    [Joint House and Senate Hearing, 115 Congress]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                        THE LONG ARM OF INJUSTICE: DID A
                        U.N. COMMISSION FOUNDED TO FIGHT
                          CORRUPTION HELP THE KREMLIN
                           DESTROY A RUSSIAN FAMILY?

    =======================================================================

                                    HEARING

                                   BEFORE THE

                COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE

                         ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS

                                 SECOND SESSION

                                   __________

                                 APRIL 27, 2018

                                   __________

                           Printed for the use of the
                Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe

                                 [CSCE 115-2-3]

    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                           Available via www.csce.gov

                                     __________

                        U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
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                COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE

                        LEGISLATIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS

                  HOUSE				SENATE
    CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey 	ROGER WICKER, Mississippi,
              Co-Chairman			  Chairman
    ALCEE L. HASTINGS, Florida		BENJAMIN L. CARDIN. Maryland
    ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama		JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
    MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas		CORY GARDNER, Colorado
    STEVE COHEN, Tennessee			MARCO RUBIO, Florida
    RICHARD HUDSON, North Carolina		JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire
    RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois		THOM TILLIS, North Carolina
    SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas		TOM UDALL, New Mexico
    GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin			SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island

                         EXECUTIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS

                          Vacant, Department of State
                         Vacant, Department of Commerce
                         Vacant, Department of Defense

                                      [ii]

                        THE LONG ARM OF INJUSTICE: DID A

                        U.N. COMMISSION FOUNDED TO FIGHT

                          CORRUPTION HELP THE KREMLIN

                           DESTROY A RUSSIAN FAMILY?

                                  ----------

                                 April 27, 2018

                                 COMMISSIONERS

                                                                       Page
    Hon. Christopher H. Smith, Co-Chairman, Commission on
      Security and Cooperation in Europe.............................     1

    Hon. Randy Hultgren, Commissioner, Commission on Security and
      Cooperation in Europe..........................................     9

    Hon. Sheila Jackson Lee, Commissioner, Commission on
      Security and Cooperation in Europe.............................    19

                                   WITNESSES

    Bill Browder, Founding Director, Global Magnitsky Campaign for
      Justice........................................................     5

    Victoria Sandoval, Criminal and Human Rights Attorney
      Representing the Bitkov Family.................................     9

    Rolando Alvarado, Attorney Representing the Bitkov Family and
      Professor of Law and Founding Partner, Corpolegal..............    12

                                    APPENDIX

    Prepared statement of Hon. Christopher H. Smith..................    25

    Prepared statement of Hon. Roger F. Wicker.......................    28

    Prepared statement of Hon. Marco Rubio...........................    30

    Prepared statement of Hon. James Lankford........................    32

    Prepared statement of Hon. Michael S. Lee........................    33

    Prepared statement of Bill Browder...............................    34

    Prepared statement of Victoria Sandoval..........................    39

    Prepared statement of Rolando Alvarado...........................    45

                            MATERIAL FOR THE RECORD

    Response of Bill Browder to questions for the record submitted by
      Hon. James McGovern............................................    56

    Letter from VTB Bank to Members of Congress......................    61

    Affidavit of Harold Augusto Flores confessing that he was
      threatened by CICIG............................................    63

    Medical report on Anastasia Bitkov issued by the National
      Forensic Science Institute.....................................    67

    Medical report on Vladimir Rodriguez [Bitkov] after release from
      a Guatemalan orphanage.........................................    70

                        THE LONG ARM OF INJUSTICE: DID A
                        U.N. COMMISSION FOUNDED TO FIGHT
                          CORRUPTION HELP THE KREMLIN
                           DESTROY A RUSSIAN FAMILY?

                                  ----------

                                 April 27, 2018

               Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe

                                                 Washington, DC

        The hearing was held at 9:20 a.m. in Room 2172, Rayburn
    House Office Building, Washington, DC, Hon. Christopher H.
    Smith, Co-Chairman, Commission on Security and Cooperation in
    Europe, presiding.
        Commissioners present:  Hon. Christopher H. Smith, Co-
    Chairman, Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe;
    Hon. Randy Hultgren, Commissioner, Commission on Security and
    Cooperation in Europe; and Hon. Sheila Jackson Lee,
    Commissioner, Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe.
        Witnesses present:  Bill Browder, Founding Director, Global
    Magnitsky Campaign for Justice; Victoria Sandoval, Criminal and
    Human Rights Attorney Representing the Bitkov Family; and
    Rolando Alvarado, Attorney Representing the Bitkov Family and
    Professor of Law and Founding Partner, Corpolegal.

    HON. CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, CO-CHAIRMAN, COMMISSION ON SECURITY
                       AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE

        Mr. Smith. The hearing will come to order, and good
    morning.
        The Russian Government regularly pursues its vendettas
    beyond its borders, harassing and even murdering Russian
    emigres abroad, people who are on the Putin circle's target
    list for various reasons. The poisoning of Sergei and Yulia
    Skripal in England is one of the most recent examples to reach
    the news.
        The Kremlin's sadistic pursuit of the Bitkov family is, in
    its way, just as shocking as the cruel murder of Litvinenko and
    the attempted murders of the Skripals. The Bitkovs are still
    alive today, but they have been hounded for over a decade to
    the opposite ends of the world and beyond the limits of human
    endurance merely for resisting Putin's favorites who sought to
    take over their successful paper manufacturing company.
        More shocking, the facts of the case strongly indicate--and
    we will hear testimony on this today--that the United Nations
    International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala, or
    CICIG, became deeply involved in the Kremlin's persecution of
    the Bitkov family--indeed, that CICIG acted as the Kremlin's
    operational agent in brutalizing and tormenting the Bitkov
    family.
        Congress has a special responsibility in this matter
    because the United States is one of the largest contributors to
    CICIG, to their budget. There has been little congressional
    oversight of CICIG. It is clearly time for that to change.
        In the 1990s, Igor and Irina Bitkov built the North-West
    Timber Company, acquiring and modernizing old factories to
    increase paper production. As their company grew, the Bitkovs
    took loans from several Russian state banks to finance further
    modernization. Their business prospered, grew to a value of
    hundreds of millions of dollars, and the family was approached
    by a powerful bank executive who sought to buy a majority share
    in the company at a significantly below-market rate. Other
    officials asked Irina to become politically involved in
    President Vladimir Putin's party. When the Bitkovs refused,
    things got very, very ugly.
        Their 16-year-old daughter, Anastasia, was kidnapped for
    several days, drugged, and repeatedly raped. Her parents
    ransomed her, paying the money to policemen who said that they
    were go-betweens to the kidnappers. Then the banks suddenly
    called in the loans, even though the Bitkovs had excellent
    credit. The family was threatened with imprisonment and death.
        Fearing for their lives, the family fled Russia. They found
    what they thought was legal refuge in Guatemala with the help
    of a Guatemalan law firm. They acquired Guatemalan passports,
    bought a house, learned Spanish, and gave birth to their second
    child, Vladimir. But the Kremlin caught up with them, and VTB
    Bank--one of Russia's biggest state-controlled banks, often
    referred to as Putin's piggybank--filed a complaint against
    them in Guatemala alleging use of false identification
    documents.
        While we don't know exactly what transpired internally to
    CICIG and the Guatemalan state agencies that work with them, it
    appears to have been taken up by the Guatemalan state and
    CICIG. In any case, the Bitkovs suddenly found themselves
    catapulted into what has become for them a horror that is
    without end.
        On January 15th, 2015, Igor, Irina, Anastasia, and Vladimir
    were awoken by an armed raid on their home. Seventy or so armed
    policemen woke them up, took them away, and spent 20 hours
    tearing apart their home and their office.
        It got much worse. The Bitkovs were put into cages for
    several days. Their daughter--remember, she had been kidnapped
    and repeatedly raped years earlier--was denied medication and
    now suffered a nervous breakdown. As the ordeal continued, she
    would later make multiple suicide attempts. Their infant son
    was torn away from them, not even permitted to stay with
    friends, and sent to an orphanage where he sustained facial
    injuries, a chipped tooth, conjunctivitis, lost the ability to
    speak. When the family friends recovered him, they found that
    even when given food little Vladimir immediately began hiding
    it under his shirt.
        I will not say more now about the Bitkovs' harrowing
    ordeal. Their lawyers will speak to that, as will Bill Browder.
    Suffice it to say Igor, Irina, and Anastasia have remained
    incarcerated since January 2015.
        In January of this year, despite an earlier Appeals Court
    ruling that the Bitkovs' alleged offense was only
    administrative in nature and punishable with a fine, Igor was
    sentenced to 19 years in prison, and Irina and Anastasia were
    sentenced to 14 years each. These sentences were far harsher
    than those given to Guatemalan officials who perpetrated the
    sale of passports. They are harsher than sentences given to
    rapists and to murderers.
        What was CICIG's role in all of this? I would note Bill
    Browder in his testimony will point out--and I quote him, in
    pertinent part--``Inexplicably, VTB Bank gained the legal
    status as an `interested party' in the Migration Case against
    the Bitkovs with the support of CICIG. In January 2015, a
    criminal case against the Bitkovs was opened at the direction
    of CICIG.'' And as he points out, as I pointed out as well,
    immediately after that, ``70 armed police officers raided the
    Bitkovs' home; arrested Irina, Igor, and Anastasia; and
    detained them in cages behind the parking garage in the main
    court building in Guatemala City.''
        We need to know how this happened. What was the complicity?
    Where has the investigation been by our government, by the
    United States Department of State Inspector General? There are
    a number of venues that would lend themselves to a very
    thorough investigation. Where's the investigation by the United
    Nations? All of these things are something that we are going to
    pursue very, very aggressively.
        CICIG was invited to participate in this event. And when
    you hear people say, Oh, they're a U.N. agency, they can't come
    and testify, let me just point out to everyone, I wrote our
    trafficking laws for the United States of America. It's called
    the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000. It is our
    landmark law on combating sex and labor trafficking. When I
    discovered that in the Democratic Republic of Congo U.N.
    peacekeepers were raping little children--these are the
    peacekeepers--I convened four hearings, traveled to D.R. Congo,
    went to Goma where the peacekeepers were, and invited the U.N.
    to come and give testimony. Now, under our rules, they weren't
    sworn in or were welcomed as absolute witnesses to the
    committee, but we have a very good way of having that kind of
    testimony.
        They gave us a briefing. It's a distinction without a
    difference. And Jane Holl Lute, who was the top peacekeeping
    person--who was very much against what was happening there but
    worked for the United Nations, No. 2--she came, and she sat
    right there and gave a full, thorough accounting, and also a
    proactive approach as to what would be done to hopefully end
    this abuse by U.N. peacekeepers. I've done it other times. Kofi
    Annan's chief of staff also sat here and testified. So CICIG is
    invited. I want to ask them questions. But they declined to be
    here.
        Just yesterday afternoon, let me point out to our friends
    and our witnesses, the Constitutional Court of Guatemala, the
    country's highest court, upheld an earlier decision by a lower
    court that had granted Bitkov's appeal to be considered
    migrants, and therefore under international law not able to be
    tried as criminals. It is not yet clear what this ruling will
    mean. It seems to mean that the family could be released from
    prison, but that they also could be deported back to Russia.
    And that would be unconscionable.
        So I want to make, again, the appeal to the Guatemalan
    Government, to CICIG, to our government, to the United Nations,
    that this is the time to be focused on restoring this family as
    much as humanly possible and to provide them protection. They
    were refugees fleeing a Putin hit on them and their family, and
    to be treated like this is just--it's unconscionable.
        You know, I've been in Congress 38 years. I chair the Human
    Rights Subcommittee for the Foreign Affairs Committee, co-chair
    the Helsinki Commission and have been on that commission since
    1983, I've been to Russia many times when it was the Soviet
    Union. To know the way the Putin government follows people that
    they are in disagreement with, the way they rob and murder and
    rape--and again, we've got Bill Browder here, who motivated the
    passage of the Magnitsky Act--I just want to thank him and our
    witnesses for being here, because that takes bravery. People
    should see some of the emails we've gotten. That, too, is
    unconscionable, and I won't get into that now.
        With this hearing, I'd like to now introduce our
    distinguished witnesses, beginning first with Bill Browder, who
    has often been a witness before the Commission on Security and
    Cooperation in Europe. He is a true human rights advocate
    fighting for the weak and most vulnerable; has done it so
    effectively, starting with Sergei Magnitsky. And now the Global
    Magnitsky Act is a tool that the U.S. Department of State and
    even other governments are beginning to adopt as a way of
    holding individuals to account when they commit crimes against
    humanity and human rights abuses all over the world.
        Bill is the founder and CEO of Hermitage Capital
    Management, which was at one time the investment advisor to the
    largest foreign investment fund in Russia. Many of you may
    remember that authorities from the government of Russia
    arrested, tortured, and killed his lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, in
    November 2009. And since then, Mr. Browder has sought justice
    for Magnitsky and, again, others persecuted by corrupt
    officials from the government of Russia and governments
    everywhere else.
        Without objection, his full resume will be made a part of
    the record. But I want to thank him for his extraordinary
    leadership.
        Then we'll hear from Victoria Sandoval, who is a criminal
    and human rights attorney who represents the Bitkov family. She
    has 15 years of experience in different areas of the law and
    provided technical advice to the Supreme Court of Justice of
    Guatemala.
        Then, Rolando Alvarado is the founding partner of a law
    firm who represents the Bitkov family. He is an expert in cyber
    matters and has received related training in the United States
    Department of Justice on those matters. Mr. Alvarado has
    advised Guatemalan Government ministers and legislators. And
    again, his full resume will be made a part of the record as
    well.
        But I'd like to now yield such time as he may consume to
    Mr. Bill Browder.

    BILL BROWDER, FOUNDING DIRECTOR, GLOBAL MAGNITSKY CAMPAIGN FOR
                                JUSTICE

        Mr. Browder. Co-Chairman Smith, thank you very much for
    inviting me here to this hearing. I'm here today to present the
    story of the Bitkov family to the Helsinki Commission.
        As you know, Sergei Magnitsky was my lawyer. When he was
    murdered by the Russian Government for uncovering corruption, I
    started a campaign for justice, which led to this commission
    spearheading the Magnitsky Act in 2012 and the Global Magnitsky
    Act in 2016.
        I also wrote a book about the Magnitsky story entitled
    ``Red Notice.'' Following the publication of the book, many
    people got in touch with me from around the world to share
    their stories.
        And one of those people was a woman named Irina Bitkov.
    Irina Bitkov shared a horrific story of how she was persecuted
    in the same way as Sergei Magnitsky, and she and her family
    fled their persecutors from Russia and ended up in Guatemala--
    to terrible results, which I will explain in greater detail.
        I'm here today to share the Bitkovs' story because they
    can't be here today to do it themselves. They are currently in
    Guatemalan prison, where Igor Bitkov, the father, is serving a
    19-year prison sentence; Irina and her daughter, Anastasia, are
    serving 14-year prison sentences for passport violations.
        I'd like to point out that I have no business relationships
    with the Bitkovs. I am receiving no compensation for my
    advocacy here today. I'm here today because of the terrible,
    unconscionable injustice that they've been subject to, and I
    want to do something about it.
        The Bitkov story starts in the 1990s, when Igor and Irina
    Bitkov became the owners of a successful pulp and paper
    business called the North-West Timber Company. Over the 1990s
    they built their business, and it reached $80 million in
    profits, and it was valued at roughly $400 million.
        In the course of their business, the Bitkov family, through
    their company, obtained loans from Sberbank, VTB, and Gazprom,
    all state-owned banks, to upgrade their facilities. After the
    loans were given, one of the bankers approached the Bitkovs and
    asked them to sell 51 percent of their business for $25
    million. Obviously, since their business was worth many
    multiples of that, they refused.
        Following this unwanted takeover request or attempt, a
    terrible trauma befell the Bitkov family. At the time, their
    daughter, Anastasia, was 16 years old. She was kidnapped in St.
    Petersburg. The kidnappers demanded a ransom, which took the
    family 3 days to accumulate. They paid the kidnappers the
    ransom. Anastasia was released. But when she was safely back
    home, the family discovered that she had been drugged and
    repeatedly raped by her kidnappers. The ordeal left Anastasia
    deeply traumatized and set off a cascade of psychiatric
    ailments, which require medication and treatment to this day.
        Following that, and in a further escalation of the attempts
    to take over their company, the Russian state banks
    simultaneously called in their $158 million of loans, forcing
    the company into bankruptcy. During the bankruptcy proceedings,
    the equipment of their facilities was sold at a fraction of its
    true value.
        The Bitkovs were then told that they would be imminently
    arrested. This was the moment that the Bitkov family decided to
    flee Russia. First, they traveled to Latvia. Then they traveled
    to Turkey. And in Turkey, they looked around the world to seek
    a country where they could find refuge and start a new life
    safe from the persecution of Russians. They ended up choosing
    Guatemala because Guatemala had no extradition treaty with
    Russia, and they felt that they could be safe in Guatemala.
        They found an advertisement on the internet from a Latin
    American law firm called Cutino Associates that specializes in
    immigration law and advertised its expertise in organizing
    Guatemalan immigration for $50,000 per person. The family
    engaged Cutino and began the process of becoming immigrants to
    Guatemala.
        In their initial communications with Cutino, they explained
    that the reason for their immigration was to avoid persecution
    in Russia. Cutino explained to them that they could change
    their names in their immigration applications to avoid
    detection by the Russians. Cutino then submitted for the family
    papers, and the Guatemalan immigration services issued them new
    documents in new names. Anastasia kept her original name,
    hoping that because she was not targeted by the Russian
    authorities that she would be okay.
        The family then began a new life in Guatemala. Igor became
    a high school math teacher at the Brillo De Sol School in
    Antigua. Irina became a drawing teacher at the same school. And
    Anastasia began a career in fashion after regaining some of her
    confidence after her horrible ordeal in Russia. In January
    2012, Irina Bitkov gave birth to a baby boy named Vladimir. It
    appeared that after their terrible ordeal with the Russian
    authorities had come to an end they could put that chapter
    behind them.
        Unfortunately, their dream of a new life came crashing down
    in late 2013.
        Investigators working for VTB Bank tracked down the Bitkovs
    in Guatemala. The head of the VTB Bank, Andrey Kostin,
    personally signed a power of attorney to Henry Comte, one of
    the country's most prestigious attorneys in Guatemala and an
    alternative judge on the Guatemalan Supreme Court, to assist
    VTB in pursuing the Bitkovs in Guatemala.
        VTB Bank and Comte's first attempt was to go after the
    Bitkovs in filing a criminal complaint with the Attorney
    General's Office of Guatemala claiming that VTB had been
    defrauded by the Bitkovs in Russia. VTB presented photocopies
    of forged documents in the Guatemalan court. Those documents
    already had been rejected as forgeries in similar proceedings
    in Russian courts. When the Guatemalan court requested
    originals, VTB withdrew their criminal complaint.
        VTB and Henry Comte then came up with a Plan B to go after
    the Bitkovs. For several years before 2013 in Guatemala, there
    had been an ongoing investigation into human trafficking and
    Guatemalan officials' complicity with human traffickers in the
    country. It was called the Migration Case, and it was supported
    by a U.N. organization called CICIG, whose mandate was to go
    after organized crime networks who previously enjoyed impunity
    in Guatemala.
        VTB and Comte successfully convinced CICIG to focus on the
    Bitkovs as part of the Migration Case in spite of the fact that
    the Bitkovs were clearly not part of any organized network of
    traffickers. Inexplicably, VTB gained the legal status as an
    ``interested party'' in the Migration Case against the Bitkovs
    with the support of CICIG. In January 2015, a criminal case
    against the Bitkovs was opened at the direction of CICIG.
    Immediately after, 70 armed police officers raided the Bitkovs'
    home; arrested Irina, Igor, and Anastasia; and detained them in
    a cage behind the parking garage of the main court building in
    Guatemala.
        While they were being held, Anastasia was deprived of her
    anti-depression medications and she had a severe psychiatric
    breakdown. Anastasia and her mother were moved to a hospital
    under armed guard, and Igor was put in pretrial detention at
    the Mariscal Zavala prison while the case awaited trial.
        The Bitkovs arranged for their family lawyer, who is
    sitting with us today, Rolando Alvarado, to be the guardian for
    their 3-year-old child, Vladimir, while they were incarcerated.
        In spite of Mr. Alvarado's valid guardianship papers, the
    Prosecutor of Guatemala filed a motion with the court calling
    for Vladimir Bitkov to be placed in a state orphanage instead.
        At this point, the Russian Government also got involved.
    Pavel Astakhov, the Russian Government's ombudsman for
    children's rights, publicly called for Vladimir Bitkov to be
    returned to Russia to be put into a Russian orphanage. The
    Russian foray failed because Vladimir is only a Guatemalan
    citizen and could not be returned to Russia. However, the
    Guatemalan prosecutor's motion succeeded and Vladimir was
    placed in a state orphanage.
        The family desperately applied to reverse the decision and
    get Vladimir out of the orphanage. It took 42 days for that
    application to be heard. When Vladimir finally emerged, he was
    examined by medical experts who found he had an upper
    respiratory infection, severe inflammation of the middle ear,
    conjunctivitis in both eyes, scars along the left eyebrow, and
    chipped front teeth. They concluded that he suffered from
    physical and psychological abuses in the orphanage.
        In the meantime, the case against the Bitkovs for passport
    violations moved through the courts. They were formally
    indicted as part of the CICIG Migration Case in April 2015.
        The Bitkov family appealed the indictment in the Appeals
    Court, arguing that they were migrants and could not be subject
    to criminal prosecution applicable to the traffickers. In
    December 2017 the Guatemalan Appeals Court ruled in favor of
    the Bitkovs, declaring that any passport irregularities were
    administrative offenses punishable by a fine and as migrants
    they should not be under criminal penalty.
        However, CICIG and VTB were not happy with this decision,
    and both immediately filed appeals against the court decision
    that would have freed the Bitkovs. While their appeal was
    pending, the decision was not in force.
        A few days later, on January 5th, 2018, the Guatemalan
    District Court found Igor, Irina, and Anastasia Bitkov guilty
    as users of the criminal network in the Migration Case. The
    court sentenced Igor to 19 years in prison, and Irina and
    Anastasia to 14 years. CICIG trumpeted their court victory on
    their website, pointing out that they prosecuted 39 people from
    the criminal network, including the Bitkovs.
        I understand that the 19-year prison sentence that Igor
    Bitkov was given was greater than sentences for manslaughter,
    rape, burglary, and fraud in Guatemala. The sentences that all
    three of them were given appears to exceed the sentences of
    many of the government officials in Guatemala and traffickers
    who were part of the human trafficking network.
        There was no evidence that the Bitkovs bribed any
    government official or were involved in any corruption. The
    Bitkovs, who did not speak Spanish and did not know anyone in
    Guatemala on arrival, relied on the law firm Cutino Associates,
    who presented themselves as legitimate migration lawyers. It
    also appears that nobody from Cutino Associates who organized
    their passports and settlement documents has ever been
    prosecuted. No other customers of Cutino have been tried,
    convicted, and sentenced like the Bitkovs. In the list
    presented by CICIG, which includes 39 people in the Migration
    Case, 36 were low- and middle-level government officials from
    different Guatemalan Government bodies and a few ``coyotes''
    who physically moved people through Guatemala.
        So what is going on here? There are two big Russian themes
    in this case, neither of which is unusual.
        First, in Russia, people who run successful businesses are
    routinely victimized through a process called reiderstvo. I was
    a victim of reiderstvo, and so were the Bitkovs. It is a
    standard practice in Russia where organized criminals work
    together with corrupt officials to extract property and money
    from their victims. There are literally hundreds of thousands
    of businessmen in Russia who are victims of this as well.
        The second theme is the abuse of international
    institutions. The Russian Government routinely abuses
    international institutions in order to persecute its enemies
    who are not inside of Russia. In my case, the Russian
    Government tried six times to have Interpol arrest me after the
    Magnitsky Act was passed. The Russian Government also
    successfully recruited a senior official inside the Swiss
    Federal Police to stymie a Swiss criminal investigation into
    money laundering by Russian officials in the Magnitsky case.
    The Russian Government has succeeded in getting the deputy
    attorney general of Cyprus in charge of mutual legal assistance
    and extradition affecting the Magnitsky case and many other
    politically sensitive cases to inappropriately assist the
    Russian Government in pursuing their enemies in Cyprus. This is
    not uncommon.
        In my opinion, the Russian Government succeeded in
    compromising CICIG and the Guatemalan prosecutor for their own
    purposes in the Bitkov case. CICIG and the prosecutor's office
    have jointly taken up the Russian Government's vendetta against
    the Bitkovs with no good explanation. CICIG did not distance
    itself from the Russian persecution. They touted it on their
    website and they actively tried to overturn the Bitkovs'
    vindication by the Appeals Court.
        Nor has VTB tried to hide their role in this case. In spite
    of the fact that VTB obtained no financial recovery for their
    alleged financial dispute with the Bitkovs, they became an
    interested party in a case involving something that had nothing
    to do with them in order to vindictively punish Igor Bitkov and
    his entire family. In The Wall Street Journal on April 4th,
    2018, Igor Kostin, the chairman of VTB, says: ``VTB's actions
    relating to the Bitkov family is an example of standard
    procedure in resolving financial business disputes through the
    available legal channels.''
        This is an appalling case in which the Bitkov family
    deserves justice, and the United States has an opportunity to
    deliver them justice. CICIG is a U.N. organization in which
    approximately 50 percent of their budget comes from the U.S.
    Government. I do not believe that you or anyone in the U.S.
    Congress or the U.S. Government ever envisaged that U.S. tax
    dollars would be spent to support a Russian Government
    persecution of a family fleeing that persecution in Guatemala.
    I would recommend that CICIG's funding be suspended until this
    situation is resolved.
        When I began this process of advocating for the Bitkov
    family, I discovered that CICIG is a highly contentious issue
    in DC and around the world. There are some people who are pro-
    CICIG and there are some who are anti-CICIG. Up until 2 months
    ago, I had never heard of CICIG. I came into this case with no
    prejudices one way or another. I've gone where the evidence has
    led. And so far, the evidence leads toward the conclusion about
    the involvement of this organization in the Bitkovs'
    persecution.
        As journalists from The Wall Street Journal and other news
    organizations have started to investigate, CICIG has avoided
    answering a number of crucial direct questions about their role
    in the Bitkov case and their support of VTB. When CICIG was
    invited to give evidence to Congress they declined, claiming as
    a U.N. institution they were not accountable to anybody in
    Congress.
        They can't have it both ways. They can either be the heroic
    anti-impunity organization that their mandate sets them out to
    be or the situation at CICIG needs to be cleaned up.
        Thank you very much.
        Mr. Smith. Thank you so very much for your very incisive
    testimony and recommendations.
        We are joined by Commissioner Hultgren. Do you have
    anything you'd like to offer at the opening?

     HON. RANDY HULTGREN, COMMISSIONER, COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND
                         COOPERATION IN EUROPE

        Mr. Hultgren. No. I want to hear as much as I can, so thank
    you. I yield back.
        Mr. Smith. Thank you so much. I would just note that
    Congressman Hultgren is also the co-chairman of the Tom Lantos
    Human Rights Commission and a very distinguished member of our
    commission. So it's so great to have you here. Thank you.
        I'd like to now recognize Ms. Sandoval.

         VICTORIA SANDOVAL, CRIMINAL AND HUMAN RIGHTS ATTORNEY
                     REPRESENTING THE BITKOV FAMILY

        Ms. Sandoval. Good morning, Chairman Smith. Good morning,
    Commissioner Hultgren. Distinguished members of the Helsinki
    Commission, for me, it is an honor to be invited to this
    hearing as a witness of the Bitkov Case.
        My name is Victoria Sandoval. I am a lawyer, and I have
    been working with the Bitkovs since January 2015. I knew the
    Bitkovs back in 2011, when they came to live at the same
    neighborhood I was living. I could see how they were--they were
    a happy family raising his kid, Vladimir, into his Russian
    culture.
        On January 15th, 2015, I saw more than 16 official vehicles
    from Ministerio Publico, CICIG, and Policia Nacional Civil.
    They were raiding the Bitkovs' house, and they were being
    arrested. The next day I saw the Bitkovs' house had been locked
    up and was being guarded by two policemen. Even though it was
    guarded, their house was looted completely.
        They were transferred to the carceletas at the courthouse--
    the carceletas as the cages Bill Browder just described. These
    are located at the basement of the courthouse, and people
    should not stay there for more than 24 hours. But the Bitkovs
    were kept in for 5 days, Irina and Anastasia; and 9 days, Igor.
    The Russian ambassador didn't show any concern about his fellow
    citizens.
        Anastasia, whose life depends on the regular intake of
    medication, was deprived of them.
        A judge ordered that Anastasia and Irina be transferred to
    a psychiatric hospital due to Anastasia's psychiatric
    breakdown. The Sistema Penitenciario in charge of that transfer
    refused to do it for 4 days. It wasn't until Anastasia's health
    became worse that they obeyed that order. Along with 50 agents
    of the Sistema Penitenciario, they were transferred to a 10-
    room hospital. The hospital declined receiving them because
    they feared such high number of officials will scare their
    other patients. So they were returned to the courthouse, where
    they were locked in an annex to the men's area--only separated
    by a fence, which means that the men will have direct contact
    with them. Not even at the bathroom did they have any privacy.
    That meant torture for them. On the fifth day Irina and
    Anastasia were finally transferred to the Hospital Concepcion,
    where they stayed for one year, guarded by two armed guards.
        In Igor's case, at the carceleta he was deprived of proper
    sleep. After 9 days he was taken in front of the judge to give
    his first testimony. He was completely dumbfounded, had not
    been provided with any translator. His Spanish was not good at
    that time.
        At the hearing, CICIG's senior attorney, Claudia Gonzalez
    Orellana, clearly supported VTB Bank participation by stating
    that the attorney acting on behalf of the VTB Bank actually has
    competency due to the offenses that happened in Russia, and
    that the Bitkovs are avoiding justice in that country. They
    came to Guatemala and committed other offenses, and none of
    this can be left in impunity. We consider that the offenses
    that took place in Russia and in Guatemala are related.
        I have an audio that I ask to be entered in the records.
    \1\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\  Note: As of press time, the audio was no longer available
    online.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Mr. Smith. Without objection, it will. So ordered.
        Ms. Sandoval. When Igor was already at Mariscal Zavala, he
    was visited by the child prosecutor of the Procuraduria General
    de la Nacion, Harold Augusto Flores Valenzuela. He told him
    that he had been called and visited by CICIG officials that
    told him that he had to do everything in order to send Vladimir
    to an orphanage, that he couldn't be sent with guardians.
    That's why Vladimir was sent to the orphanage Amor del Nino,
    where he was abused. Harold Flores saw that the reports on
    Vladimir's guardians were just fine and he chose to ignore
    them. Also did Judge Maria Belen Reyna Salazar. And, in
    consequence, Vladimir was sent to that orphanage. Flores also
    told that he was threatened by CICIG's officials that if he
    didn't comply he will be fired or prosecuted.
        All this is written in an affidavit that Igor signed that I
    ask that also be added to the records, please.
        Mr. Smith. Without objection.
        Ms. Sandoval. Okay.
        Anastasia's psychiatric disorder were triggered by her
    kidnapping in Russia in which she was repeatedly raped and
    drugged. She has been diagnosed with bipolar affective disorder
    and borderline syndrome. According to the psychiatric reports
    of the National Institute for Forensic Science of Guatemala,
    INACIF, that also has stated that Anastasia should not be sent
    to a prison because it could cause her to make further attempts
    to commit suicide. She has already attempted five times to
    suicide.
        Ignoring this, the president of the tribunal, Judge Yassmin
    Barrios, ordered to send her to the Mariscal Zavala prison for
    14 years, the judge threatening her, as well as the warden of
    the prison, with sending her to the Federico Mora Psychiatric
    Hospital if she shows any sign of her illness.
        I also have the link to a video that was recorded by BBC
    where it shows the condition of this National Mental Hospital,
    qualifying it as the worst in the American continent. So I ask
    it to be added at the records. \2\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \2\  https://www.bing.com/ videos/
    search?q=hospital+psiquiatrico+federico+mora+bbc&&view=
    detail&mid=C8314C4E3EFF3B347152C8314C4E3EFF3B347152&&FORM=VRDGAR;
    https://www.bing.com/videos/
    search?q=hospitalde+salud+mental+federico+mora+bbc&&view=
    detail&mid=F15517CDCB9A2C709187F15517CDCB9A2C709 187&&FORM=VRDGAR
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Mr. Smith. Without objection.
        Ms. Sandoval. Thank you.
        Ignoring this, the Bitkovs were sentenced for 19 and 14
    years in prison last January 5th by the tribunal proceeded by
    Judge Yassmin Barrios. There are many similar cases of people
    accused of similar offenses, but they have all been treated
    very differently.
        Among them I will like to describe you this one that is
    rather shocking. In February 2018--that means 1 month later
    after the Bitkovs' verdict--a verdict was issued by the same
    tribunal proceeded by Judge Yassmin Barrios. Two members of the
    dangerous and notorious MS-13 were condemned to suspended
    prison for 5 years and no expulsion for the same offenses.
    These members of the MS-13, Israel Antonio Cabrera, whose alias
    is ``the demon,'' and Mauricio Antonio Rivas, alias ``the
    goat,'' were from El Salvador, and there they have been accused
    of murdering 25 people. Now they are free in Guatemala's
    streets.
        I also have this ruling that I will ask to be also added to
    the records.
        The evil within this case is shocking. The Kremlin, through
    VTB Bank, has conspired in the Guatemalan justice system to,
    one, separate a 3-year-old boy from his family and send him to
    an orphanage where he was tortured; two, to lock up in a prison
    a young woman with a psychiatric disorder; and finally, and
    third, condemn with ridiculous punishment a family who went to
    Guatemala in order to flee Russian persecution that was
    threatening to destroy their lives in contravention of the
    Palermo Convention, Guatemalan migration law, and an order from
    the Constitutional Court.
        Anastasia told me once: I have suffered a lot. My life has
    never been even close to normal. I want to fight so my little
    brother can have a normal life, and he still has still some
    time to do that.
        Thank you very much.
        Mr. Smith. Thank you so very much for your testimony and
    for your bravery in helping the Bitkov family.
        I would like to now yield the floor to Mr. Alvarado.

        [Note: Mr. Alvarado's remarks are made through an
    interpreter.]

     ROLANDO ALVARADO, ATTORNEY REPRESENTING THE BITKOV FAMILY AND
           PROFESSOR OF LAW AND FOUNDING PARTNER, CORPOLEGAL

        Mr. Alvarado. Good morning, Co-Chairman Smith,
    distinguished members of the Helsinki Commission, and everyone
    here in this room. It's an honor for me to have been invited to
    this hearing to bear witness in the Bitkov case.
        I am knowledgeable about what has transpired in the case
    involving the Russian family, the Bitkov family, because I
    personally met Irina Bitkova and Anastasia Bitkova 2 years
    before they were arrested. I am knowledgeable about the facts
    surrounding their case because I was the lawyer of their family
    and currently I have guardianship over their child and have had
    since 2015--that's Vladimir Bitkov, who is now 6 years of age.
    That is the son of Igor and Irina.
        So the activities for which the Bitkov family have been
    accused are as follows: For the use of a passport and identity
    documents that were issued by the Guatemalan state, and that
    CICIG and the Public Ministry of the Office of the Attorney
    General now consider to have been issued illegally.
        So these activities do not constitute a crime; however,
    CICIG and the Public Ministry brought criminal charges which
    were egregiously disproportionate, as if they had been crimes
    of drug trafficking or terrorism, crimes of high impact.
    Furthermore, CICIG brought criminal charges or pursued criminal
    proceedings before special courts known as courts for cases
    involving high levels of risk--all this for what amounts to
    migratory law misdemeanors.
        CICIG has no jurisdiction to take part as a complainant
    against the Bitkov family because the mandate given it by the
    United Nations and by the government of Guatemala establishes
    that said commission would only have jurisdiction to
    investigate crimes committed by members of illegal security
    forces or clandestine security bodies or forces. And the Bitkov
    family was not accused of being a part of these illegal
    security forces, and therefore does not fall under the aegis of
    the authority entrusted to CICIG, which means that CICIG has
    overstepped its boundaries in exercising these legal powers,
    which is tantamount to the abuse of authority.
        Furthermore, CICIG, in violating the agreement that gave
    rise to its creation, is also in violation of the Palermo
    Convention because it has deliberately accused or charged the
    victims in this case--the immigrants, the Bitkov family--and
    did not bring charges against the perpetrators of these crimes,
    which is the Cutino international organization, which is a
    trafficking organization.
        Despite the fact that the activities that the Bitkov family
    were accused of don't constitute any crime, the following
    ensued: On January the 15th of 2015, CICIG and the Public
    Ministry, with the support of the national police, carried out
    three searches. I personally witnessed the search that was
    conducted in the Bitkov family home. It lasted 20 hours and
    close to 70 police officers who were heavily armed took part in
    that search. They went into their rooms while they were
    sleeping and they didn't even let them get dressed in privacy.
    They weren't allowed to call their lawyer until 3 hours after
    the beginning of the search.
        I asked the prosecutor, Stuart Ernesto Campo Aguilar, why
    there were so many police officers, and he told me that this
    case stemmed from a multimillion-dollar fraud case that the
    Bitkov family had committed against a Russian bank, and it was
    the Russian bank that was bringing criminal charges against the
    Bitkov family.
        So they seized vehicles, jewelry and the personal
    belongings of the Bitkov family. And after that, the national
    police actually looted their home. This search lasted until
    1:40 in the early morning of the next day, when it finally
    ended. And that was when they woke up Vladimir, the little boy,
    and they put him in a pickup truck headed to the courts that
    were open at that hour. The child was only 3 years old. All
    this information can be found in the search warrant, which I
    would ask be admitted on the record.
        Mr. Smith. Without objection, so ordered.
        Mr. Alvarado. So the judge in chambers, the judge on that
    shift at that time, granted me custody of the child, and also
    appointed, as custodian of this child, the baby sitter Veronica
    Gonzalez. On February the 10th of 2015, Judge Maria Belen Reyna
    Salazar illegally ruled that the child be taken away from their
    legal guardians--from us, their legal guardians--alleging that
    we were not the child's relatives and that even the identity of
    their--of the child's parents was in question. That doubt or
    question about the child's identity stemmed from a report that
    the Special Prosecutors Office Against Impunity, FECI, had sent
    in which it states that the identity of Vladimir was flawed.
    And that is the rationale under which the child was sent to the
    orphanage called Amor del Nino, Love of the Child, where he was
    kept for 42 days.
        The judge denied any visitation rights to little Vladimir,
    which means that he was left entirely alone. He emerged from
    this orphanage with a broken tooth, with a scar above his
    eyebrow, with conjunctivitis, and with amibus [ph]. I have the
    medical records of the injuries sustained by Vladimir. And I
    would ask that they be admitted to the record.
        Mr. Smith. Without objection, so ordered.
        Mr. Alvarado. From the outset of these proceedings, the VTB
    Bank justified its participation in the proceedings, alleging
    that it had been defrauded in Russia by the Bitkov family. The
    involvement of the VTB Bank was always supported and defended
    by CICIG through CICIG's agent that had the power of attorney
    to operate on CICIG's behalf, Claudia Gonzalez Orellana, who
    declared to a judge that the facts that occurred in Russia were
    related to facts that occurred in Guatemala, and therefore VTB
    Bank should be allowed to defend its interests in Guatemala.
        The Bitkov family said that the identity documents had been
    processed by a law firm known as Cutino International. Cutino
    was never investigated by CICIG, despite the fact that the
    Bitkov family reported Cutino, requesting that it be
    investigated, and offering sufficient evidence with which to
    identify the responsible parties. Igor declared that the
    payment made to Cutino was done via bank transfer, and asked
    CICIG to look into that, to trace that transfer. It was also
    reported that the Cutino case, or its involvement, was also
    reported directly to Commissioner Ivan Velasquez. And we have a
    video showing the conversation between Commissioner Velasquez
    and Irina that also bears witness to the political persecution
    perpetrated by Russia.
        So we have sufficient evidence. And we provided that
    evidence to Commissioner Velasquez, as well as a letter written
    by Senator Roger Wicker of 2015, yet the commissioner did not
    act on that evidence presented. CICIG then participated as a
    complainant against the immigrants, the Bitkov family, and
    asked for a 19-year prison sentence. And such a sentence has
    never been meted out against any other foreigner.
        During the debate, the manager of the company that issued
    the passports stated that thousands of passports are processed
    irregularly on a regular basis, and in favor of foreign
    nationals. Furthermore, the witness Carlos Rene Gomez Diaz
    stated in witness testimony that the General Office on
    Migration issued between one and three illegal passports every
    week in favor of foreign nationals. However, the Bitkov family
    was the only family ever to be given prison sentences. And the
    few foreigners who were ever tried only received commuted
    sentences. That is to say that instead of going to jail, all
    they had to do was pay a fine and go back to their country of
    origin.
        Another illegal act that emerged during the criminal
    proceedings was that before the Bitkov family was found guilty,
    during the discussion a superior constitutional court granted a
    writ of amparo in favor of Igor Bitkov, and in the sentence
    said that migrants cannot be criminally tried. CICIG appealed
    that sentence, and the court did not follow through--did not
    adhere to the ruling that had been issued regarding the prior
    appeals. Anastasia Bitkova was sent to prison, despite the fact
    that she suffers a psychiatric illness, and that as a result of
    this her life is in danger.
        Yesterday the Constitutional Court, the highest court of
    Guatemala, issued a sentence whereby it declares that the
    Bitkov family are immigrant and they never should have been
    criminally tried. This confirms the human rights violations
    that were perpetrated against the Bitkov family that I have
    described in my witness testimony. Furthermore, the human
    rights ombudsman's office has said that the rights of the
    child, the rights of Vladimir, the boy, were also violated by
    the judge who illegally sent him to an orphanage.
        So everything that I have said can be legally
    substantiated. And all of these illegal acts that destroyed the
    Bitkov family were carried out at the request of CICIG and the
    Public Ministry. And these are acts that cannot go unpunished--
    cannot remain in impunity.
        Thank you very much.
        Mr. Smith. Thank you very much for your testimony and for
    your very incisive words today. Let me just begin the
    questioning with Mr. Browder first.
        Thank you for giving us a backdrop of how the Russian
    officials act--reiderstvo, as you said. And you also pointed
    out that you have been victimized by this as well, so you speak
    from a first-
    person account. Six times the Russian Government tried to get
    Interpol to arrest you for your incredible work on the
    Magnitsky Act. I would just point, parenthetically--and the
    press might want to take note of this--I've traveled to the
    Soviet Union when it was the Soviet Union, on behalf of the
    Soviet Jews, on behalf of religious freedom. And always got a
    visa. When I worked to get the Magnitsky Act passed, I was
    denied a visa. And I haven't gotten once since.
        I had hoped to go to Russia to talk and work with them in
    combating human trafficking. I've worked with a number of NGOs
    in Moscow and elsewhere that combat human trafficking and help
    Russian women who are victimized. And yet, the long arm of this
    corruption denied me--continues to deny me a visa to go to
    Russia. That's nowhere near as burdensome and threatening, of
    course, as what you have faced and so many of these others.
        You also point out that thousands of businessmen are in
    jail who are victims of this. And that's the best-kept secret
    out there. Some journalists have pointed this out, but this is
    common practice. It's not an exception. It's a common practice.
        And so, if you could, Mr. Browder--you also talked about
    how a Swiss Federal Police--they successfully recruited a
    senior official inside the Swiss Federal Police, to stymie a
    criminal investigation into money laundering. So this is a
    modus operandi that is global. And this is a manifestation that
    has happened with CICIG complicity in Guatemala.
        How do they do it? Do they pay people? You did point out in
    your testimony that a very distinguished attorney was hired by
    VTB Bank, Henry Comte, as you point out.
        And I mean, so a plan was hatched. Obviously, or likely,
    huge amounts of money were conveyed to interested parties. Then
    all of a sudden, with the support of CICIG, they are part of
    the migration case. And again, when it comes to trafficking, I
    take a backseat to no one, because I've written four major laws
    on combating human trafficking, including our first. And
    there's nowhere here any suggestion that the Bitkovs are
    involved with trafficking.
        They are involved in trying to protect their children
    from--and just let me say parenthetically that Pavel Astakhov,
    the Russian Government's ombudsman for children's rights, cut
    off inter-country adoptions, which had been a lifeline for
    Russian children finding homes--loving homes in the United
    States and elsewhere. But that was a total reaction to the
    Magnitsky Act, that we were finally holding people who are
    corrupt and commit serious, serious human rights abuses
    personally responsible for their crimes.
        So if you could further elaborate on that backdrop, because
    the question is why and whether or not there were bribes
    involved, who was paid, why did they become a part of this?
    Nineteen years, fourteen years prison sentences. You know, I've
    never seen anything like this, except in gulag states. You
    know, Guatemala is not a gulag state, but they certainly have a
    situation that is outrageous. So if you could give us--talk
    about that----
        Mr. Browder. That's an excellent question, and a crucial
    question. The Russian Government has unlimited resources that
    they're using to corrupt and infiltrate international
    institutions. We have evidence of their involvement in
    corruption in the Swiss Federal Police, as I mentioned. We have
    evidence of involvement in the corruption of the deputy
    attorney general of Cyprus. And we have evidence of their
    involvement in the corruption of international organizations
    like the Olympics. We have evidence of their involvement in all
    sorts of activities like that.
        And what the Russian Government does is, they poke around
    to see who is susceptible to corruption and bribery. And many
    people say no. But they find people who say yes. And they have
    plenty of money to do it. They know exactly how to do it,
    because they do it all day, every day inside their own country.
    And so they're experienced at doing it. And the Putin regime
    does it in foreign countries. And they find willing takers.
        And what makes it more pernicious is that once the person
    has become involved in their corruption, they threaten them
    with murder if they stop doing it. They say: You've taken our
    money. If you stop doing the things we ask you to do, not only
    will we expose you, but we will kill you. And so people become
    very scared of backing down. And we see a lot of situations
    where people have been corrupted and they dig their heels in,
    even after they've been exposed, because they're so afraid of
    the people who corrupted them in the first place.
        I do not have any direct evidence of why CICIG was involved
    in this inexplicable persecution of the Bitkov----
        Mr. Smith. But there is no doubt that they are.
        Mr. Browder. The Bitkovs have been inexplicably persecuted
    by CICIG, with the involvement of VTB Bank. That we have
    evidence. That evidence has been presented today. I don't know
    why. But it tends to be that when people behave irrationally,
    when this organization which is supposed to be an anti-impunity
    human rights organization is persecuting a Russian family who
    is fleeing for their life, the obvious question is why. And we
    can't leave it unanswered.
        And I've seen the answers that CICIG has tried to give for
    justifying themselves, and none of those answers make any sense
    or address the crucial questions. Why were they supporting VTB
    in court hearings? Why did they, together with VTB, appeal the
    exoneration of the Bitkovs by the Supreme Court? None of these
    questions have been answered by them. And they refused to show
    up here today to answer those questions. And you need to get
    answers to those questions.
        Mr. Smith. Well, I would assure you, we will ask them again
    to come. I will pose a series of questions in total
    transparency. We want to know when was the decision made? By
    whom, or how many people were involved in that decision,
    whether or not there was any kind of conveyance of financial
    money of any kind, anything of value. And as I said in my
    opening, there needs to be a full and robust investigation of
    CICIG's complicating in this persecution of a family that was
    trying to evade a modus operandi of the Russian corruption
    system. And this is how they do it. And they do it everywhere
    they can get away with it. And they should not be a part of
    that in any way, shape, or form.
        I would point out, you said in your statement that the Wall
    Street Journal April 4th article--and you quote Igor Kostin,
    the chairman of the VTB Bank, where he says, ``VTB's action
    relating to the Bitkov family is an example of standard
    procedure in resolving financial business disputes through the
    available legal channels.'' Persecute, give massive prison
    sentences, put a young woman named Anastasia, a daughter, tried
    to abduct--and I would call this a kidnapping--of a young boy,
    who was not even Russian--he's Guatemalan, born in Guatemala.
    To kidnap him back to an orphanage, and the very man doing it
    is the one who ended inter-country adoptions in Russia.
        We got a letter to the commission from the VTB Bank, from
    the general counsel. And he says that VTB has been a model
    corporate citizen, VTB has worked to combat corruption, every
    action we have taken comports with global norms. Well, let's
    hope that they are completely transparently open to the
    investigation and will answer every question and provide every
    set of documents asked and requested by either the U.S.
    Government or any other responsible body in trying to get to
    the bottom of this. Because this kind of assertion, when people
    are suffering so cruelly in prison as we meet here today, is
    beyond comprehension.
        Let me ask you, if I could, what do you make of the attempt
    to abduct Vladimir and to take him back to a Russian orphanage,
    as if the Russian Government owns this little boy rather than
    his loving parents and you, who have tried to provide help and
    assistance to him, and love.
        Mr. Browder. It's very clear. The VTB Bank and their co-
    conspirators stripped the Bitkov family of all their wealth
    back in Russia. There was nothing more to get. The cupboards
    were empty. And so many people ask me when they look at this
    case: Why? Why are they doing this? And I believe that the
    answer is very similar to the answer of why they attempted to
    murder Sergei Skripal, which is Sergei Skripal had no more
    intelligence to provide the U.K. Government. But the purpose of
    both of these exercises for different audiences--and these are
    all directed toward domestic audiences--in the Skripal case, it
    was to say: If you betray us, it doesn't matter where you go,
    it doesn't matter when you go, we'll track you down anywhere in
    the world and we will kill you and we will kill your family.
    That's the message to their secret service.
        In the Bitkov case, the message for VTB Bank and other
    banks is: If we come and ask you to sign over your wealth to us
    don't object, because look what happened to the Bitkov family.
    We tracked them down in Guatemala. And we didn't just go after
    Igor Bitkov. We went after his wife, his daughter, and their 3-
    year-old son. And we will destroy you and we'll destroy
    everybody. That's the message that they're trying to send to
    anybody they're trying to extract money from in Russia. So the
    next time they go and ask them for money, the people will say:
    Here you go. Let me sign the papers.
        Mr. Smith. Has CICIG or any Guatemalan authority ever
    provided justification why the prison sentences are so
    outrageously long, or a document?
        Mr. Browder. I'm not an expert on Guatemalan law, but the
    documents that I've seen, they just rotely write down the
    justification by the judge, which it reads like something out
    of Kafka, suppression of civil status, 5 years. Alteration of
    government document, 7 years--or 8 years. And none of this
    stuff makes any sense when you sort of step away and say, let's
    look at the real-world situation. As Mr. Alvarado has said--or,
    actually, I think it was Victoria who said, that members of the
    Nicaraguan criminal gangs that have killed 25 people were given
    suspended sentences for the same crime. How does that work?
        Mr. Smith. Let me ask you, what is the relationship between
    Guatemalan law enforcement and judicial authorities and CICIG?
    How easily can those authorities say no to a CICIG instruction
    regarding the prosecution of, say, the Bitkovs?
        Mr. Browder. I think this would be a question better for
    the Guatemalan lawyers.
        Ms. Sandoval. They have a very big power. They are not
    accountable to anyone in Guatemala. They have the power to
    destroy careers, professionals. There are many people that fear
    them. Might be people that have something beneath them that
    they can be chased for and that helps them control them, maybe.
    People--many judges try to please them. They try to please them
    what they are--they asked.
        Thank you.
        Mr. Smith. Okay. Could I ask you about Vladimir--what is
    the state of health right now? You know, how well or poorly is
    he doing? And----
        Mr. Alvarado. After he got out of the orphanage we've had
    to hire psychological therapy--intensive psychological therapy
    for him. He would wake up at night having awful nightmares. So
    he's 6 years old now. He had just turned three when I got him.
    And he has matured quite a bit. He has been forced to grow up
    really fast. And something really interesting that he says all
    the time, and that is, if I weren't a kid I would be in jail.
        Mr. Smith. And if I could, on Anastasia, who has suffered
    so much, having been raped, denied her medicine, as you've
    pointed out in your testimonies, in another manifestation of
    cruelty in this whole process--how is she faring?
        Ms. Sandoval. She's having a very hard time right now
    since, as I told you, she has been threatened to be sent to the
    Federico Mora National Mental Hospital. This hospital, as I
    told you before, has been qualified as the worst hospital in
    the whole American continent. And she fears to be free to
    express herself because she thinks people might interpret that
    as she's having a breakdown and she could be sent, because the
    Judge Yassmin Barrios, a few days after they were sent to
    Mariscal Zavala, ordered the National Forensic Science
    Institute to go and check on her to see if it was necessary to
    send her to that hospital. So she's living through a living
    hell, not being able to be herself. She is trying to fit in
    what she cannot fit completely.
        Mr. Smith. Thank you. If I could ask you, who is Mayra
    Veliz? Are you aware of any position she may have had in any of
    the organizations, entities that are relevant during the time
    period pertinent to the Bitkov case? And to the best of your
    knowledge, are you aware of CICIG or the attorney general of
    Guatemala investigating Mayra Veliz for wrongdoing or bringing
    any charges against her?
        Mr. Alvarado. Mayra Veliz is the secretary general of the
    Public Ministry. That means she's second in authority after the
    prosecutor or the attorney general himself. She worked in
    immigration policy. And she was the one who would sign off on
    documents or sign for national documents because she worked in
    that part of the Public Ministry responsible for foreign
    affairs involving foreign nationals. Now, there's a rumor that
    one hears constantly in the halls of the courts to the effect
    that Mayra Veliz is closely associated with Cutino
    International.
        So recently a lawyer visited Igor in jail and reported to
    him some information about Mayra Veliz to the fact that for
    some time when she worked in migration she would sign the
    documents for different foreign nationals, some of whom were of
    Arab descent, Pakistanis. And also, that she had signed the
    documents for members of ISIS, that is, the Islamic State. So
    this lawyer provided his name and phone number. He does not
    want to be a witness in Guatemala because he fears for his
    life. What he wants is for the United States to call him, to
    grant him special protection in exchange for his providing
    information on this criminal structure--information that he has
    on it.
        So this leader, as we identified him as being--the leader
    of this criminal structure that is the Cutino International
    that CICIG did not want to investigate is Marcos Cutino. This
    lawyer said that Marcos Cutino goes by different alias,
    different names, in the U.S. and Mexico, Canada and Guatemala.
        Mr. Smith. We're quickly running out of time, if you could
    provide--okay.
        Mr. Alvarado. Sorry. Something very interesting about the
    Bitkov case that's suspicious is that when we reported this
    criminal activity on the part of this criminal structure,
    Cutino International, 2 days after that, Thelma Aldana--that
    is, the prosecutor general of the country--or, we actually
    heard from lawyers who identified themselves as American
    lawyers, said that they were already aware of this case, and of
    the fact that we were reporting this case to the attorney
    general, and they wanted to meet with us about it. So these
    reports were also sent to CICIG. And they asked us what we--
    okay, we asked for a hearing, a meeting with Thelma Aldana, the
    prosecutor general, and rather than being met by her, it was
    Mayra Veliz who received us. And so I think that this warrants
    that the U.S. Government conduct an in-depth investigation into
    what the true role of Mayra Veliz is.
        Mr. Smith. Thank you.
        Ms. Jackson Lee.

     HON. SHEILA JACKSON LEE, COMMISSIONER, COMMISSION ON SECURITY
                       AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE

        Ms. Jackson Lee. Let me thank the witnesses that have come
    this morning--Victoria Sandoval, Rolando Alvarado, and Mr.
    Browder. This commission, the Helsinki Commission, for those of
    us who are on it, is taken enormously seriously. And I thank
    the presiding chair.
        Our time is short so, Mr. Browder, let me just say to you
    that my outrage is mounting. And of course, as we are involved
    in the trail of Russian involvement in the 2016 elections,
    we're beginning to see certainly their despotic handprint
    across the world as it relates to humanitarian issues. So let
    me just quickly ask just one question which disturbs me.
        I was at the United Nations this past Monday. And I have
    long been a supporter of the value of the United Nations. So I
    am interested in how we can intervene and while the CICIG, a
    U.N.-backed organization to promote the rule of law, allowed
    the Bitkovs to be treated as scandalous passport violators. And
    is there any hope in that entity, and/or the United Nations--
    because the husband and wife are still incarcerated. The
    daughter, I did not hear where, I'm sorry.
        Mr. Browder. Is incarcerated as well.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. Is incarcerated. And the son is now back
    in Guatemala.
        Mr. Browder. The son is with Mr. Alvarado.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. Yes. But can we just go to that question
    about how it was fraudulently made into an organization that
    would do what they did to the Bitkovs?
        Mr. Browder. The Russians are specialists at this. As I
    mentioned, they've abused Interpol, in my case. And let me
    point something out, which is that from everything that I've
    been told, the concept of CICIG is a good concept. To fight
    impunity and fight human rights abuses with a strong
    organization is a good concept, as is Interpol for going after
    fugitives.
        The issue is not the organization itself, but it's if that
    organization is being abused. And I've seen how Interpol's
    abused, which doesn't make the argument that we shouldn't have
    Interpol. It makes the argument that we should set up checks
    and balances and reviews so that abuses can't happen.
        It appears, from this gross abuse of process with the
    Bitkovs by CICIG that there's something wrong in their controls
    and their reviews. And this is a highly politicized story.
        There are many people at this hearing. Many people probably
    disagree with me about even bringing up CICIG. But how could I
    not when they've been involved in this terrible persecution of
    this family? And so there needs to be a review. And if it turns
    out that there was corruption or malfeasance, then those people
    need to be punished.
        And there needs to be a checks and balances in place so
    that doesn't happen in the future. There are many U.N.
    organizations, as Chairman Smith has told us, that function
    badly. And in the case of raping--in Africa, raping young girls
    by U.N. peacekeepers, bad things do happen by organizations
    that are set up for good purposes. There's a bad thing that's
    happened here. And it needs to be reviewed, and it needs to be
    reviewed aggressively and thoroughly.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. Let me just conclude my point and say that
    obviously peacekeepers are the soldiers that are offered by
    countries. I would give, not the U.N. a pass, but I would
    explain that they are, you know, extensions thereof, and
    certainly should not be condoned in their behavior. In this
    instance, I think the U.N. can be involved positively. I would
    like to have a way for the Helsinki Commission to--we have a
    lot of hearings--but to take this issue on. It is tragic what
    has happened, but I think the important point for the world to
    hear is that Russia acts as an international thug. And what has
    happened is the world allows it to do so. Not the Russian
    people--that I respect and love. I'm sure they're there doing
    all they can for their families. But we have to say to the
    Russian Government, the intelligence agency, Vladimir Putin,
    that enough is enough in thuggery. So I hope that we will
    pursue this, Mr. Chairman.
        And with that, I yield back.
        Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Ms. Lee.
        And that is why we're having this hearing. This is the
    first step in what will be a series of not only hearings but
    action items. I agree with Mr. Browder that we need to suspend
    CICIG's funding. I mean, this is outrageous. This is cruel and
    degrading treatment. I mean, even the Convention Against
    Torture body--you know, the implementing body ought to be
    looking at this. To so mistreat people for a document?
        And the document was done--if my family were in that
    situation and we were fighting to get into another country
    because the goons from Russia were on the prowl to take out
    their lives, so you end up with a document to try to protect
    you. And then you get 19 years, 14 years, and 14 years--it is
    absolutely outrageous. This is cruel and degrading treatment.
    And we will pursue this aggressively.
        With that, I would ask unanimous consent that statements by
    Marco Rubio, James Lankford, and Michael Lee--three senators
    who couldn't be here today but wanted to express their strongly
    held opinion--be made a part of the record.
        Again, I thank you so much--we're only finishing up because
    we do have a whole series of votes. Thank you so much for your
    testimony and for your leadership.
        The hearing is adjourned.
        [Whereupon, at 11 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.]

                                A P P E N D I X

    =======================================================================

                              Prepared Statements

                                  ----------

                Prepared Statement of Hon. Christopher H. Smith

        The Russian Government regularly pursues its vendettas
    beyond its borders, harassing and even murdering Russian
    emigres abroad--people who are on the Putin circle's target
    list for various reasons. The poisoning of Sergei and Yulia
    Skripal in England is one of the most recent examples to reach
    the news.
        The Kremlin's sadistic pursuit of the entire Bitkov family
    is in its way just as shocking as its cruel murder of
    Litvinenko and the attempted murders of the Skripals. The
    Bitkovs are still alive today, but they have been hounded for
    over a decade, to the opposite end of the world, and beyond the
    limits of human endurance--merely for resisting Putin favorites
    who sought to take over their successful paper manufacturing
    company.
        More shocking, the facts of the case strongly indicate--and
    we will hear testimony on this today--that the United Nation's
    International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala, or
    CICIG, became deeply involved in the Kremlin's persecution of
    the Bitkov family. Indeed that CICIG acted as the Kremlin's
    operational agent in brutalizing and tormenting the Bitkov
    family.
        Congress has a special responsibility in this matter
    because the United States is one of the largest contributors to
    CICIG's budget. There has been little congressional oversight
    of CICIG--it's clearly time for that to change.
        In the 1990s Igor and Irina Bitkov built the North-West
    Timber Company, acquiring and modernizing old factories to
    increase paper production. As their company grew, the Bitkovs
    took loans from several Russian state banks to finance further
    modernization. Their business prospered--grew to a value of
    hundreds of millions of dollars--and the family was approached
    by a powerful bank executive who sought to buy a majority share
    in the company at a significantly below-market rate. Other
    officials asked Irina to become politically involved in
    President Vladimir Putin's party.
        When the Bitkovs refused things got very ugly. Their 16-
    year-old daughter, Anastasia, was kidnapped for several days,
    drugged, and repeatedly raped. Her parents ransomed her--paying
    the money to policemen, who said they were go-betweens to the
    kidnappers. Then the banks suddenly called in the loans, even
    though the Bitkovs had excellent credit. The family was
    threatened with imprisonment and death.
        Fearing for their lives, the family fled Russia. They found
    what they thought was legal refuge in Guatemala with the help
    of a Guatemalan law firm. They acquired Guatemalan passports,
    bought a house, learned Spanish, and gave birth to their second
    child, Vladimir.
        But the Kremlin caught up to them and VTB Bank, one of
    Russia's biggest state-controlled banks, often referred to as
    ``Putin's Piggy Bank,'' filed a complaint against them in
    Guatemala, alleging use of false identification documents.
        While we don't know exactly what transpired internally to
    CICIC and the Guatemalan state agencies that work with them, it
    appears to have been taken up by the Guatemalan state and
    CICIG. In any case, the Bitkovs suddenly found themselves
    catapulted into what has become for them a horror without end.
        On January 15, 2015, Igor, Irina, Anastasia and Vladimir
    were awoken by an armed raid on their home--70 or so armed
    policemen woke them up, took them away, and spent 20 hours
    tearing apart their home and their office.
        It got much worse--the Bitkovs were put into cages for 9
    days. Their daughter--remember she had been kidnapped and
    repeatedly raped years earlier--was denied medication, now
    suffered a nervous breakdown. As the ordeal continued, she
    would later make multiple suicide attempts. Their infant son
    was torn away from them, not even permitted to stay with
    friends, and sent to an orphanage, where he sustained facial
    injuries, a chipped tooth, conjunctivitis, lost the ability to
    speak. When family friends recovered him they found that, when
    given food, little Vladimir immediately began hiding it under
    his shirt. I will not say more now about the Bitkov's harrowing
    ordeal--their lawyers will speak to that. Suffice it to say
    that Igor, Irina, and Anastasia have remained incarcerated
    since January 2015.
        In January of this year, despite an earlier appeals court
    ruling that the Bitkov's alleged offense was only
    administrative in nature and punishable with a fine, Igor was
    sentenced to 19 years in prison and Irina and Anastasia were
    sentenced to 14 years each. These sentences were far harsher
    than those given to Guatemalan officials who perpetrated the
    sale of passports--they are harsher than sentences given to
    rapists or murderers.
        What was CICIG's role in all of this? What we know for a
    fact is this: CICIG and a special branch of the attorney
    general's office worked together on the investigation and
    arrest of the Bitkovs--CICIG personnel participated in the raid
    on the Bitkov's home. Then CICIG and VTB Bank initiated and
    aggressively pursued the legal case against them, consistently
    arguing at every level of the judicial process against the
    Bitkovs, including against their appeal to be tried as migrants
    guilty of an administrative offense rather than a criminal one.
    CICIG--via its representative Claudia Gonzalez Orellana--
    defended the role of the VTB Bank in the prosecution of the
    Bitkovs. Oddly, CICIG never prosecuted the law firm which
    provided the Bitkovs with the passports that destroyed their
    lives.
        As we will hear from Bill Browder: ``Inexplicably . . . in
    January 2015, a criminal case against the Bitkovs was opened at
    the direction of CICIG. Immediately after, 70 armed police
    officers raided the Bitkov's home, arrested Irina, Igor, and
    Anastasia and detained them in cages behind the parking garage
    in the main court building of Guatemala City.''
        CICIG was invited to participate in this event and brief us
    today, but declined. They have sent a note, requesting that it
    be made part of the record, as has VTB Bank. Without objection,
    that will be done.
        During questions, I will quote from CICIG's note--asking
    our witnesses about CICIG's account.
        Just yesterday afternoon, the Constitutional Court of
    Guatemala--the country's highest court--upheld an earlier
    decision by a lower court that had granted the Bitkovs' appeal
    to be considered migrants, and therefore, under international
    law, not able to be tried as criminals. It is not yet clear
    what this ruling will mean--it seems to mean that the family
    could be released from prison--but also that they could be
    deported back to Russia. Time will tell.
        I want to make an appeal to the Guatemalan government, to
    CICIG, to our government, and to the UN--this is a time to
    focus on restoring to this family as much as possible of what
    has been unjustly taken from them. Their safety must come
    first--we must assume that they remain targets for the Kremlin.
    They must not be returned to Russia. They have to be protected,
    and safe haven must be found for them.
        And then there must be accountability for the grotesque
    wrong that has been done to them. There must be further
    inquiry, and we must get to the bottom of this.
        It would be the worst irony if CICIG, which was created to
    battle for accountability for corruption, were now to seek only
    to avoid scrutiny and accountability. CICIG cannot credibly do
    battle against a culture of impunity if it demands impunity for
    itself.
        This is the time for CICIG--and its commissioner Ivan
    Velasquez--to throw open its doors, provide transparency, and
    give an honest accounting to the world of exactly what was
    CICIG's role in the cruelty that was wreaked on the Bitkovs.
    Unfortunately, up to now it has done nothing of the sort. I
    urge CICIG to change course now.

                    Prepared Statement of Hon. Roger Wicker

        Thank you, Co-Chairman Smith, for convening this emergency
    hearing today. As our longest-serving commissioner, your
    doggedness to defend human dignity over the years has advanced
    the cause of freedom and saved countless lives around the
    world.
        As members of Congress, we have a particular obligation to
    ensure the causes and institutions funded by the United States
    remain consistent with our values and our interests.
        Today, the Commission will examine the harrowing experience
    of a Russian family who fell victim to an all-too-common
    corporate raider scheme in Russia. Facing violent extortion,
    financial ruin, and imprisonment, the Bitkovs sought refuge
    abroad. Using the services of what they believed to be a
    legitimate immigration firm, they received new identities from
    the Government of Guatemala and began a new life in Central
    America. A few years later, Kremlin agents tracked them down
    and colluded with the UN's International Commission against
    Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) to sentence them to nearly twenty
    years in prison.
        We know the lengths Russia's kleptocracy will go to
    intimidate those who challenge its crimes. We remember the
    stories of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, whose successful company was
    expropriated and who spent 10 years in the Siberian gulag, and
    Sergei Magnitsky, who exposed corruption at the top of Russia's
    government and was tortured and killed for doing so. In the
    case of the Bitkov family, the Kremlin agents persecuting the
    Bitkovs are sanctioned by the United States. In addition, the
    CICIG, a powerful and active participant in this gross
    miscarriage of justice, is funded in large part by the United
    States.
        We are right to ask: Why would agents from one of the
    world's most ruthless kleptocracies join forces with an agency
    set up to combat corruption and impunity? Why would a UN
    institution receiving significant U.S. funding be so blind as
    to work with Vladimir Putin's cronies when its mission is to
    help Guatemala move beyond the corruption and impunity that
    plague its society? In this whole tragic affair, did the
    Kremlin exert any undue influence on CICIG?
        Yesterday's decision by Guatemala's Constitutional Court in
    favor of the Bitkovs is a welcome step, but this family remains
    in jail. They should be freed immediately. And yet, unless they
    receive asylum in Guatemala or another county, the Bitkovs will
    remain in grave jeopardy of being returned to Russia, where
    their long nightmare will surely continue.
        I would like to note the role of one of our witnesses in
    bringing this case to our attention and to the attention of the
    American people. In 2009, Mr. Browder brought a similar case to
    the Helsinki Commission involving his lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.
    At the time, Sergei was in pretrial detention in Moscow and
    being subjected to increasingly torturous conditions. My good
    friend Senator Ben Cardin chaired a hearing on Sergei's case,
    and we worked to bring attention to his plight.
        However, Sergei died suddenly, having been locked in an
    isolation cell and beaten by prison guards when he needed
    urgent medical care. We must learn from this tragedy and not
    allow it to happen to the Bitkovs.
        I will be working closely with the White House, National
    Security Council, and State Department to ensure the safety of
    this family, and I am prepared to use all available policy
    options to help resolve this injustice.
        The case of the Bitkovs illustrates the Kremlin's pattern
    of abuse involving the world's courts and legal institutions.
    Russia should be called out for the mafia state it is and the
    illegitimate and politically influenced decisions that come out
    of Russian courts not given the time of day. We must find a way
    to protect our institutions from malign outsider influence and
    avoid becoming unwitting participants in Kremlin vendettas.

                     Prepared Statement of Hon. Marco Rubio

        Thank you Co-chair Smith for convening this important and
    timely hearing of the Helsinki Commission titled ``The Long Arm
    of Injustice: Did a UN Commission Founded to Fight Corruption
    Help the Kremlin Destroy a Russian Family?''

        As I am unable to attend today's hearing, I would like to
    submit a statement for the record on the mistreatment of the
    Bitkov family by the Russian Government and the apparent
    miscarriage of justice that has so far unfolded in Guatemala.

        In 2008, the Bitkovs had their business stolen by a
    Kremlin-associated bank--which is currently under U.S.
    sanctions--and were forced from their home in Russia after
    threats from the Putin regime and its cronies, just like so
    many other entrepreneurs over the past two decades.

        Having lost their business and their homeland, the Bitkovs
    fled to several countries before finally landing in Guatemala
    in hopes of a safe and secure future. But, in Putin's Russia,
    merely stealing the Bitkovs livelihood wasn't enough. The
    Kremlin and those associated with it have perpetrated an
    international campaign of aggression against the Bitkovs,
    pressuring the Guatemalan government--including troublingly,
    the Guatemalan judiciary--to prosecute the entire Bitkov family
    on potentially trump-up charges.

        Unfortunately for the rule of law in Guatemala, Moscow
    seemed to have found a willing partner in the International
    Commission on Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), which was set-up
    through the auspices of the United Nations to prosecute
    official corruption and political intimidation, not participate
    in it. I am concerned that CICIG, a commission funded by the
    United States, had potentially been manipulated by radical
    elements and Russia's campaign against the Bitkovs in
    Guatemala. And that this, in turn, may have led to the Bitkovs'
    suspiciously long prison sentences for crimes that normally
    would be afforded administrative fines, if any penalty at all.

        Moreover, the conditions that the Bitkovs have endured
    during their incarceration have been deplorable, as they have
    suffered malnourishment, disease, and the separation of the
    family, including the placement of Igor and Irina's youngest
    child in an orphanage against their expressed wishes.

        What all of this adds up to is Putin and his cronies
    apparently settling scores in the Western Hemisphere and
    undermining Guatemala's anti-corruption watchdog.

        This miscarriage of justice cannot be tolerated and today's
    hearing is a strong first step in bringing this matter to
    light. It is important for both Kremlin and Guatemalan
    officials to understand that the world sees what is happening
    and will not accept Russian malign influence in the Western
    Hemisphere or the destruction of Guatemalan judiciary.

        I was pleased to learn that on Thursday, April 26th, the
    Bitkov family was granted a protection order by the Guatemalan
    Constitutional Court.

        I am confident that the Guatemalan government under the
    leadership of President Morales will ensure this family's
    safety as they close this horrific chapter in their lives and
    begin a new journey away from the Kremlin's international
    campaign of aggression against them.

                   Prepared Statement of Hon. James Lankford

        Mr. Chairman and Members of the Commission, thank you for
    accepting my statement for the record as I regrettably could
    not attend today's important hearing. I appreciate you and your
    staff's hard work to bring these stories and facts to light.
        I want to focus on something that has for too long gone
    overlooked and without proper oversight from the U.S. Congress:
    the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala's
    (CICIG) expansion of authorities and prerogative beyond its
    mandate, and its level of effectiveness in building the
    capacity of Guatemala's own judicial system.
        CICIG's mandate clearly states that the entity was
    established to support the Government of Guatemala by
    investigating and disbanding illegal security forces and
    clandestine security structures operating in the country.
    According to the mandate, CICIG is also tasked with
    strengthening Guatemala's own justice system so that an
    international body is no longer needed in the future. It
    appears that, after more than a decade of operation in the
    country, there is an unknown amount of progress in creating
    capacity for Guatemala's own judicial system; if so, CICIG is
    faltering in its mission.
        Let me make clear that I support the intention and core
    mandate of CICIG to walk alongside Guatemala's public
    prosecutors to tackle the devastating effects that armed drug
    traffickers and gangs have had and continue to have on
    Guatemalan society and economy. The influence of illicit
    narcotics is the primary catalyst for the region's rampant
    crime and corruption, and the U.S. and international community
    should be a partner with the Guatemalan government in
    eliminating its malign influence. Yet we should be diligent in
    exercising oversight over any foreign entity which receives
    U.S. taxpayer funding to ensure our nation's own resources are
    used to advance national interests.
        I applaud the Commission for looking into the issue of the
    Bitkov family as well as exercising oversight over the U.S.-
    funded CICIG.

                   Prepared Statement of Hon. Michael S. Lee

        I am delighted my colleagues are holding this important
    hearing today, and I am grateful for the opportunity to share
    some thoughts and a statement on this important topic. It is
    truly unfortunate that it takes horrific events for us in
    America to stop and examine how our taxpayer dollars are being
    expended in support of supranational governance overseas in
    ways that wreak havoc and upend principles of sovereignty for
    others. My deepest sympathies are with the Bitkov Family today,
    and with all of those whose lives have been irreparably altered
    by egregious violations of law and order.
        The UN's International Commission against Impunity in
    Guatemala (CICIG) is an unwieldy beast. All organizations, even
    those created with the best of intentions, must have proper
    oversight and accountability mechanisms built-in. While
    initially created to root-out corruption and uphold rule of
    law, CICIG both in principle and application has become an
    extrajudicial, partial and unfair arbiter in Guatemala. Since
    its inception in 2007, the U.S. has spent more than $44.5
    million on CICIG. While our U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley has
    called on the entity to remain intact, she has also called on
    the organization to be less overt and political, saying it
    should not be in the paper every day. Unfortunately, the
    continued conflicts of personalities between Guatemalan
    politicians and leadership of CICIG has kept many in deep
    conflict over various charges of corruption and challenges of
    leadership. No organization should be beholden to one man in
    the way at CICIG is intertwined with Commissioner Ivan
    Velasquez. An entity that is truly unbiased should continue its
    mission regardless of who is in charge. This is in part why
    we--and others who financially support CICIG--must increase
    oversight over this body, ensuring our funds are spent
    responsibly. CICIG should be operating to root-out real
    corruption, rather than building up or tearing down political
    winners and losers. It pains me to see sovereignty continually
    thrown by the wayside as has been the case in Guatemala. It is
    unfair to average citizens. It has been unfair to the Bitkovs.
    It is unfair to all who seek a free and prosperous Guatemala.
        Today I wish the CICIG never was established. I wish that
    we could have spent all these funds and all this time working
    yes on corruption issues, but also on transnational crime. Or
    on creating economic opportunity for both Guatemalans and
    Americans. Or on strengthen the actual government of Guatemala
    established by the people of Guatemala. As long as we keep
    using our resources to drive political wedges and undermine
    what freethinking human beings made in the image of God want
    their country to be, we will fail to seize the true
    opportunities for growth before us.

                       Prepared Statement of Bill Browder

        Co-Chairman Smith, Distinguished Members of the Helsinki
    Commission,
        Thank you for giving me the opportunity to present the
    story of the Russian Government's persecution of the Bitkov
    family in Guatemala.
        As many of you know, I was the client of Sergei Magnitsky
    in Russia. When he was murdered by Russian Government officials
    for uncovering state corruption, I started a campaign for
    justice, which led to this Commission spearheading the Sergei
    Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act in 2012, and the
    Global Magnitsky Act in 2016.
        I wrote about the Magnitsky justice campaign in a book,
    entitled ``Red Notice,'' which was published in February 2015.
    Following the book's publication, I have received messages from
    people all over the world telling me about their reactions to
    the Magnitsky case and sharing their own stories.
        One of those stories came from a Russian woman named Irina
    Bitkov. She described how she and her family had been
    persecuted in a similar way to Sergei Magnitsky in Russia and
    when they fled, their persecutors from the Russian Government
    chased them all the way to Guatemala and ruined their lives.
        I am here today to share the Bitkov's story because they
    can't be here to do it themselves. They are currently in a
    Guatemalan prison where Igor Bitkov (the father) is serving a
    nineteen-year prison sentence and Irina and Anastasia Bitkov
    (the mother and daughter) are serving fourteen-year prison
    sentences, all for ``passport violations'' in Guatemala.
        I'd like to point out that I have no business relationships
    with the Bitkovs. I am receiving no compensation for the
    advocacy I am doing on their behalf. I am entirely motivated by
    the shocking injustice of what has happened to them.
        This story starts in the 1990's when Igor and Irina Bitkov
    became owners of a paper mill in Russia called the North West
    Timber Company. Over the course of the 1990's, they built a
    highly successful business that reached $80 million in profits
    by 2007. It was apparently valued by the Russian state bank,
    Sberbank, at roughly US$400 million.
        In the course of its business, the company obtained loans
    from Russian state banks, including Sberbank, VTB and
    Gazprombank in order to upgrade its facilities. Shortly after
    the loans were issued, the Bitkov's problems began.
        One of the bankers involved in issuing the loan approached
    Igor Bitkov and asked Igor to sell 51 percent of the business
    to him personally for US$25 million. As the business was worth
    many times that, Igor refused.
        Following this unwanted take-over attempt, a terrible
    trauma befell the Bitkov family. The Bitkov's then 16-year-old
    daughter Anastasia was kidnapped in St Petersburg. The
    kidnappers demanded a ransom, which took the Bitkovs 3 days to
    accumulate. They paid the kidnappers and Anastasia was
    released, but when she was safely back home, the family
    discovered that Anastasia had been drugged and repeatedly raped
    by her kidnappers. The ordeal left Anastasia deeply traumatised
    and set off a cascade of psychiatric ailments, which require
    medication and treatment to this day.
        Following that, and in a further escalation of the attempts
    to take over their company, the Russian state banks
    simultaneously called in the $158 million loans, forcing the
    company into bankruptcy.
        During the bankruptcy proceedings, the equipment of their
    factories was sold for a fraction of its true value.
        The Bitkovs were then told that they would be imminently
    arrested. This was the moment the Bitkov family fled Russia.
    They first travelled to Latvia, and then to Turkey. In Turkey,
    they sought out a country to settle in where they could avoid
    the risk of being sent back to Russia where they feared the
    worst. They chose Guatemala because it did not have an
    extradition treaty with Russia.
        They found an advertisement on the Internet from a Latin
    American law firm called Cutino Associates that specialised in
    immigration law and advertised its expertise in organizing
    Guatemalan immigration for US$50,000 per person. The family
    engaged Cutino and began the process of becoming immigrants to
    Guatemala.
        In their initial communications with the Cutino law firm,
    they explained that the reason for their immigration was to
    avoid persecution from Russia.
        Cutino explained to them that they could change their names
    in their immigration applications to avoid detection by the
    Russians. Cutino then submitted applications for the family and
    the Guatemalan migration service issued them new documents in
    new names. Anastasia kept her original name hoping that because
    she was not targeted with Russian criminal cases she would be
    ok to keep it.
        The family then began a new life in Guatemala. Igor became
    a high school math teacher at the Brillo De Sol School in
    Antigua, Guatemala. Irina became a drawing teacher at the same
    school, and Anastasia, who was beginning to regain her
    confidence after her terrible trauma in Russia, began a career
    in fashion.
        In January 2012, Irina Bitkov gave birth to a baby boy
    named Vladimir.
        It appeared that after their terrible ordeal in Russia
    where the family had lost nearly everything, they could begin a
    new chapter in their lives.
        Unfortunately, their dream of a new life came crashing down
    in late 2013.
        Investigators working for VTB Bank tracked down the Bitkovs
    in Guatemala. The head of the VTB Bank, Andrey Kostin,
    personally hired Henry Comte, one of the most prestigious
    attorneys in Guatemala and an alternate judge on the Guatemalan
    Supreme Court, to assist VTB in pursuing the Bitkovs in
    Guatemala.
        VTB and Comte's first attempt to go after the Bitkovs was
    to file a criminal complaint with the Attorney General's Office
    of Guatemala claiming VTB had been defrauded by the Bitkovs in
    Russia. VTB presented photocopies of forged documents in the
    Guatemalan court. These documents had already been rejected as
    forgeries in similar proceedings in the Russian courts. When
    the Guatemalan court requested the originals, VTB bank withdrew
    its application.
        VTB and Henry Comte then came up with a `plan B' to go
    after the Bitkovs. For several years before 2013, there had
    been an ongoing investigation into human trafficking and
    Guatemalan officials' complicity with human traffickers in the
    country. It was called the Migration Case and was supported by
    a U.N. organisation called CICIG whose mandate was to go after
    organised crime networks who previously enjoyed impunity in
    Guatemala.
        VTB and Comte successfully convinced CICIG to focus on the
    Bitkovs as part of the Migration Case in spite of the fact the
    Bitkovs were clearly not part of any organised network of
    traffickers.
        Inexplicably, VTB Bank gained the legal status as an
    `interested party' in the Migration Case against the Bitkovs
    with the support of CICIG. In January 2015, a criminal case
    against the Bitkovs was opened at the direction of CICIG.
    Immediately after, 70 armed police officers raided the Bitkovs'
    home, arrested Irina, Igor and Anastasia and detained them in
    cage behind the parking garage in the main court building in
    Guatemala City.
        While they were being held, Anastasia was deprived of her
    anti-depression medications and she had a severe psychiatric
    break-down. Anastasia and her mother were moved to a hospital
    under armed guard, and Igor was put into pre-trial detention at
    the Mariscal Zavala prison while the case awaited trial.
        The Bitkovs arranged for their family lawyer, Rolando
    Alvarado, to be a guardian for their 3-year-old child,
    Vladimir, while they were incarcerated. In spite of Mr.
    Alvarado's valid guardianship papers, the Prosecutor of
    Guatemala filed a motion with the court calling for Vladimir
    Bitkov to be placed in a state orphanage instead.
        At this point, the Russian Government also got involved.
    Pavel Astakhov, the Russian government's ombudsman for
    children's rights, publicly called for Vladimir Bitkov to be
    returned to Russia to be put into a Russian orphanage.
        The Russian foray failed because Vladimir is only a
    Guatemalan citizen, not Russian, and could not be returned to
    Russia. However, the Guatemalan prosecutor's motion succeeded
    and Vladimir was placed in a state orphanage.
        The family desperately applied to reverse the decision and
    get Vladimir out of the orphanage. It took 42 days for that
    application to be heard. When Vladimir finally emerged, he was
    examined by medical experts who found he had an upper
    respiratory infection; severe inflammation of the middle ear;
    conjunctivitis in both eyes; scars along the left eyebrow; and
    chipped front teeth. They concluded that he suffered from
    physical and psychological abuses in the orphanage.
        In the meantime, the case against the Bitkovs for passport
    violations moved through the courts, they were formally
    indicted as part of the CICIG Migration Case in April 2015.
        The Bitkov family appealed the indictment in the Appeals
    Court arguing that they were migrants and could not be subject
    to criminal prosecution applicable to traffickers. In December
    2017, the Guatemalan Appeals Court ruled in favour of the
    Bitkovs declaring that any passport irregularities were
    administrative offences punishable by a fine and as migrants
    they should not be under criminal penalty.
        However, CICIG and VTB were not happy with this decision
    and both immediately filed appeals against that court decision
    that would have freed the Bitkovs. While their appeal was
    pending, the decision was not in force.
        A few days later on January 5, 2018, the Guatemalan
    District Court found Igor, Irina and Anastasia Bitkov guilty as
    users of the criminal network in the Migration Case. The court
    sentenced Igor to 19 years in prison, and Irina and Anastasia
    to 14 years. CICIG trumpeted their court victory on their
    website pointing out that they prosecuted 39 people from the
    criminal network, including the Bitkovs.
        I understand that the 19-year sentence that Igor Bitkov was
    given was greater than sentences for manslaughter, rape,
    burglary and fraud in Guatemala. The sentences that all three
    of them were given appears to exceed the sentences of many of
    the government officials in Guatemala and traffickers who were
    part of the human trafficking network.
        There was no evidence that the Bitkovs bribed any
    government official, or were involved in any corruption.
        The Bitkovs, who did not speak Spanish and did not know
    anyone in Guatemala on arrival, relied on the law firm, Cutino
    Associates who presented themselves as legitimate immigration
    lawyers.
        It also appears that nobody from Cutino Associates who
    organised their passports and settlement documents has ever
    been prosecuted.
        No other customers of Cutino appear to have been tried,
    convicted and sentenced like the Bitkovs. In the list presented
    by CICIG, which includes 39 people in the Migration Case, 36
    were low and middle level officials from different Guatemalan
    governmental bodies and a few `coyotes' who physically moved
    people through Guatemala.
        So, what's going on here?
        There are two big Russian themes in this case, neither of
    which are unusual.
        First, in Russia people who run successful businesses are
    routinely victimised through a process called `Raiderstvo'. I
    was a victim of Raiderstvo and so were the Bitkovs. It is a
    standard practice in Russia where organized criminals work
    together with corrupt government officials to extract property
    and money from their victims. There are literally hundreds of
    thousands of businessmen in jail in Russia who are victims of
    this as well.
        The second theme is the abuse of international
    institutions. The Russian Government routinely abuses
    international institutions in order to persecute its enemies
    who are outside of Russia.
        In my case, the Russian Government tried six times to have
    Interpol arrest me after the Magnitsky Act was passed. The
    Russian Government also successfully recruited a senior
    official inside the Swiss Federal Police to stymie a Swiss
    criminal investigation into money laundering by Russian
    officials in the Magnitsky case. The Russian Government also
    succeeded in getting a Deputy Attorney General of Cyprus in
    charge of mutual legal assistance and extradition affecting the
    Magnitsky case, and many other politically sensitive cases, to
    inappropriately assist Russia in pursuing their enemies in
    Cyprus.
        In my opinion, the Russian Government succeeded in
    compromising CICIG and the Guatemalan Prosecutor for their own
    purposes in the Bitkov case.
        CICIG and the prosecutor's office have jointly taken up the
    Russian government's vendetta against the Bitkovs with no good
    explanation.
        CICIG did not distance itself from this Russian
    persecution. They've touted it on their website and they've
    actively tried to overturn the Bitkovs' vindication by the
    Appeals Court.
        Nor has VTB tried to hide its role in this case. In spite
    of the fact that VTB obtained no financial recovery for their
    alleged financial dispute with the Bitkovs, they became an
    interested party in a case involving something that had nothing
    to do with them in order to vindictively punish Igor Bitkov and
    his entire family.
        In the Wall Street Journal on April 4, 2018, Igor Kostin,
    the Chairman of VTB, says: ``VTB's action relating to the
    Bitkov family is an example of standard procedure in resolving
    financial business disputes through the available legal
    channels.''
        This is an appalling case in which the Bitkov family
    deserves justice and the United States has an opportunity to
    deliver them justice.
        CICIG is a U.N. organisation in which approximately 50
    percent of its budget comes from the US government.
        I do not believe that anyone in the US Congress or the US
    government ever envisaged that US tax dollars would be spent to
    support a Russian persecution of a family fleeing persecution
    in Guatemala. I would recommend that CICIG's funding be
    suspended until this situation is resolved.
        When I began the process of advocating for the Bitkov
    family, I discovered that CICIG is a highly contentious issue
    in DC and around the world. There are some people who are pro-
    CICIG, there are others who are anti-CICIG.
        Up until 2 months ago, I had never heard of CICIG. I come
    into this case with no prejudices one way or another. I've gone
    where the evidence leads. So far, the evidence leads toward the
    conclusion about the involvement of this organisation in the
    Bitkov's persecution.
        As journalists from the Wall Street Journal and other news
    organization have started to investigate, CICIG has avoided
    answering a number of direct questions about their role in the
    Bitkov case and their support of VTB.
        When CICIG was invited to give evidence to Congress, they
    declined claiming as a U.N. organization, it is not accountable
    to any institution in the United States.
        They can't have it both ways. They can either be the heroic
    anti-impunity organisation that their mandate sets for them and
    not take on other country's vendettas, or the situation at
    CICIG needs to be cleaned up.

    Bill Browder is the founder and CEO of Hermitage Capital
    Management, which was the investment adviser to the largest
    foreign investment fund in Russia until 2005, when Bill was
    denied entry to the country and declared a ``threat to national
    security'' as a result of his battle against corporate
    corruption. Following his expulsion, the Russian authorities
    raided his offices, seized Hermitage Fund's investment
    companies and used them to steal $230 million of taxes that the
    companies had previously paid. When Browder's lawyer, Sergei
    Magnitsky, investigated the crime, he was arrested by the same
    officers he implicated, tortured for 358 days, and killed in
    custody at the age of 37 in November 2009. Since then, Browder
    has spent the last 5 years fighting for justice for Mr.
    Magnitsky. The Russian government exonerated and even promoted
    some of the officials involved so Browder took the case to
    America, where his campaigning led to the U.S. Congress
    adopting the `Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act'
    in 2012, which imposed visa sanctions and asset freezes on
    those involved in the detention, ill-treatment and death of
    Sergei Magnitsky (as well as in other human rights abuses).
    This law was the first time the US sanctioned Russia in 35
    years and became the model for all subsequent US sanctions
    against Russia. Browder is currently working to have similar
    legislation passed in Magnitsky's name across the European
    Union.

                    Prepared Statement of Victoria Sandoval

        Good morning Co-Chairman Smith, Distinguished Members of
    the Helsinki Commission and to all the public present in this
    room, for me it is an honor to have been invited to this
    hearing as a witness to the Bitkov Case.
        My name is Victoria Sandoval, I am a lawyer and public
    notary and have worked on human rights and criminal law issues
    since 2006. In January 2015 I started supporting the Bitkov
    family in their judicial case, both personally and
    professionally.
    Start of the relationship with the Bitkovs:
        I personally know the Bitkovs since they first came to live
    in the same condominium where I live, and because they have a
    son of the same age as my child. Irina Bitkov and I both took
    our babies to the same early stimulation course and it was
    there that we strengthened our friendship. I could see how
    Vladimir was growing.
        His parents were concerned to ensure that he would grow up
    knowing and loving his Russian culture, in fact, he spoke the
    Russian language better than Spanish, which he spoke with a
    noticeable Russian accent.
        They gave Vladimir a life full of care and love. Every day
    at 5 o'clock in the afternoon the three of them, Igor, Irina
    and Vladimir would be seen together with their two dogs walking
    through the condominium.
    The raid:
        On Thursday, January 15th, 2015 in the early morning I
    could see a lot of police movement in the condominium and when
    I asked an employee why there was so much movement, he told me
    that CICIG was raiding the house of some Russians.
        The first thing I thought was that in the condominium there
    was another family of Russians because the ones I knew were
    very good people. However, when the guard told me the address
    of the house, I was surprised and went to see what it was all
    about.
        The blocks in the condominium are about 150 meters long,
    and the Bitkov house is at the far end of the block, and on
    both sides of the street I could see that it was full of
    official vehicles (General Prosecution Office, CICIG and
    National Civil Police). It was a very intimidating situation.
    It seemed to me as if they were pursuing them like dangerous
    criminals but I knew as their friend and an experienced
    criminal lawyer that they did not fit that profile.
    Closing of the house:
        On Friday the 16th January 2015 I was finally able to see
    the Bitkov's house which had been locked up and was guarded by
    two police officers.
    Carceletas:
        I learned from the news that the Bitkovs had been taken
    into custody and transferred to the carceletas at the Court
    House, to the Juzgado de Turno de Guatemala.
        The carceletas are open cages located in the basement of
    the Court House building where by Constitutional order, people
    should not stay in the carceletas for more than 24 hours. The
    Bitkovs were kept in the carceletas for 5 days, Irina and
    Anastasia and 9 days Igor! The carceletas are very filthy
    places where the bathrooms are only cleaned very occasionally.
    The state does not provide those who are inside the carceletas
    with food or water. I was shocked that neither the Russian
    ambassador nor any of his representatives were concerned about
    the welfare of his fellow citizens. He never went to the
    carceletas to see if the Bitkovs needed food, water or anything
    else. He was not even the least bit concerned about Anastasia's
    health.
        When the Bitkovs were taken into custody, the officials
    didn't let Anastasia take her medication with her. She was very
    scared because her life depends on the regular intake of
    medication. Not having her medication with her caused Anastasia
    to have a severe breakdown.
        A Judge ordered that Anastasia and Irina be transferred to
    a private psychiatric hospital because Anastasia was suffering
    a psychiatric breakdown that put her life at risk, as was
    established by a forensic psychiatrist from the National
    Institute of Forensic Sciences of Guatemala. However, the
    Penitentiary System refused to transfer them, which led to the
    imposition of a habeas corpus in favor of Anastasia and Irina.
        After the inquiries of the judge who handled the habeas
    corpus, two guards of the Penitentiary System sent a report
    saying that the General Director and the sub director of
    operations told them that they, Anastasia and Irina, could not
    be transferred to the hospital. The two guards asking the
    General Director if they have permission or not to fulfill a
    Judge's order is something very weird and unusual.
        According to a press statement the refusal was due to the
    fact that the Penitentiary System had no budget to pay for
    gasoline.
        Anastasia's breakdown was getting worse and following the
    Judge's decision to start a legal process for disobedience
    against the General Director and Subdirector of the
    Penitentiary System, the Penitentiary System accepted to
    transfer Anastasia and Irina, along with 50 Sistema
    Penitenciario Agents to the 10-room private mental health
    hospital Mederi. The hospital declined to accept Anastasia and
    Irina because so many guards could intimidate their other
    patients. Anastasia and Irina were returned to the court house.
        They were then transferred to an annex to the men's part of
    a prison where Igor was being held. Anastasia and Irina were
    put into a fenced off area of the men's prison. This area was
    only separated by a fence, which meant that Anastasia and Irina
    were not properly segregated from the male inmates who could
    clearly see them. Even more degrading for them was the fact
    that Anastasia and Irina were deprived of even the most basic
    right of privacy when using the bathroom which was also exposed
    to the male inmates. Anastasia and Irina would suffer daily
    humiliation of using the bathroom in full sight of the men
    inmates--many of whom were gang members. This was torture for
    them.
        On January 20th 2015, after remaining in the prison for
    five days, Anastasia and Irina were transferred to the
    Concepcion Hospital, where they had to stay for a year under
    armed guard.
        In Igor's case, after the raid he was transferred to the
    prison where he was sharing the 2  6 meters cell with
    30 to 40 other detainees, most of them being gang members who
    were extremely aggressive and high-conflict people. There was
    not enough space for all the detainees to sit down and even
    less space to sleep. Consequently, Igor was deprived of sleep
    for 9 days and was then taken in front of the Judge to give his
    first testimony.
    Igor's First Testimony
        At his first hearing, Igor was completely dumbfounded, he
    had not been provided with a translator and it was obvious that
    his Spanish was not good at that time.
        CICIG's attorney, Claudia Gonzalez Orellana clearly
    supported the participation of VTB by stating that the crimes
    committed in Russia should be investigated because they were
    related to those committed in Guatemala, despite the fact that
    later, she said that CICIG had no interest in whatever had
    happened in Russia.
        Likewise, CICIG's Attorney said that Igor had illegally
    entered Guatemala arguing that he had no migrating record. This
    was completely misleading she asked for Igor Vladimirovich
    Bitcov record instead of Igor Vladimirovich Bitkov record.
    CICIG's attorney also failed to mention that the Bitkovs
    entered Guatemala using their valid Russian passports so there
    can be no question that their entry was nothing other than
    legal.
        Judge Miguel Angel Galvez allowed VTB to be a provisional
    adhesive plaintiff arguing that it was important to know what
    had happened in Russia. This is despite the fact that the
    Russian Bank never presented any proof that the Bitkovs had
    committed any crime in Russia. Instead they presented
    photocopies of personal guarantees supposedly signed by the
    Bitkovs instead of originals, refusing to provide the originals
    for examination.
    House Stripping
        One of the Bitkov's neighbors told us that he had seen a
    patrol car of the National Civil Police outside the Bitkovs'
    house and that he had seen policemen carrying children's toys,
    carts, tricycles from the house. So, the Bitkovs filed a
    complaint to investigate the theft, it was ratified and
    Veronica, Vladimir's nanny also went to testify since she knew
    what the Bitkovs used to have and what had been stolen.
        No investigation was conducted by the Public Prosecutor's
    Office.
        In January 2016 the Judge in charge ordered the opening of
    the sealed house. The house had been completely looted.
    Acta de Haroldo Flores:
        In June of 2017 the Child Prosecutor of the Attorney
    General's Office (Procuraduria General de la Nacion--PGN),
    Harold Augusto Flores Valenzuela, was arrested in the case of
    Hogar Seguro, Virgen de la Asuncion. According to Igor, before
    Mr. Flores Valenzuela arrived at Mariscal Zavala, his lawyers
    went to talk with him to see what his attitude was with respect
    to Harold Flores after he had sent Igor's 3-year-old son,
    Vladimir, to the ``Love the Child'' orphanage where Vladimir
    was abused.
        Igor said that all he wanted was for Harold Flores to tell
    him why he had tortured Vladimir in the terrible way that he
    did.
        When Harold Flores was taken to Mariscal Zavala prison the
    first thing he did was to visit Igor and told him that he had
    been called by a CICIG official that told him that he had to do
    everything he could, so that the ``son of the Russians'' would
    be sent to an orphanage. After that he was visited by a woman
    who ratified that order. He would not tell Igor this woman's
    name because he feared for his life. So even though he saw that
    the reports on Vladimir's guardians were just fine he ignored
    them and asked Judge Maria Belen Reyna Salazar to send Vladimir
    to that infamous orphanage. Flores also told Igor that Judge
    Reyna Salazar received the same orders from CICIG. As a proof
    of what he said, he wrote down his name and phone number.
    Power of Attorney to Henry Phillipe Comte Velasquez
        VTB Bank was represented in Guatemala by its agent Henry
    Phillip Comte Velasquez who is a founding partner of the Law
    Firm Comte & Font--Legalsa.
        Henry P Comte is an alternative Judge of the Constitutional
    Court. This is the same court where is pending the ruling at
    the Bitkovs ``amparo'' appeal (Constitutional appeal) against
    the indictment stating that any passport irregularities are
    administrative offences punishable by a fine. VTB/CICIG
    appealed that decision in the Constitutional Court.
        Curiously, the Power of Attorney given by VTB to Henry
    Phillip Comte Velasquez to act for VTB was signed by the
    President of the Board of Directors of VTB Bank, Andrey Kostin,
    himself, and not by the head of the legal department, as is
    normally happens with any Bank.
        This mandate was granted to Henry Phillip Comte Velasquez
    with ``Reserve of exercise'' that is to say that he can
    delegate it to another lawyer of the Law Firm Comte & Font--
    Legalsa and his law firm still continues to exercise the powers
    granted under it.
    Anastasia's illness
        Anastasia has been diagnosed with Bipolar Affective
    Disorder, Borderline Syndrome according to the psychiatric
    reports of the National Institute of Forensic Sciences of
    Guatemala. Her psychiatric disorders were triggered by her
    kidnapping in Russia in which she was repeatedly raped and
    drugged.
        As a result of her illness, Anastasia has attempted suicide
    five times.
        While at the Hospital Concepcion she suffered several
    crises due to the harassment of the National Civil Police
    agents who were guarding them. She was also greatly affected by
    the fact that Judge Maria Belen Reyna Salazar had sent her
    little brother to an orphanage and also that Judge Carol
    Patricia Flores Polanco sent several forensic psychiatrists to
    determine whether she had to stay at the hospital or whether
    she could be sent to the jail of Santa Teresa.
        The National Institute of Forensic Sciences ruled that
    Anastasia should not be sent to a prison because it could cause
    her to make further attempts to commit suicide.
        Ignoring this, the President for the Tribunal de Sentencia,
    Judge Iris Yassmin Barrios Aguilar ordered to send her to the
    Mariscal Zavala prison for 14 years.
        Currently she is under a lot of emotional pressure because
    she has been threatened by Judge Iris Yasmin Barrios Aguilar
    and by the warden of the Women's section of Mariscal Zavala to
    be transferred to the Federico Mora Psychiatric Hospital if she
    shows any sign of her illness (that triggers her anxiety).
        A few days after Anastasia was sent to prison, the
    President of the Tribunal de Sentencia ordered that Anastasia
    be evaluated by the National Institute of Forensic Sciences of
    Guatemala to determine whether it was necessary or not to send
    her to the Federico Mora National Mental Health Hospital, named
    as the worst in the world by the BBC. \1\
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    Similar Cases:
        In Guatemala, the Palermo Convention is in force, as well
    as the Guatemalan Migration Law. Both laws establish that
    migrants cannot be criminalized for the possession or use of
    travel documents or ID documents. Even so, the State of
    Guatemala has decided to prosecute, illegally, these cases and
    has issued suspended sentences in other similar cases. I list
    below the most relevant:

    A verdict was issued by the same court that sentenced the
    Bitkovs to penalties of 19 and 14 years in prison and expulsion
    from the country. The same 3 judges, in February 2018, that is,
    one month after they imposed custodial sentences on the
    Bitkovs, sentenced 2 members of the dangerous and notorious
    Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) gang to conmutable prison sentences of
    5 years. Mr. Israel Antonio Cabrera Luna, whose alias is ``el
    demonio'' (the demon) and Mauricio Antonio Rivas Hernandez,
    whose alias is ``goat'' or ``patoja,'' were of Salvadorian
    nationality. These MS-13 gang members were not expelled from
    the country, unlike the Bitkovs. These MS-13 gang members did
    not cooperate at the investigation.
    (* judgment Mara Salvatrucha process
    C-01031-2017-00005).

    CICIG, in its statement number 042--2013 indicates that 2
    Colombians were convicted, for similar acts as the Bitkovs, but
    they only got 3 years suspended prison sentences and expulsion
    to their country of origin.

    The case of Marcela Ortega Bejarano. She was a witness proposed
    by the General Prosecution Office who described the way the
    mafia operated within the General Directorate of Migration and
    within the National Registry of Persons (Civil Registry). In
    her testimony she recounts the way in which the documents were
    delivered, which is the same process by which the Bitkovs
    received their documents. She was also only given a 5 year
    suspended prison sentence and was expelled to her country of
    origin.
    Refugee Status:
        It is important to clarify that the Bitkov Family had not
    requested asylum upon entry into Guatemala. They hired Cutino
    Associates International assuming that the Law Firm that would
    take care of all the legal procedures required to obtain
    Guatemalan citizenship. Cutino Associates International also
    advised them to change their names in order to avoid any
    persecution by the Russian Federation in Guatemala. The advice
    provided by Cutino Associates International made the Bitkov
    family think that their documents were absolutely legal so they
    did not need to request asylum or refugee status. They found
    Cutino Associates International via the internet. \2\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \2\  https://web.archive.org/web/20090831041337/http://
    www.cutinointernational.com:80/
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        In February 2015, the Bitkovs filed the asylum application
    with the General Directorate of Immigration. The lawyer who
    made the filing told the Bitkovs that they had to appear
    personally to sign the initial request in front of the
    migration officer.
        Authorization was requested to Judge Carol Patricia Flores
    Polanco, to give them permission to go to sign the request for
    asylum, however, the Judge denied their request.
        This caused a delay in the filing of the asylum
    application. The Directorate General of Migration had offered
    to go to the Hospital and to Mariscal Zavala to obtain these
    signatures, however, they later retracted their offer.
        Finally, the authorization was given to the Bitkov's
    lawyers to obtain the signatures directly from the Bitkovs and
    the application for asylum was filed on July 23, 2015. The
    application for asylum was refused on 23 November 2016. The
    decision was notified to the Bitkovs on February 2017 so they
    appealed it before the General Secretariat of the Presidency on
    February 16, 2017 and is currently pending.
    Russian Embassy:
        Irina and Anastasia were first approached by the Russian
    Embassy in Guatemala when they were in hospital. The officials
    from the embassy asked Irina to allow Vladimir to be given
    Russian citizenship. She refused. The only reason that the
    Russian Embassy sought Russian citizenship for Vladimir was to
    enable them to take Vladimir back to Russia and put him in an
    orphanage.
    Call to justice:
        The evil with which this case has been handled is shocking.
    The Kremlin, through VTB bank has conspired with the Guatemalan
    justice system to (i) separate a 3-year-old boy from his family
    and send him to an orphanage where he was tortured (ii) to lock
    up in a prison a young woman with psychiatric disorders and
    finally (iii) condemn with ridiculous punishments a family who
    went to Guatemala in order to flee Russian persecution that was
    threatening to destroy their lives in contravention of Palermo
    Convention, Guatemalan Migration Law and an Order from the
    Constitutional Court.
        Anastasia told me once: I have suffered a lot, my life has
    never been even close to normal. I want to fight so my little
    brother can have a normal life, he still has time.

    Victoria Sandoval is a criminal and human rights attorney
    representing the Bitkov family. She is a lawyer and notary from
    the Francisco Marroqu!n University, with 15 years of experience
    in different areas of the Law, among them Corporative,
    Notarial, Labor, Criminal, and Human Rights. Ms. Sandoval has
    worked providing technical advice to the Supreme Court of
    Justice of Guatemala regarding the Juzgados Penales de Turno.
    She is the founder of the Asociaci"n Guatemalteca de Espina
    B!fida and former board member of the International Federation
    for Hydrocephalus and Spina Bifida.

                     Prepared Statement of Rolando Alvarado

        Good morning Co-Chairman Smith, Distinguished Members of
    the Helsinki Commission and to all the public present in this
    room, for me it is an honor to have been invited to this
    hearing as a witness to the Bitkov Case.
        I'm a lawyer who specialises in banking matters as well as
    cyber and economic crimes. I first came across the Bitkov
    family 2 years before their arrests when I initially met Irina
    and Anastasia Bitkov. They set up a small film company in
    Guatemala and I registered the copyrights of the material they
    produced. Since then, I have become a close friend to the
    family and I am in fact the legal guardian of Vladimir Bitkov,
    Igor and Irina's son, who is now 6 years old.
        First, I would like to address the actions for which the
    Bitkov family have been accused of. The Bitkovs were criminally
    charged for using identity documents and passports issued by
    the State of Guatemala. The International Commission against
    Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) and the General Prosecution
    Office argued that these documents were issued illegally.
        As a consequence, CICIG and the General Prosecution Office
    initiated a criminal prosecution, notoriously disproportionate
    and even more aggressive and shocking than high-impact crimes
    such as drug trafficking, murder or even terrorism. They
    channelled their criminal prosecution before special courts
    that know of crimes of greater risk. All this for what in
    reality constitutes a lack of migratory rights.
        CICIG has no right to participate as a complainant against
    the Bitkovs, since the mandate granted by the United Nations
    and the Government of Guatemala, establishes that the
    Commission has jurisdiction only to investigate crimes
    committed by members of the illegal security forces and the
    clandestine security apparatuses. The Bitkov family was not
    accused of being part of these illegal security forces and
    therefore does not fit into the functions entrusted to CICIG.
    This implies that CICIG exceeded its legal powers and abused
    its authority.
        In addition to violating its agreement, CICIG also violated
    the Palermo Convention. The Bitkovs were accused of using false
    identity documents and passports, however in accordance with
    the Palermo Convention--of which the State of Guatemala has
    signed and ratified--as migrants the Bitkovs are clearly exempt
    of criminal responsibility as well as exempt from criminal
    liability under the Migration Law of Guatemala.
        The actions for which the Bitkovs have been accused of do
    not even constitute a crime.
        Now allow me to set out a timeline:
        On January 15th 2015, CICIG and the General Prosecution
    Office with the support of the National Civil Police, conducted
    three raids. One in the family home, another in the Bitkov's
    office located 10km from their home and the third in the house
    of Anastasia's boyfriend, Mr. Andres Avelar.
        On January 15th 2015, I witnessed the search being carried
    out at the Bitkov's family home. This raid was documented in
    the minutes of January 15th 2015.
        The search began at 6 o'clock am. The prosecutors did not
    allow the Bitkovs to call their lawyer until 9 o'clock am, 3
    hours after the search began. For that reason, I showed up at
    the house at around 10 o'clock am. Upon my arrival, the Bitkov
    family felt extremely tormented, annoyed and helpless. They
    told me that the police entered the home whilst they were
    sleeping and did not leave the bedrooms for them to get dressed
    freely. Igor was forced to cover up his wife Irina and his
    daughter Anastasia so that they could get dressed.
        The search lasted a total of 20 hours, as it ended at 1:40
    am the next day. All this is confirmed in the document that
    contains the tally sheet. During the 20 hour raid, the entire
    family was placed in the living room.
        There was an excessive amount of public force as the house
    was invaded by dozens of police officers. The operation was
    carried out jointly with CICIG personnel and the General
    Prosecution Office. This excessive use of public force cannot
    be justified in any way. The crime investigated--the use of
    supposedly false documents--is not high risk nor does it
    constitute a crime. Whilst the raid was carried out I asked the
    prosecutor Stuart Ernesto Campo Aguilar the reason as to why
    there were so many policemen. He told me that it originated
    from the million dollar fraud case committed by the Bitkovs
    against a Russian bank. This bank was in fact managing the
    criminal process against the Bitkov family.
        During the raid, Anastasia panicked and fainted. Vladimir
    was also very scared to see so many heavily armed policemen
    inside of their house.
        The prosecutors and police seized: the family's vehicles,
    their jewellery and electronic devices, although they had no
    connection with the crime that was being investigated.
    Prosecutors indicated that any request for the return of these
    personal belongings had to be made before a judge. Concerning
    the jewellery, half was taken during the raid and the other
    half was left at the house.
        At the same time, two more raids were carried out, at their
    office and at Anastasia's boyfriend's house. A large number of
    police officers were also present. These raids were also not
    justified since the crime the Bitkovs were accused of was the
    use of identity documents.
        Once the raids had come to an end, 20 hours later the
    prosecutors and the police proceeded to execute the arrest
    warrants against the family in the early hours of the following
    day. Igor, Irina and Anastasia were handcuffed. Vladimir who
    was only 3 years old at the time was woken up by the police. I
    asked the prosecutors and the police officers not to wake the
    child because he would be frightened but they ignored my
    request and continued.
        After the Bitkov family was arrested, prosecutors indicated
    that the child would be transferred to an orphanage, however he
    first had to be transferred to court so that a judge could
    define his legal situation. They put him in a grey car
    belonging to the Attorney General's Office. They wanted to
    bring him alone but I requested that his nanny Mrs. Veronica
    Gonzales accompany him. She quickly prepared a suitcase with
    clothes and they both got in the car. I myself followed the car
    in my vehicle. Igor and Irina--anguished by their son's
    situation--begged me not to leave Vladimir seeing as they did
    not know anyone trustworthy which could take care of their son.
    They asked me to make sure that he would not go to an
    orphanage.
        Having arrived at the court located 25 km from the Bitkov's
    home at around 3 o'clock am in the morning, we hoped that the
    judge on duty would attend to us. We waited 2 hours as other
    cases were being processed. Before the hearing at around 5.30
    am, I asked the psychologist and social worker at the court to
    interview Vladimir and to determine whether he had a close bond
    with his nanny Veronica Gonzalez. Vladimir did not want to be
    separated from her and the court staff easily determined that
    the child had a close and affectionate bond with his nanny.
        The judge on duty, Attorney Marjorie Rene Azpuru Villela
    agreed with the court staff regarding the child's emotional
    bond with Veronica. Before handing over Vladimir, the judge
    asked me if as a lawyer I was committed to providing financial
    support--such as clothing, food, education expenses etc.--for
    Vladimir while his parents' situation was being resolved. I
    replied saying yes. Veronica and I were given joint custody of
    Vladimir. In order not to victimize him even more, we arranged
    for Veronica to move into my house seeing as the Bitkov's
    property was seized and closed off. Vladimir was basically left
    homeless and without his family, only in the company of
    Veronica and myself. The official date that Vladimir was given
    to us (his guardians) was January 16th 2015.
        Following Vladimir and Veronica moving into my home, we
    received a phone call from the Attorney General's Office, which
    deals with cases related to children in Guatemala. We were
    summoned so that psychological evaluations could be done on
    Vladimir and financial checks could be conducted on me and
    Veronica. The psychological evaluations were very positive.
    Vladimir clearly told the psychologist, Sheila Ninette Santiago
    Lopez, that it was his desire to be with Veronica. He said:
    ``She takes care of me and gives me my feeding bottle''. This
    is stated in the judgment of March 18th 2015 of the Court of
    Appeals for Children.
        Although the psychological evaluations showed an
    affectionate bond between Vladimir and his nanny, we were
    summoned by another judge, Maria Belen Reyna Salazar. She told
    us that we had to attend court with Vladimir on February 10th
    2015 (almost a month after Vladimir had been living with us).
    On February 10th we presented ourselves with the child. We had
    a detailed report which showed that the child was well taken
    care of in terms of housing, education and food. We attached
    photographs, details of his diet and other important aspects.
    Although the psychological evaluations--which were conducted by
    the Attorney General's Office--were very positive, Judge Maria
    Belen Reyna Salazar, without asking the child's opinion (which
    is a serious abuse as the law obliges the child to be heard),
    arranged to separate him from us, arguing that we were not his
    relatives and there was doubt on who his parents were due to
    their passports and identity documents being the subject of a
    criminal investigation. The doubt surrounding the identity of
    Vladimir arose from a report that was sent by the Special
    Prosecutor's Office against Impunity (FECI) indicating that his
    identity was flawed. FECI is part of the General Prosecutions
    Office that investigates all cases which CICIG participates in.
        During the hearing on February 10 2015, the judge ordered
    the child, Vladimir Bitkov to be moved to a special room for
    abandoned children. Vladimir cried out loud but the judge
    insisted on moving him away from us.
        The judge decided to immediately separate Vladimir from me
    and his nanny despite being his legal guardians. Veronica tried
    to leave his feeding bottle but they did not take it stating
    that they already had the essentials for the child. They did
    not let us say goodbye to Vladimir, they only told us that
    after crying he had fallen asleep deeply. So when Vladimir woke
    up he was already with total strangers in an orphanage called
    ``Love of the Child'' that is located in the interior of the
    country. The judge forbade us, his guardians and anyone else to
    visit Vladimir at the orphanage, arguing that it was for ``his
    safety.'' The day in which this separation took place was
    extremely shocking for us, and I do not want to imagine how
    shocking it was for Vladimir to wake up in an orphanage with
    strangers. From that day a very strong legal battle began, we
    fought to recover Vladimir. Following 42 days in the orphanage,
    a Child Appeals Chamber declared that the act of Judge Mar!a
    Belen Reyna Salazar had been illegal and ordered the child to
    return with his guardians.
        The day he left the orphanage, he was delivered to us in
    court. Vladimir looked very scared and did not speak with us.
    We travelled 20 kilometers he only spoke once to ask to go to
    the bathroom. We made our way to the hospital where his mother
    and sister were being kept. When Vladimir saw his mother you
    could tell he was extremely upset. He did not speak to her
    either. When he asked for food we bought him pizza. We found it
    very disturbing that Vladimir put a number of pieces of pizza
    inside his shirt, as if he was saving food. This made us think
    that he had gone hungry in the orphanage and was not fed
    properly. We then discovered he had a chipped tooth and an
    infection in both his eyes. We asked the doctor to give him a
    medical examination in which he later on stated that Vladimir
    had a scar on his eyebrow, chipped front teeth, conjunctivitis,
    an upper respiratory infection, severe inflammation of his ear
    and had clearly suffered from physical and psychological abuse.
    After returning from the orphanage Vladimir was another child,
    he no longer used his feeding bottle, he did not speak to
    anyone and he wanted to be alone. Prior to this, he was an
    outgoing, happy and social child and when he returned he was
    remote and introverted. He was clearly still afraid. Support
    was sought from a psychologist to give him therapy for several
    months. Many nights Vladimir woke up crying, with a face of
    fear, and anguish.
        Because of the way Vladimir left the orphanage, we filed a
    complaint with the Human Rights Ombudsman. It is clear that
    Judge Maria Belen Reyna Salazar committed an illegal verdict as
    there was no legal and moral justification for Vladimir being
    sent to an orphanage. The Human Rights Ombudsman of Guatemala
    issued a resolution on February 8, 2016 where he stated that
    Vladimir's rights were clearly violated by the judge and the
    director of the orphanage, ``Love of the Child''.
        When leaving the orphanage Vladimir and Veronica were in my
    residence for almost a year. On the 15th January 2016 Irina and
    Anastasia were granted house arrest and were able to leave the
    hospital where they were held for 1 year. Vladimir returned
    home with his mother, his sister and his nanny.
        I would now like to testify about the illegalities that
    arose in the criminal process.
        I will start with the action of VTB Bank:
        From the beginning of the process, VTB bank justified its
    participation in the process by claiming that the Bitkovs had
    committed fraud against the bank. The participation of VTB bank
    was always supported and defended by CICIG through its
    representative Claudia Gonzalez Orellana, who declared before
    the judge that the events that occurred in Russia were related
    to the events that occurred in Guatemala and that VTB bank
    should be allowed to defend its interests in Guatemala. An
    audio recording of the hearing which took place on January 22d
    2015 is available.
        Prior to presenting the accusations, that is, the pre-
    hearing procedure where the sentence is handed down, the main
    judge was informed of two fundamental points: (i) That the
    Bitkov family are migrants and that the actions for which they
    are accused of does not constitute a crime under the Palermo
    Convention (signed by Guatemala). Furthermore, (ii) under
    Guatemala's own Migration Law, it states that no migrant may be
    prosecuted criminally for obtaining false identity documents.
    These rules state that the criminal subject is not the migrant
    since the only responsible criminal is the trafficker, which in
    the case of the Bitkovs was Cutino Associates International.
    Cutino Associates International is a large immigration law firm
    in Guatemala and Latin America which has never been
    investigated by CICIG even though the Bitkov family filed a
    number of criminal complaints against them. CICIG and the
    General Prosecution Office have a clear knowledge of these
    complaints.
        In addition, Igor Bitkov filed a complaint in May 2016
    against Cutino Associates International addressed directly to
    the Attorney General of the Republic of Guatemala, Mrs. Thelma
    Aldana.
        Several days later, on the 18th May 2016, Irina Bitkov
    filed another complaint with the Attorney General. The
    accusations against Cutino Associates International have never
    been investigated, although Irina Bitkova specifically stated
    them in her complaint. She provided the telephone numbers that
    appear on Cutino Associates International's website and asked
    that the IP addresses, the entry logs to the site and the name
    of the person who acquired the domain on the internet be
    investigated as well as setting out other useful means of
    investigation for that case. In spite of this, no meaningful
    investigation was conducted.
        Igor Bitkov also specifically stated that he made a wire
    transfer to Cutino Associates International and later on
    requested CICIG to investigate and trace this bank transfer,
    which they failed to do. Instead of investigating the real
    perpetrators, CICIG accused the true victims of this crime.
        In addition to the two complaints filed with the Attorney
    General against the company that processed the identity
    documents for the Bitkovs--that is, Cutino Associates
    International--Irina Bitkov reported these facts directly to
    the Commissioner Ivan Velasquez Gomez on the 18th May 2017. In
    addition, we have a video where it was clearly recorded that
    Irina Bitkov personally spoke with Mr. Ivan Velasquez. She gave
    him documents which demonstrated the political persecution by
    the Russian Government which they were victims of, and which
    had to be investigated. The Bitkovs also denounced that the
    CICIG representative repeated word for word the infringed
    complaint of VTB bank without having any proof. Commissioner
    Velasquez said he would review the case but did nothing about
    it. CICIG never investigated Cutino Associates International
    nor ceased to support it.
        Additionally, Igor Bitkov gave power of attorney to a
    lawyer from Cutino Associates International--named Mr. Edwin
    Orlando Xitumul Hernandez--to conduct all necessary action in
    order for the Bitkovs to receive passports. This power of
    attorney constitutes further evidence that Cutino Associates
    International was given authority to do whatever was required
    by law to obtain passports. CICIG should have investigated the
    criminal structure that is Cutino Associates International,
    however an investigation was never opened.
        The defense's other argument during the trial was that VTB
    bank should be excluded from the criminal proceedings since the
    claim for payment of a supposed debt is not a criminal matter.
    In addition, there was no proof of the existence of such debt
    to begin with.
        The Bitkovs asked a Civil Court to require VTB Bank to
    present the original bail document that constituted the main
    document of its complaint. VTB Bank refused to provide to the
    Court any documents to support their complaints, arguing that
    the Guatemalan Courts did not have jurisdiction to see the
    claim. However, Judge Ericka Aifan, at the request of CICIG and
    the General Prosecution Office, rejected the defense's
    arguments and proceeded with hearings against the Bitkovs. The
    other defendants in the case were effectively officials and
    state employees who formed the criminal structure. The Bitkovs
    were the only migrants in this case.
        During the hearing, the senior official of the passport
    office declared that thousands of passports were issued with
    irregularities. In addition, the witness Carlos Rene Gomez
    Diaz, stated that the General Directorate of Immigration issued
    between 1 and 3 passports with irregularities per week in favor
    of foreigners. However, only the Bitkovs were sentenced to
    prison. Other foreigners were sentenced to suspended sentences
    meaning that instead of going to jail they had to pay a fine
    and return freely to their country of origin.
        Another illegality that arose during the criminal process
    was that prior to the sentencing of the Bitkov family--during
    the hearing--a higher constitutional court granted an order in
    favor of the Bitkovs, whose ruling stated that the migrants
    could not be prosecuted criminally in accordance with the
    provisions of the Palermo Convention and the Migration Law of
    Guatemala. However, the Court chaired by Judge Yassmin Barrios
    did not comply with that court order and continued the hearing
    which later sentenced the Bitkov family with extraordinary and
    illegal penalties.
        The court that sentenced the Bitkovs, in addition to
    applying the maximum prison sentences, ordered the deportation
    of the Bitkov family from the country, even though we indicated
    that their lives are in danger if they are expelled back to
    Russia. In addition, on the day of the conviction, that is, on
    January 5, 2018, the Court revoked the house arrest of Irina
    and Anastasia, and they were at once again sent to prison that
    same night. In addition, I told Judge Yassmin Barrios that
    Anastasia Bitkova suffered from a psychiatric illness and had
    five documented suicide attempts, and that there are reports
    from forensic psychiatrists in Guatemala that she cannot be
    imprisoned because there is a risk of death. This did not
    matter to the Court and she was sent to prison together with
    her mother. In addition, the Court did not take into
    consideration the best interests of the child Vladimir Bitkov
    and ordered a second separation from his family.
        On the day of the conviction Irina and Anastasia were
    remitted to the court jail. That day, January 5, 2018 was one
    of the coldest days in Guatemala. Together with Attorney
    Victoria Sandoval and myself, they did not let us bring them
    clothes despite the intense cold. We had to enter and leave our
    own clothes so that they had a little heat, since they were
    shivering from the cold. We filed an immediate complaint
    against the police for their inhuman actions which was only
    taken into consideration days later and eventually ignored.
        The above is what I have to say in this brief, in relation
    to the case of the Bitkov family. The family at this moment is
    suffering because they are facing illegal sentences that were
    imposed by CICIG and the General Prosecution Office.

        Rolando Alvarado is the founding partner of the law firm
    Corpolegal. He is currently the director of the judicial area,
    which includes civil, criminal, administrative, and labor
    litigation. He is a lawyer of Banco Internacional, Sociedad
    Anonima y Financiera MVA, Sociedad Anonima, where he knows all
    the matters of judicial claim in civil and criminal matters.
        He is an expert in Cybernetic matters, such as cyber-
    attacks, electronic signature, electronic evidence, IT laws. He
    has participated as a member of the Drafting Commission of the
    Guatemalan Computer Crimes Act and the Law to prevent and
    punish the theft of cell phones and extortion, among other
    regulatory Acts. In the field of Cybercrime and large scale
    Internet crime investigation, he has been trained by the
    Department of Justice of the United States of America in
    collaboration with the Organization of American States (OAS).
        Due to his experience as a member of the Drafting
    Commission of the Computer Crimes Act, he has been invited as a
    lecturer at the following institutions: (a) The National
    Council of Science and Technology (CONCYT); (b) The Legislation
    and Constitutional Points Commission of the Congress of
    Republic of Guatemala; (c) The Ministry of Defense of the
    Republic of Guatemala; (d) Computer Security Response Committee
    for Guatemala; (e) Guatemalan Association of Exporters
    (AGEXPORT); (f) The Registry School, among other institutions.
        He is co-author, together with the General Coordinator of
    the Computer Security Response Committee for Guatemala,
    Lieutenant Colonel and Bachelor of Computer Science, Ronald
    Morales, of the book called ``CIBERCRIMEN,'' which includes the
    legal and computer aspects related to cybernetic attacks,
    computer crimes, electronic evidence and research aids,
    national and international legislation on cybercrime.
        As a university professor, at bachelor and post-graduate
    level, he has taught the courses of: (a) Civil Law; (b) Civil
    and Commercial Procedural Law; (c) Intellectual Property; and,
    (d) Corporate law. He has advised theses at the University of
    San Carlos de Guatemala, Mariano Galvez University and
    Francisco Marroquin University. Also, he has been a member of
    the examination boards of the professional technical and thesis
    exam at the Mariano Galvez University in Guatemala and at the
    University of San Carlos in Guatemala.
        As a legal professional, he has held the following
    positions: (a) Director of the Judicial Area of the law firm
    ``Aguilar & Zarceno''; (b) Advisor in the Legislation and
    Constitutional Points Committee of the Congress of the
    Republic; (c) Alternate Chief of the Legal Department of Banco
    de Exportacion, S.A. (BANEX); among others.

                           M A T E R I A L    F O R
                              T H E    R E C O R D

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