The United States Senate today passed the Magnitsky Act by the comprehensive margin of 92 votes to 4. The bill now goes to the president, who is expected to sign it into law very soon. The bill is named after the anti-corruption lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who was uncovering a $230 million fraud orchestrated by Russian state officials against a British investment fund when he was arrested by the Russian authorities. The 37-year-old Magnitsky was murdered, having been beaten by guards and denied medical treatment during his pre-trial detention.

Once in force, the new law will target over 60 Russian officials implicated in Magnitsky’s death and its cover-up, denying them US visas and freezing their US assets. Officials in Russia complicit in abuses of human rights in other cases will also be subject to such measures.

Over the course of the legislative debate, references were made to Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev, as well as to former Yukos lawyer and executive Vasily Alexanyan, who also died after being denied medical treatment during pre-trial detention. Senator John McCain referred to “the continued detention of numerous political prisoners, not least Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his associate Platon Lebedev, who remain locked away but not forgotten.” “I continue to fear for the health and safety of both men. And I pray for them,” he added.