UK government accused of supporting Wagner head’s libel action
Just as the United States said it is set to announce more sanctions against Russian private military outfit the Wagner Group, a news report has claimed that the UK government had given lawyers special permission to bypass its own sanctions in order to help Wagner’s founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, sue a British journalist.
On Friday 20 January, White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said that the US Treasury Department will designate Wagner as a significant Transnational Criminal Organization. The US action against Wagner would freeze any US assets of Wagner and prohibit Americans from providing funds, goods, or services to the group.
‘With these actions, and more to come, our message to any company that is considering providing support to Wagner is this: Wagner is a criminal organization that is committing widespread atrocities and human rights abuses, and we will work relentlessly to identify, disrupt, expose, and target those assisting Wagner,’ Kirby said.
Meanwhile, UK-based investigative journalism website OpenDemocracy has reported that British lawyers had received government dispensation to bypass sanctions in order to help Prigozhin sue British journalist Eliot Higgins in 2021. It reported that a vast cache of hacked emails showed that the UK Treasury issued special licences in 2021 to let the oligarch override sanctions and launch an aggressive libel suit against Higgins.
The legal action against Higgins followed revelations by his website Bellingcat about Wagner’s shadowy operations. The case collapsed in March 2022, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Key details of how the sanctioned businessman, known as ‘Putin’s chef’, was able to pursue the legal attack have remained a secret until now. The OpenDemocracy report revealed that, at a time when Prigozhin was under UK sanctions, London law firm Discreet Law received government approval to engage with Prigozhin.
Since sanctions prevented Prigozhin from coming to London, the UK government gave permission for his British lawyers to fly to St Petersburg so they could meet face-to-face and finalise the libel action.
‘This legal action was revenge for Bellingcat’s articles on Prigozhin being cited in EU sanctions against him,’ Higgins tweeted this week. ‘We were lucky his lawyers pulled out, otherwise it could have cost £100,000s to fight a case that is clearly illegitimate.’
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/prigozhin-government-russia-ukraine-hack-libel-slapp/
