In December 2012 the U.S. Congress passed the so-called Magnitsky Act which was later signed into law by President Barack Obama (see here). This law had to punish certain Russian officials and was passed after Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian accountant of a private company, had died in a Moscow pre-trial detention center. Magnitsky was detained in this center because he had been accused of organization of a large-scale tax evasion.
