/

Interpol. (2018). International Notices System, No. COM/FS/2018-03/GI-02. Geneva: Interpol.

“Interpol Denies Reports of Turkey’s Removal from Database after Listing 60,000 ‘wanted’” (2017, May 5). Daily

News, available at http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/interpol-denies-reports-of-turkeys-removal-from-database-

after-listing-60000-wanted-gulenist-names-115135

Bertrand, M. (2018). How Russia Persecutes its Dissidents Using U.S. Courts. Washington, D.C.: The Atlantic

Council.

Satter, D. (2015). Russia’s Abuse of Interpol. London: The Henry Jackson Society.

Bromund, T. R., & Kopel, D. (2013). Necessary Reforms Can Keep Interpol Working in the U.S. Interest (No.

2861). Washington, D.C.: Heritage Foundation.

The full text of the letter is available at https://www.rubio.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/5e3415d0-03c5-473d-

892d-eb3f838cc2d7/D13803333C95F334AF0A64330B8B52EB.4-26-18-letter-to-doj-re-interpol.pdf

Wong, E., & Forsythe, M. (2018, November 25). China’s Tactic to Catch a Fugitive Official: Hold His Two

American Children. The New York Times, available at https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/25/us/politics/china-exit-

ban.html

The dramatic increase in Red Notices is due in part to the launch of

the I-24/7 system, which allows police agencies around the world to

communicate directly with each other, not just with Interpol.

However, it also increases the opportunity for abuse.

! ! ! !

24!

Jaimie Nawaday, Kelley, Drye and Warren, LLP

The Prevezon Holdings case was my introduction to this topic. This case involved a tax fraud of

more than $200 million against the Russian government, a corporate raid, the investigation of

Sergey Magnitsky who was detained and murdered in Russia, and a worldwide money-laundering

scheme that involved moving the proceeds through Moldova and shell companies located in other

countries around the world. A small portion of these proceeds eventually ended up purchasing

New York City real estate.

The Prevezon Holdings case is a civil forfeiture case, which represents a mix between a civil and

criminal case. It means a civil proceeding to seize and forfeit property by the U.S. government

because of its connection to some underlying criminal activity. This proceeding requires

prosecutors to prove that an underlying crime occurred and that the property is connected to that

crime. The action that was brought in the Southern District of New York was a civil action to seize

and forfeit several New York City real estate properties because of their connection to this

underlying crime in Russia.

In the Prevezon Holdings case, there were two major challenges. The first one was the intimidation

of witnesses. The other one was the difficulty of getting tax records, bank records and similar

documents from Russia to prove the existence of the underlying crime. All of these documents

have to be obtained from Russia through the MLAT (Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty) process,

which is a written request for legal assistance from prosecutors in one country to prosecutors in

another country. The action was filed in 2012 and the U.S. prosecutor sent the MLAT request for

assistance to Russia. This request described the nature of the complaint, records that were needed

in order to prove the case, their relevance and the reason explaining why they were necessary.

Several months later, the Russian government refused to provide any records, stating that there

was no connection at all between the Russian tax fraud and the New York City real estate

purchases. Instead, they proposed to investigate Bill Browder who referred this case to the

Southern District of New York.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of New York (2017, May 12). Acting Manhattan U.S. Attorney Announces

$5.9 Million Settlement of Civil Money Laundering and Forfeiture Claims Against Real Estate Corporations Alleged

to Have Laundered Proceeds of Russian Tax Fraud, available at https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/acting-

manhattan-us-attorney-announces-59-million-settlement-civil-money-laundering-and

[T]here was a lengthy court battle with multiple motions filed to try to

get documents by other means and to argue for their admissibility in

the proceeding in New York. Meantime, there were significant

witness issues, most obviously, with Nikolai Gorokhov who fell from

his fourth floor apartment in Moscow in 2017.

! ! ! !

25!

As a result, there was a lengthy court battle with multiple motions filed to try to get documents by

other means and to argue for their admissibility in the proceeding in New York. Meantime, there

were significant witness issues, most obviously, with Nikolai Gorokhov who fell from his fourth-

floor apartment in Moscow in 2017,

even though the United States went to extensive lengths to

try to protect him and his family. Eventually, the documents were admitted, and the case was

settled shortly before trial. The settlement seemed to end that chapter, but there was an epilogue

about a year later. In the spring of 2018, I got a call and emails from the producers at MSNBC who

showed me some correspondence between the Russian prosecutor who responded to the MLAT

request and one of the attorneys on the defense side, Natalia Veselnitskaya. This correspondence

showed that not only was the MLAT request shared with the defense counsel, but Veselnitskaya

allegedly drafted its final version that the U.S. court received from Russia. This suggests that the

process was not only insecure, but also rigged.

The damage could have been even worse if this case had been a pending criminal investigation

and the MLAT request had been shared with the subject’s counsel. This would have compromised

the entire investigation and endangered witnesses. This case raises the question of what

prosecutors could do in the case when the litigation process is corrupted. Is it better just not to ask

for mutual assistance in such cases, meaning the impossibility of opening certain cases at all, or is

it better to put in the MLAT request without confidence in the system, knowing that it could

compromise the investigation and jeopardize witnesses? This is a question that needs to be

addressed.

Tom Firestone, Baker McKenzie

I specialize in cases involving Russia and other former Soviet countries in Eastern Europe and

Central Asia. When I was a prosecutor, I often saw cases of foreigners living in New York with a

lot of money and there were great suspicions that the money is of criminal origin. The Hudson

Institute has done a lot of work trying to address the question of what to do about kleptocratic

proceeds filtering into the United States and the West. It is often very difficult to prosecute such

cases. The problem in money-laundering cases is that prosecutors need to prove the criminal origin

of the funds. For example, they might need to prove that some factory that was privatized, say, in

Irkutsk in 1997 was privatized through bribery. It is impossible to do this without assistance from

the foreign government. However, when prosecutors reach out for assistance from corrupt foreign

governments, they often get nothing. In some cases, they may even encounter sabotage in the form

of fabricated, bought and paid for exculpatory evidence, which might ruin the whole case.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Pagliery J., Sebastian C., and M. Weiss (2017, April 27). US Feared for Safety of Russian Money-laundering

Witness. CNN, available at https://www.cnn.com/2017/04/26/world/prevezon-witness-lawyer-gorokhov/index.html

! ! ! !

26!

The abuse of Interpol is another manifestation of this problem that goes back to the absence of the

rule of law in so many countries around the world. This suggests that we need to take into account

potential negative consequences of an exclusive focus on law enforcement cooperation at the

expense of the due process issues associated with it. After 9/11, there have been significant efforts

to get countries to increase their capacity to identify terrorist financing, counter money laundering,

and track flows of illegal proceeds. However, what I have seen in many cases is that the money

laundering statutes which work fine in advanced countries with relatively stable legal systems do

not work effectively in other countries where there is no rule of law.

I have seen many fabricated criminal charges in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. In

some cases, law enforcement agencies or tax authorities would find some technical violation in a

business’ paperwork and declare that the business was operating illegally, laundering its proceeds.

In such cases, the authorities extort money from businesses, threatening them with the money-

laundering charges, which is a relatively new instrument not available before. We can see this

tendency in many countries around the world. Efforts to strengthen law enforcement cooperation

are absolutely necessary, but they need to be balanced with the same attention paid to the due

process.

As far as the abuse of Red Notices is concerned, there is increased transparency now than there

used to be several years ago. Recently, Interpol published a repository of practice that describes

cases and decisions that have been reached, which can be used to advocate on behalf of clients. I

have a case right now involving an East European country where a Red Notice against the main

defendant was issued based on some fabricated domestic charges as part of a business dispute that

the subject had with certain powerful political figures in this country. They destroyed his business

and drove him out of the country. He started to fight back and they responded with the Red Notice

against him. He disclosed their corruption in the press in his home country and he also tried to get

his persecutors using the Global Magnitsky Act. At that point, the local government brought

additional charges against his wife and daughter who had nothing to do with any of his alleged

crimes. The local government also requested a Red Notice against his wife and filed a Diffusion

notice against his daughter.

I have seen many fabricated criminal charges based on money

laundering in Russia... In such cases, the Russian authorities extort

money from many businesses, threatening them with the money

laundering charges, which is a relatively new instrument not available

before. This is not specific to Russia. We can see this tendency in

many countries around the world.

! ! ! !

27!

We presented all the facts and evidence to Interpol. We showed that all the charges were essentially

related to the same scheme by corrupt government officials seeking to steal his business. We also

showed that the charges against his wife and daughter served as his punishment for having exposed

corruption in his home country. As a result, Interpol agreed to delete the charges against his wife

and daughter pending a final review. However, the father remains on the Interpol list because the

foreign government came back with additional charges just to keep him on that list. These

additional charges were published on the Interpol website. At the same time, lawyers and the

General Prosecutor’s office in his country failed to produce any domestic charges. Apparently, the

foreign government was able just to tell Interpol that they had some charges against the subject,

but these charges were not documented or substantiated in any way. This case points to the

importance of one of the recommendations in the 2018 Fair Trials report, according to which

charges should always be substantiated by a domestic arrest warrant.

This would be a very

worthwhile amendment to the Interpol system because it would decrease the amount of abusive

Red Notices.

Benjamin Wittes, Editor in Chief, Lawfare

As a starting point, I would like to use Tom Firestone’s statement that the fundamental problem in

all of these cases is countries in which the rule law does not function. I would amend this statement

and suggest that the real problem is situations where countries without a functioning rule-of-law

system have to interact with countries with the rule of law. What is the nature of the interaction

between rule-of-law and non-rule-of-law countries? There are a few points I would like to make

regarding this question. First of all, broadly speaking, the problem of the abuse of Interpol is simply

a reflection of that general interaction problem. In the globalized world where people travel

internationally, countries must have some ability to alert each other as to pending warrants and

pending legal actions against people. Countries need a system in which they resolve these

questions in the face of people’s mobility. The first broad point is that there is no escaping this

problem.

By the way, this problem shows up in a hundred different areas. For example, it relates to the

previously mentioned question of how respectful the United States court should be to a particular

judgment of a foreign court. Should the United States court enforce this judgement? For example,

until its amendment in 2005, Chapter 15 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code had not had an answer to

that question. The importance of that amendment relates to the fact that in today’s globalized

economic world, bankruptcies in one country often involve people and assets that are in another

country. In the same vein, the question regarding Section 1782 of Title 28 of the U.S. Code would

be the following: If a litigation exists in one country, but the person who is relevant to that litigation

is living, residing, hiding, or vacationing in another country, should a court in country B assist

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

!Fair Trials. (2018). Dismantling the Tools of Oppression: Ending the Misuse of Interpol. London.!

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country A with its litigation by supervising and compelling discovery? These are the questions that

need to be addressed.

The title of this panel is judicial interference and some people use the word “abuse.” In my opinion,

this word is a little bit mischievous in the nomenclature. When you build a legal system, when you

answer the abovementioned legal questions, you create certain litigation opportunities, either

broadly or narrowly. Good lawyers will advise their clients how to navigate foreign judicial

systems. We can call it interference or abuse. But I just want to describe it very neutrally as people

exploiting their legal entitlements and possible rights and making aggressive legal arguments

within the contours of rule-of-law legal systems. In such cases, it is important to isolate the policy

questions and define what is being permitted to whom that we do not want to be permitted.

To go back to the original issue about an environment in which we cannot get any routine help

with MLAT requests. These requests are an essential core of all international law enforcement

because they represent assistance provided by one sovereign state to another. Cases where foreign

governments respond to MLAT requests with a set of lies written by defense attorneys show the

extent to which their legal systems are not working. By the way, The Clarifying Lawful Overseas

Use of Data Act (or CLOUD Act) enacted in 2018 represents the other end of the spectrum. Under

the CLOUD Act, the United States government can sign agreements with foreign governments,

such as, for example, the existing agreement with the United Kingdom that allows the latter to go

into American courts directly and to seek evidence. This agreement basically delegates some of

the investigative sovereign authority of the United States to a foreign sovereign. The CLOUD Act

shows the existing range of possible solutions in relation to sovereignty.

The principal of comity, which is a fiction in international law and to some extent in domestic law,

means that all countries are equal, which is sometimes referred to as the sovereign equality of

states. According to this principle, Barbados is equal to the United States. One of the ideas inherent

in this principle of comity is that countries owe one another certain respect in relation to their legal

processes. This has always been a difficult idea from a legal perspective. However, this

fundamental question unifies the abuse of Interpol with civil discovery in U.S. courts that is used

The principal of comity… means that all countries are equal, which is

sometimes referred to as the sovereign equality of states. According to

this principle, Barbados is equal to the United States. One of the ideas

inherent in the principle of comity is that countries owe one another

certain respect in relation to their legal processes. This has always

been a difficult idea from a legal perspective.

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29!

to harass people who fled Russia to the United States. The U.S. Bankruptcy Code is also vulnerable

to such misuse. This is why we need to ask ourselves the question about the minimum standards

of the rule of law that a country needs to have before U.S. courts will show that level of comity

that is stated in Section 1728 of Title 28 and Chapter 15 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. Another

important question is about consequences of giving courts more latitude to say that they would

comply with court judgements made, say, in the United Kingdom, but not with court judgments

made, for example, in Russia. It would be difficult to write such laws.

Finally, not all failures of rule-of-law systems are the same. Russia is a good example. First, it is

possible for a country to have many forms of some rule of law, none of which represents the reality.

This is a very hard problem. Second, in some cases, the manipulation of the United States legal

system by such regimes is ancillary to the use of some other countries’ legal systems. Thus, it is a

relatively easy for the Southern District of New York to decide whether to enforce or not a

judgment against the dissident made in some Russian court. But what if the litigation takes place

not in a Russian court, but in a Dutch court? What if the initial manipulation is not the abuse of

the United States legal system but the Dutch one? Will the United States enforce the Dutch legal

judgment in such a case? This is a hard question.

The core of this discussion is all about the limits of comity when rule-of-law legal systems must

interact with non-rule-of-law systems. There is no escaping the aforementioned questions. It is a

complicated set of problems, but we should not turn away from them because of that.

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SESSION FOUR: Red Notices in Context

Introduction by the panel moderator Ellen Laipson, Director of the

International Security Program at the Schar School and Distinguished Fellow

& Chairman Emeritus, Stimson Center

This panel will analyze the issues of judicial interference and the abuse of Interpol from a broader

perspective. It will look at the problems that are manifested in abusive Red Notices as part of a

larger problem of how the interstate system works when there are shared concerns about

transnational crime, criminal activity, and terrorism. Based on their various experiences, the

speakers will provide their unique institutional perspectives on these issues. The panel will also

look at some other institutions in which information sharing, cooperation, or, perhaps, failures to

cooperate on the questions of criminality and extradition of nationals accused of crimes take place.

To open our discussion, I would invite the panelists to bring their institutional perspectives on

international law enforcement. One of the questions to discuss is how countries that have a rule-

of-law culture and tradition interact with countries that do not. We are particularly concerned with

the cases of Russia and some other authoritarian countries because we are deeply aware of how

multilateral institutions can be misused by these countries. The reason is that such countries have

a very different concept of the law as a prerogative of the executive authority rather than a rule-

of-law culture. The panel will discuss problems and challenges of cooperation with non-rule-of-

law countries on such issues as criminality and counterterrorism.

Michael Chertoff, Former Secretary of Homeland Security and Executive

Chairman, The Chertoff Group

Since 9/11, the United States has prioritized counterterrorism issues. In my capacity as the

Secretary of Homeland Security, I frequently had to engage with the Russians on these issues. We

periodically met with seven Interior Ministers from Europe, as well as the Russian Interior Minister

and the head of the FSB, to discuss areas for cooperation. At the time, the Russians had a keen

interest in counterterrorism and we were eager to see if we aligned on how to tackle these emerging

threats. This was in the 2000s and the nature of our relationship with Russia has declined since

then, but I have also engaged with the Russians on matters related to cybersecurity. As a security

advisor and consultant, I had the opportunity to participate in so-called Track 1.5 diplomacy, which

is the practice of having non-governmental, informal and unofficial contacts and activities between

private citizens or groups of non-state actors.

From my experience, I am very well aware of fundamental differences between our countries.

There may be some opportunities where we can leverage their support. But I am cognizant of the

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limitations. One of the challenges with the Russians is that the line between private activity and

government activity that exists in the West is not observed in Russia.

As far as I know, the Russian government outsourced criminal organizations to carry out their

malign operations internationally in exchange for providing government resources to assist with

cybercrime and other criminal activity. This suggests that the judicial system in Russia is skewed

by an overarching objective to make sure that individuals who are carrying out cybercrime are

protected by the Russian state in order to commit the same crimes on its behalf.

Ben Emmerson, QC, International Lawyer

The current challenge for the United States and other democratic countries is to find some ways to

examine and identify cases of manipulation and abuse of their rule-of-law systems. My experience

comes from a number of contexts in which I have found myself in opposition to the Russian

Federation. Thus, I represented the family of Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian secret

service officer who was murdered in London in 2006 using polonium as an instrument of murder,

in the public inquiry which took ten years. During that time, I became familiar with the ways in

which the Russian state engages with international structures. In that case, all what could possibly

be done to obstruct and frustrate justice was done by the Russian central authorities and the

Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, ranging from nondisclosure to

nonparticipation to provision of false information. It was a deliberate state-sponsored attempt to

disrupt and manipulate the judicial process in the United Kingdom, the objective of which was to

protect the two individuals who were conclusively proven to have committed the murder. This is

evident from the fact that after the evidence had been elicited, with traces of polonium being found

in the hotel room where the two assassins stayed during the night before the murder, Vladimir

Putin awarded the medal of honor for services to the motherland to Andrei Lugovoi, one of the

murderers.

Since then, I found myself representing the Government of Georgia in the interstate litigation

against Russia in the European Court of Human Rights for the invasion of South Ossetia and

Abkhazia in 2008 and now the Government of Ukraine in the interstate litigation in Strasburg

against Russia for the annexation of Crimea and the sponsorship of the war in eastern Ukraine. In

all of these situations, the pattern has been the same. These cases go to the very heart of the interests

[T]he Russian government used criminal organizations to carry out

their operations internationally in exchange for providing government

resources to assist with cybercrime and other criminal activity.

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32!

of the Russian state, but their behavior has been that of low-level mafia criminals. For them, it

does not really matter whether anybody else believes their explanations or not. When I cross-

examined a senior Russian general in the European Court of Human Rights and put in front of him

photographs with serial numbers from rockets sent in by the Russian forces into a civilian area in

Grozny and asked him to explain them, his reply was that they were fake, and no one died, which

was completely shameless.

The question is whether our institutions are robust enough to overcome this problem. I think when

you have a state which has repeatedly violated the fundamental principles of institutions like

Interpol, at some point those institutions must intervene to protect themselves. One of the problems

is that all of these international institutions are built upon the mythical principle of comity. In other

words, they do not have built-in safeguards that are necessary to protect themselves against

deliberate abuse by states where the line between government agencies and organized crime is

indistinguishable.

In my opinion, Interpol does not have the tools at its disposal to expose the political abuse of its

own processes. Its decisions are superficial and arbitrary. There is no real analysis or review

process. Interpol is extremely reluctant to recognize the inherent political nature of the way in

which Russia uses Red Notices. I personally do not think this is a relationship which is capable of

being remedied by minor change. There are three ways in which it can be done, though. Number

one is for Interpol to require that the CCF takes account of the identity of the National Central

Bureau which requests a Red Notice. When some case with inadequate evidence comes from the

Russian Federation that has repeatedly abused the system, there needs to be a presumption that

there is other motivation behind that case than the administration of justice. Another option for

Interpol is to consider its powers to suspend the Russian Federation from the organization for a

period of time. The final option relates to the situation where Interpol cannot defend itself against

the abuse of its system by Russia and other post-Soviet countries, which raises the question of

whether Interpol is the right vehicle for international law enforcement cooperation between rule-

of-law states.

The system operates at the moment in such a way that there are

individual defendants who are struggling to persuade Interpol that

their cases are in violation of Article 3 of Interpol’s Constitution. In

reality, though, the burden of proof ought to be reversed in those cases

because otherwise victims of abusive Red Notices are bearing the

burden of proof trying to protect our international cooperation

institutions from abuse.

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33!

These are very real issues. The system operates currently in such a way that there are individual

defendants who are struggling to persuade Interpol that their cases are in violation of Article 3 of

Interpol’s Constitution. In reality though, the burden of proof should be reversed in those cases

because otherwise victims of abusive Red Notices are bearing the burden of proof trying to protect

our international cooperation institutions from abuse. If we all agree that there needs to be an

effective and just system of international law enforcement cooperation, it should not be up to

individuals who are being hounded by the Russian authorities to try and protect that system. It

should be up to the rule-of-law democratic states to stand up and make sure that international

institutions work effectively.

Suzanne Spaulding, Senior Advisor, CSIS and Former Under Secretary DHS

I would like to expand this discussion from my experiences in dealing with nondemocratic states,

namely China and Russia, in the context of my role at DHS where I was responsible for

cybersecurity and critical infrastructure protection. In 2015, several weeks before the first official

visit of China’s President Xi to the United States, the Washington Post published an article

according to which the administration was seriously considering imposing sanctions on China for

cyberspying and other malicious cyberactivity.

China’s President Xi, who apparently wanted to

demonstrate his arrival on the world stage as an equal partner, did not want anything to mar his

visit to the United States. Thus, he sent a delegation of senior officials on an emergency basis to

the United States to see what they could do to avoid those sanctions being imposed on China.

Following several days of negotiations, the Unites States finally did reach an agreement with

China, according to which the latter agreed for the first time that countries should not steal sensitive

business information from another country for the purpose of providing a commercial advantage

to their own companies. It was a very significant agreement because previously, the line between

industrial espionage and national security espionage had not existed in China. After the 2015

agreement signed by President Xi and President Obama, there has been a dramatic decline in cyber-

activity by the Chinese.

This example shows that the bottom line in dealing with nondemocratic states is to find out what

motivates them. Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran are concerned with their regime

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nakashima, E. (2015, April 2). U.S. Establishes Sanctions Program to Combat Cyberattacks, Cyberspying.

Washington Post.

[T]he bottom line in dealing with nondemocratic states is to find out

what motivates them. Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran are

concerned with their regime preservation.

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preservation. In particular, China cares about the growth of its economy and control over

information that reaches its population. China’s economic growth requires it to have a certain

reputation on the world stage because it allows them to exert their influence and gain economic

advantage around the world. In my example, that leverage worked with China.

In contrast, the discussions between the United States and Russia around cybersecurity cooperation

did not go anywhere, as we could see in the case of Russia’s meddling in the 2016 elections. The

difference between Russia and China is that President Xi effectively controls information that gets

to the population, while President Putin is not able to do that. Instead, Putin overwhelmed the

information sphere within Russia with false information in order to create a feeling that there is no

objective truth and everyone is corrupt. This strategy has worked pretty well in Russia. Putin

knows that he has no strong economy to compete effectively around the world. This is why he has

adopted this scorched-earth policy that aims to destroy anything that might be useful to his enemy.

Russia cannot rise to the level of the United States or even China, and instead Putin tries to pull

everyone down and to show that all international institutions are corrupt. What we saw in the 2016

elections was an attempt to undermine the credibility of their outcome. In addition, their objective

was to undermine public trust in democratic institutions and in the concept of democracy and the

rule of law. Also, they went after the justice system. The objective is not only to abuse the justice

system to achieve their corrupt ends, but also to undermine public confidence in the idea of an

impartial and independent judiciary altogether. Last year, we gathered a growing body of evidence

that this is a very specific campaign aimed to take advantage of weaknesses and divisions of our

own system. We see the ways in which Russia, including President Putin’s statements, Foreign

Minister Lavrov’s statements, Russia Today, Sputnik and social media, destroy the idea of an

impartial and independent judiciary. Russia is pushing that narrative every day.

Putin knows that he has no strong economy to compete effectively

around the world. This is why he has adopted this scorched-earth

policy that aims to destroy anything that might be useful to his

enemy…The objective is not only to abuse the justice system to

achieve their corrupt ends, but also to undermine public confidence in

the idea of an impartial and independent judiciary altogether.

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CONCLUDING SESSION: Solutions and Recommendations

Introduction by the panel moderator Paul Massaro, the Helsinki Commission

The U.S. Helsinki Commission is an independent agency of the U.S. Federal Government led by

nine Senators and nine Representatives. The Commission advances comprehensive security

through monitoring all sorts of foreign interference in democratic institutions, including judicial

interference. The abuse of Interpol is one aspect of a larger trend that we are seeing today, such as

the abuse of the globalized financial and legal systems. This is why it is useful to frame the

discussion of solutions and recommendations in terms of a new foreign policy paradigm faced by

the United States and other democratic countries. Today’s globalized world can be seen as a

competition between two normative systems: one is based on democracy and the rule of law, which

includes civil society and free media, and the other is based on corruption, authoritarianism and

transnational organized crime. Unlike during the Cold War, nowadays these two systems interact

every single day. The key question is how Congress can address the problem of the abuse of the

U.S. judicial system by non-rule-of-law countries.

Charles Davidson, Publisher of The American Interest

It seems to me absurd that the United States is in the Interpol system together with Russia, an

authoritarian kleptocratic regime, or with China, which seems to have turned into an Orwellian

dystopian dictatorship. Sharing our justice system with such countries seems completely absurd.

One obvious thing that can be proposed is that free democracies withdraw from the Interpol system

and create their own system. Then they can find some way to interact with other regimes that are

problematic, that do not have any interest in liberty, that do not have rule of law.

In May 2018, I hosted via the Hudson Institute’s Kleptocracy Initiative a discussion with the

Spanish Special Prosecutor José Grinda Gonzalez and U.S. experts about investigating and

prosecuting Russian organized crime, defending democracy and the rule of law, and pushing back

against the Kremlin’s kleptocratic encroachment.

José Grinda Gonzalez was talking about the

ways he interacts with Russian law enforcement. We were puzzled as to why he interacts so much

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hudson Institute (2018, May 25). Dismantling Russian Transnational Crime Organizations: A Conversation with

José Grinda Gonzalez, available at https://www.hudson.org/events/1560-dismantling-russian-transnational-crime-

organizations-a-conversation-with-jose-grinda-gonzalez52018

Another concern is the way we deal with adversary companies that

enable nondemocratic regimes to abuse democratic systems, such as

the most prestigious law firms representing “bad guys.” In the West,

we need to reform the enabling industry used by kleptocratic states.

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36!

with them. Normal collaboration between law enforcement agencies was not what he was

describing. It is a bizarre zone indeed where democratic, free, rule of law countries interact

regarding law enforcement with authoritarian states that are actively trying to destroy democracy,

rule of law, and freedom.

Another concern is the way we deal with private sector professionals who enable nondemocratic

regimes to abuse democratic systems, such as prestigious law firms representing what Bill Btowder

calls “bad guys.” In the West, we need to reform the enabling industry used by kleptocratic states

and non-state actors.

The last point I would like to make in our discussion is that apart from the abuse of Red Notices,

there are many other ways that our judicial system is being misused by bad actors. We really need

our best minds to think about how we can shut down loopholes in our legal and financial

framework that they exploit.

Bruno Min, Senior Policy Advisor, Fair Trials

I would just like to state my opposition to this idea of suspending some Interpol member countries

for being authoritarian regimes and the idea of creating an alternative police organization only for

democratic states. First, there are some very serious problems within Interpol which need to be

fixed, but on the whole, it functions fine. Obviously, even one individual arrested on an abusive

Red Notice is a problem that needs to be addressed. But it does not mean that the whole

organization is completely useless. Second, an international police organization needs to be global

to be able to function properly. Third, regarding the development of multiple systems of police

cooperation arrangements between democratic states, there are a lot of other mechanisms in place

already that facilitate police cooperation between like-minded states, especially in the European

Union.

Another problem is the likelihood of suspension of some Interpol members. If a country like Russia

gets suspended, it does not necessarily put an end to the abuse of Red Notices. Also, side effects

of such actions could be much more dangerous, as we have seen in the Turkish example. Such

countries can use more clandestine ways of catching their opponents. The solution that Fair Trials

Red Notices do not have any legal value of their own. It is up to

Interpol member countries to decide whether they want to enforce Red

Notices. Therefore, a very simple solution for the countries is to be

better aware of what Interpol’s Red Notices are and what risks are

associated with their potential abuse by some states.

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37!

is proposing is a caution exercised by member states and Interpol regarding Red Notices. The latter

are not arrest warrants. Red Notices do not have any legal value of their own. It is up to Interpol

member countries to decide whether they want to enforce Red Notices. Therefore, a very simple

solution for countries is to be better aware of what Interpol’s Red Notices are and what risks are

associated with their potential abuse by some states.

Louise Shelley, Director of TraCCC

In our discussions, we focused mostly on authoritarian states, such as post-Soviet countries,

Turkey, and China. But the problem of the misuse of Red Notices and Interpol is broader than that.

There are problems emanating out of Latin America, not just Venezuela. The problems also come

out of some African states. For example, last week, there was an article the New York Times about

two Canadian women who were targeted by Red Notices as a result of their relationship with

Nigeria’s oligarchs.

This problem is global, and as one expert on Interpol in the last

administration said: “It used to be a problem of smaller countries and now it is bigger and more

powerful countries that are abusing this mechanism, which is a very dangerous tendency.”

One of my concerns is what is currently going on in the United States. In the spring of 2018, I was

in the U.S. immigration court in Atlanta, which reminded me of sitting in Soviet courtrooms in the

1970s. I was called down to testify in the case of a Kalmyk who had been arrested on a Red Notice.

Kalmykia is an obscure Buddhist region in southern Russia, whose former head was sanctioned

by Treasury in 2015 for providing support to the Government of Syria, including for facilitating

Syrian Government oil purchases from ISIL. The Kalmyk was sitting in detention for protesting

against Kalmykia’s leader whom the U.S. has identified as an enemy of the U.S. government.

According to the prosecutor in the Kalmyk’s case, the Russian justice system has improved in its

quality in the last six years. Also, according to the judge’s decision in that case, Russia does not

target small-scale dissidents. Such statements, which are blatantly false, undermine the quality of

our justice system and allow for detention of law abiding individuals who apply for asylum in the

United States.

This is a serious problem. We do not have enough review within DHS and awareness of various

problems with Red Notices and the increasing volume of Interpol’s alerts. This is a resource

allocation problem. As a result, the Unites States detains individuals who are courageous, who are

brave, and who are opposing people sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Levin, D. (2018, November 10). How to Date a Lot of Billionaires. The New York Times.

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Another concern in this area is a serious problem with discovery in U.S. courts. This is an

extremely important issue because Russia and other countries misuse the process of discovery to

collect financial information on their political and economic opponents. This issue deserves much

more attention because U.S. courts fail to identify various risks related to the misuse of our justice

system, as shown in a recent report by Anders Åslund.

There needs to be more education among

our judiciary on the new risks and threats that the abuse of Interpol and judicial interference pose

for the United States. In its oversight function, Congress needs to pay much more attention to what

DHS is doing regarding Red Notices and other international agreements. It does not necessarily

require new legislation but there is much that Congress could do in the role it performs in oversight

of U.S. agencies. This needs to be part of a broader understanding of the challenges that come to

our system as we address the new threats posed by the increasing prevalence of transnational crime.

Another area that deserves more attention is cybercrime, which is an increasing problem for the

United States. My recent book Dark Commerce shows the parallels between contemporary

cybercriminals with the pirates of the 1600s, who originally were engaging in piracy for their

personal profit but at some point, started engaging in piracy on behalf of the state. An example of

this is Sir Francis Drake.

Now, we are dealing with cyberpirates who also at some point were

making money for themselves, but then got offers they could not refuse and became cyberpirates

for Russia or for other states. Therefore, this is a very complex question of how to deal with

international requests related to cybercriminality, when at one point, they involve criminals, and

at another, they involve actors acting on behalf of the state. The United States still needs to figure

out a way to process and analyze this increasing tendency that has major national and global

security implications. This is not just a problem of cooperation on transnational crime, but on

transnational threats that undermine individual, national and global security. Therefore, we need

to think more broadly about this tendency while engaging with multinational institutions. We need

to be aware of new trends related to transnational crime and their implications for our legal

institutions because the rule of law is absolutely central to our democracy. When the rule of law is

undermined and abused, this undermines our democracy.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Åslund, A. (2018). Russia’s Interference in the US Judiciary. Washington, D.C.: Atlantic Council.

Shelley, L. (2018). Dark Commerce: How a New Illicit Economy Is Threatening Our Future. Princeton University

Press.

There needs to be more education among our judiciary on the new

risks and threats that the abuse of Interpol and judicial interference

pose for the United States… It is not always necessarily a legislative

process, but it is part of the role that Congress plays in oversight of

how some of U.S. agencies need to operate and what needs to be done

to increase awareness about new threats of transnational crime.

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39!

Participant Biographies

Michael Chertoff is the Executive Chairman and Co-Founder of The Chertoff Group, a global

advisory services firm that applies security expertise, technology insights and policy intelligence

to help clients build resilient organizations, gain competitive advantage and accelerate growth. In

this role, he counsels global clients on how to effectively manage cyber risk while incorporating a

proper mix of people, process, and technology to achieve their security goals. He serves on the

board of directors of several security companies and is a frequent speaker on security and risk

management issues. From 2005 to 2009, Mr. Chertoff served as Secretary of the U.S. Department

of Homeland Security. Earlier in his career, Mr. Chertoff served as a federal judge on the U.S.

Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and head of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Criminal

Division. He is the author of the recently published book Exploding Data: Reclaiming Our

Cybersecurity in the Digital Age.

Ariel Cohen L.L.B., Ph.D., is an international recognized authority on the rule of law; human

rights; property rights; governmental expropriations; crime and corruption; and other aspects of

state/business relations in Eastern and Central Europe, Russia, Eurasia and the Middle East. He

directs highly sensitive policy interventions on behalf of corporations and high net worth clients,

including legal action, public relations, and government relations at the highest levels. Dr. Cohen

has extensive expertise in Russian/Eurasian politics and economics, with particular emphasis on

international energy and security policy. He is a Senior Fellow with the non-profit International

Tax and Investment Center (ITIC) and is Director of their Energy, Growth, and Security Program

(EGS). Dr. Cohen also holds a Senior Research Fellowship at the Global Energy Center and

Eurasia Center at the Atlantic Council with a regional focus on Russia/Eurasia, Eastern Europe

and the Middle East. Ariel is also the Principal of International Market Analysis, a boutique

advisory firm. For over 21 years, until July 2014, he served as a Senior Research Fellow in Russian

and Eurasian Studies and International Energy Policy at the Heritage Foundation. He headed the

Russian Policy Project, and has led Global Energy Competitiveness Project, which examined

investment energy sector environments among principal energy-producing states. College. He is a

Member of the Council of Foreign Relations, American Bar Association, and American Council

on Germany.

Charles Davidson is Publisher of The American Interest. He co-founded the think tank Global

Financial Integrity with Raymond Baker in 2006, chaired its Board, was instrumental in the

founding of the FACT Coalition with Jack Blum and Conrad Martin, and instigated and was

Executive Producer of We’re Not Broke (premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2012). On

the subject of Kleptocracy, the program he directed at Hudson has published twelve papers, and

held innumerable events -- he has testified multiple times on the Hill and co-authored various op-

eds. Prior to 2005, Davidson spent his career in the information technology industry, in various

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technical and managerial functions, as CIO of a major European logistics company (“Walon”),

and most recently in a venture capital partnership (Lafayette Development LLC) where he

negotiated early-stage and first-round deals, served on the boards of various private companies.

He is a graduate of Bowdoin College and Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business.

Robert L. Deitz is a Professor of Public Policy at George Mason University. He was Senior

Councilor to the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 2006 until February 2009. From

September 1998 to September 2006 he was the General Counsel at the National Security Agency

where he represented the NSA in all legal matters. He has also held positions as Acting General

Counsel at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and as Acting Deputy General Counsel,

Intelligence, at the Department of Defense. Professor Deitz began his career as a law clerk to the

Honorable Justices Douglas, Stewart, and White of the United States Supreme Court. He has also

been in private practice and was Special Assistant to Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher

and to Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare Joseph Califano during the Carter

Administration. Professor Deitz received his J.D. (magna cum laude) from Harvard Law School,

where he was the Supreme Court Note and Note Editor of the Harvard Law Review. He received

an M.P.A from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton

University, where he studied international politics and economics. He majored in English literature

at Middlebury College where he received a B.A. (cum laude) and became a member of Phi Beta

Kappa.

Ben Emmerson QC, is an international lawyer, specializing in national security and counter-

terrorism, international human rights and humanitarian law, and international and extra-territorial

criminal law. He regularly represents states, heads of state and private clients on issues connected

with international justice, national security, and rule of law issues. He was formerly Special

Adviser to the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, and Special Adviser to the Appeals

Chamber of UN-backed Khmer Rouge Tribunal in Cambodia. Between 2011 and 2017 Emmerson

was UN Special Rapporteur on Counter-Terrorism and Human Rights. He currently sits as a judge

on the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and the Former

Yugoslavia. He is a Visiting Professor at the University of Oxford, an Honorary Fellow of

Mansfield College, Oxford, a Master of the Bench at Middle Temple and a Deputy High Court

Judge in the UK.

Tom Firestone is a partner in the law firm Baker McKenzie, where his practice focuses on white

collar criminal defense at the international level. He serves as co-chair of the firm’s North America

Government Enforcement Practice and as a member of the firm’s Global Compliance and

Investigations Steering Committee. Prior to joining Baker McKenzie, he spent 14 years with the

US Department of Justice. At DOJ, he worked as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District

of New York, where he specialized in transnational organized crime cases. He also served as the

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DOJ Resident Legal Adviser at the US Embassy in Moscow, where he worked on issues related to

organized crime and corruption in Russia. He is currently representing three individuals in

proceedings before Interpol and recently obtained favorable rulings from Interpol on behalf of

clients who were the subjects of a Red Notice and a diffusion.

Mike Geoffroy, NSI Visiting Fellow, Scalia Law School, GMU, former US General Counsel for

the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and Deputy Chief of Staff/ Chief Counsel for the

House Committee on Homeland Security. Michael Geffroy is Senior Vice President in HSBC

Bank USA, N.A.’s Office of Public Affairs, where he is responsible for public policy and

government affairs at the federal level. Prior to joining HSBC, Mr. Geffroy had extensive

experience in the U.S Congress, and in the Executive Branch. Most recently, he was the General

Counsel for the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (2014-2017), and he previously

served in the U.S. House of Representatives as the Deputy Chief of Staff and Chief Counsel to the

Committee on Homeland Security (2012-2014). Mr. Geffroy’s tenure in the Executive branch

includes his time as the Assistant Director for Enforcement at the Department of the Treasury’s

Office of Foreign Assets Control, Counselor to the Assistant Attorney General of the Criminal

Division, Department of Justice, and as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the District of Columbia.

Mr. Geffroy is a Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve (ret). His military service

includes tours of duty in Afghanistan and Iraq. Mr. Geffroy is admitted to practice law in the

District of Columbia, Maryland, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts. He is a graduate of Brown

University and the Columbus School of Law at the Catholic University of America.

Seth Hettena is an investigative journalist and author of author of Trump/Russia: A Definitive

History and Feasting on the Spoils. His work has been featured in The New York Times, The New

Yorker, Rolling Stone, The Los Angeles Times, and The American Lawyer. Hettena is a former

correspondent for The Associated Press. He lives in San Diego.

Melissa Hooper is a lawyer and rule of law expert at Human Rights First. Her recent work focuses

on anti-democratic developments that threaten human rights and rule of law in Central and Eastern

Europe, and Russia’s contributions to the deterioration of norms in the region. Prior to Human

Rights First, she was Regional Director for the American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative

based in Moscow, where she led anti-corruption programs focused on reforms to procurement and

customs systems, as well as pro-transparency projects focused on provision of services at the

municipal level. Her recent writing assesses attempted reforms in Poland that undermine judicial

independence and urges the U.S. government to apply specific accountability measures such as

Global Magnitsky sanctions to stem Russian-linked corruption in Hungary.

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Ellen Laipson is the Director of the International Security program at the Schar School of Policy

and Government at George Mason University. She joins GMU from the Stimson Center, where

she was president and CEO (2002-2015) and continues as President Emeritus and Distinguished

Fellow. Her tenure at Stimson followed a quarter century of government service. She serves on a

number of academic and other non-governmental boards related to international security and

diplomacy and is a columnist for worldpoliticsreview.com. Her last post in government was Vice

Chair of the National Intelligence Council (1997-2002). She also worked on the State Department's

policy planning staff, the National Security Council staff, and the Congressional Research Service.

A member of the Council on Foreign Relations, she currently serves on the Advisory Councils of

the International Institute of Strategic Studies, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, and

Georgetown University’s Institute for the Study of Diplomacy. From 2003 to 2015, she was a

member of the board of the Asia Foundation. She was a member of the CIA External Advisory

Panel from 2006-2009, President Obama's Intelligence Advisory Board from 2009-2013, and on

the Secretary of State's Foreign Affairs Policy Board 2011-2014. Laipson has an M.A. from the

School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University and an AB from Cornell

University.

Paul Massaro joined the U.S. Helsinki Commission in 2013. He serves as the policy advisor

responsible for OSCE “second dimension” issues, or economic and environmental policy. His

portfolio includes topics such as anti-corruption, sanctions, finance, trade, Arctic issues, and

energy security. He is also responsible for Mongolia and the OSCE Asian Partners for Cooperation

(Japan, Korea, Thailand, Australia, and Afghanistan). Paul holds a Master of Public Policy with

a specialization in international security and economic policy from the Maryland School of Public

Policy, where he graduated top of his class. He also holds two bachelor’s degrees in government

and politics and Germanic studies from the University of Maryland, College Park, where he

graduated summa cum laude. He is also fluent in German.

Bruno Min is the Senior Policy Advisor at Fair Trials. Fair Trials is a global criminal justice

watchdog focused on improving the right to a fair trial in accordance with international standards.

Since 2012 Fair Trials has been working to highlight the misuse of INTERPOL’s Red Notices and

Diffusions as part of its broader campaign to improve respect for human rights in cross-border

criminal cases. Bruno leads Fair Trials’ legal and policy work in the London office, focusing on

the organization’s work on cross-border justice, and he authored Fair Trials’ latest report on the

misuse of INTERPOL ‘Dismantling the Tools of Oppression’ in 2018. Before joining Fair Trials,

Bruno gained experience at a number of charities and organizations, and at a London firm

specializing in asylum and human rights.

Bruce Misamore from early 2001 until the end of 2005, was the Chief Financial Officer of

YUKOS Oil Company in Moscow, Russia, and served as a member of the YUKOS Management

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Committee. YUKOS was the then largest Russian oil company and the 4th largest oil producing

company in the world. For periods during that time he was Deputy Chairman of the Management

Committee and a member of the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors. Since 2005 Mr.

Misamore has been one of the leaders of the successful efforts in courts around the world to hold

the Russian Federation responsible for the expropriation of YUKOS. Prior to joining YUKOS, Mr.

Misamore had been Senior Vice President – Finance and Treasurer of PennzEnergy Company. Mr.

Misamore’s prior positions also included Vice President and Treasurer of Pennzoil Company,

various middle and upper middle financial management financial positions with Marathon Oil

Company/USX Corporation, investment portfolio management for a large trust company and

teaching finance at Bowling Green State University (BGSU). In 2004 he was named the top

CEO/CFO in Russia for investor relations by IR magazine, and was recognized as an Outstanding

Graduate of BGSU. An active alumnus of BGSU, he is a member of its President’s Club, the

Dean’s Council of the College of Business Administration, has served on the Board, the Executive

Committee and was Treasurer of the BGSU Foundation and has been a member of the Campaign

Steering Committees for both of BGSU’s fund raising campaigns. He earned both his BSBA in

finance in 1972 and his MBA in 1973 from BGSU. Mr. Misamore was born in Findlay, Ohio in

1950.

Jaimie Nawaday is a partner at Kelley Drye & Warren LLP. She focuses her practice on

government investigations, white collar defense, and civil litigation. She advises and represents

organizations and individuals in government investigations relating to potential violations of

federal criminal law, the False Claims Act, and asset forfeiture matters. She has also repeatedly

appeared on MSNBC to explain and comment on developing issues in federal criminal law. As

an Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York (SDNY) for seven years,

Jaimie served in both the Civil and Criminal Divisions and successfully handled both civil and

criminal jury trials. Jaimie’s broad experience in handling large, complex cases gives her a unique

perspective in guiding clients through government investigations and high stakes litigation. She

uses that experience to steer companies through a range of issues that accompany challenging

investigations, including parallel inquiries from regulators and press coverage. She also represents

companies operating in the state-legal cannabis market both on compliance issues and in law

enforcement or regulator inquiries. As a member of the Civil Division’s Civil Fraud Unit, Jaimie

spearheaded significant fraud cases, notably, the Bank of America fraud trial, the first case the

Department of Justice tried under FIRREA and the first trial by the Department of Justice against

a major financial institution in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. In 2015, Jaimie received the

Attorney General’s Distinguished Service Award in connection with negotiating a global

settlement of federal and state civil fraud actions. As a prosecutor, Jaimie served as co-lead trial

counsel in a month-long RICO conspiracy trial that involved securities and health care fraud and

money-laundering schemes and was co-lead trial counsel in a civil asset forfeiture trial—the first

such case that the government tried in more than seven years. Jaimie was also a member of the

Criminal Division’s Money Laundering and Asset Forfeiture Unit.

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Ismail Shahtakhtinski is the founder and principal attorney at I.S. Law Firm, PLLC, an

immigration law firm representing individuals and organizations in a broad range of immigration

matters with an emphasis on US asylum law. Ismail was born in the Republic of Azerbaijan during

the Soviet Union and lived there through Azerbaijan’s post-Soviet transitional times until he

immigrated to the United States 18 years ago. Ismail is a graduate of Loyola University School of

Law with a degree of Juris Doctor. He is an active member of American Immigration Lawyers

Association (AILA) and is licensed to practice law in 4 states. Through over 12 years of his

practice, Ismail represented many asylum seekers from Russia, FSU countries and parts of the

world, including dissidents who have been falsely reported to the Interpol on account of their

political opinions. Over the years of his practice, Ismail participated as a speaker on panels of

many forums and conferences and had been interviewed by international news broadcasts on

developments in U.S. immigration laws.

Dr. Louise Shelley is the Omer L. and Nancy Hirst Endowed Chair and a University Professor at

Schar School of Policy and Government, George Mason University. She founded and directs the

Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center (TraCCC). Her most recent books are:

Dirty Entanglements: Corruption, Crime and Terrorism (Cambridge University Press, 2014) and

Human Trafficking: A Global Perspective (Cambridge 2010). Her latest book, Dark Commerce:

How a New Illicit Economy is Threatening our Future (Princeton University Press) was written

while an inaugural Andrew Carnegie fellow. Professor Shelley has received Guggenheim,

Fulbright, Rockefeller, NSF and many other fellowships and grants to support her research. She

served for six years on Global Agenda Councils of the World Economic Forum first on the illicit

trade council and then as the inaugural co-chair of organized crime. Dr. Shelley appears frequently

in the media, lectures widely at universities and multinational bodies and has testified repeatedly

before Congress and foreign and multinational organizations on financial crime and illicit flows,

illicit trade, human trafficking, and the crime-terror relationship. She is a life member of the

Council on Foreign Relations and the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime.

Suzanne Spaulding served as Under Secretary for cybersecurity and critical infrastructure

protection at the Department of Homeland Security, with a rank equivalent to a four-star general,

managing a $3 billion budget with a workforce of 18,000. She led the transformation of budget,

acquisition, analytic, and operational processes and initiated the strategic planning and multi-year

legislative effort that led to the establishment of the first new operational component since the

Department was created, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).

Throughout her career, Ms. Spaulding has advised CEOs, boards, and government policymakers

on how to manage complex security risks, across all industry sectors. She served in Republican

and Democratic Administrations and for both sides of the aisle in Congress. She was General

Counsel for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and Minority Staff Director for the U.S.

House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. She also spent six years

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at the Central Intelligence Agency, where she was Legal Adviser to the Director of Central

Intelligence’s Nonproliferation Center. She is currently Senior Adviser for Homeland Security at

the Center for Strategic and International Studies; on the Board of Directors for George

Washington University’s Center for Cyber & Homeland Security; the Advisory Board of Harvard

University’s Defending Digital Democracy project; and the faculty of the National Association of

Corporate Directors.

Benjamin Wittes is a senior fellow in Governance Studies at The Brookings Institution. He co-

founded and is the editor-in-chief of the Lawfare blog, which is devoted to sober and serious

discussion of "Hard National Security Choices," and is a member of the Hoover Institution's Task

Force on National Security and Law. He is the author of Detention and Denial: The Case for

Candor After Guantanamo, published in November 2011, co-editor of Constitution 3.0: Freedom

and Technological Change, published in December 2011, and editor of Campaign 2012: Twelve

Independent Ideas for Improving American Public Policy (Brookings Institution Press, May 2012).

He is also writing a book on data and technology proliferation and their implications for security.

He is the author of Law and the Long War: The Future of Justice in the Age of Terror, published

in June 2008 by The Penguin Press, and the editor of the 2009 Brookings book, Legislating the

War on Terror: An Agenda for Reform. Between 1997 and 2006, he served as an editorial writer

for The Washington Post specializing in legal affairs. Before joining the editorial page staff of The

Washington Post, Wittes covered the Justice Department and federal regulatory agencies as a

reporter and news editor at Legal Times. His writing has also appeared in a wide range of journals

and magazines including The Atlantic, Slate, The New Republic, The Wilson Quarterly, The

Weekly Standard, Policy Review, and First Things. Benjamin Wittes was born in Boston,

Massachusetts. He graduated from Oberlin College in 1990, and he has a black belt in taekwondo.