Marian Kocner (Kocner) is designated for being responsible for or complicit in, or having directly or indirectly engaged in, serious human rights abuse. Kocner threatened Jan Kuciak, a reporter who was investigating Kocner’s corrupt dealings. According to reporting, Kuciak’s investigative journalism focused on Kocner’s ability, through a complicated series of financial transactions, to earn millions of Euros through fraudulent tax returns from Slovakia. Kuciak was also responsible for several exposés on Kocner’s corrupt dealings, highlighting Kocner’s connections to the police and prosecutors. Kocner also hired former Slovak Intelligence Service members to surveil Kuciak ahead of his eventual murder. Slovak authorities charged Kocner with hiring a hitman who murdered Kuciak and his fiancée, Martina Kusnirova.
On December 23, 2016, the President signed the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act (Pub. L. 114-328, Title XII, Subtitle F) (the “Act”) into law. The Act authorized the President to impose targeted sanctions on any foreign person the President determines is, among other things, responsible for extrajudicial killings, torture, or other gross violations of internationally recognized human rights, or a government official, or a senior associate of such an official, responsible for, or complicit in, ordering, controlling, or otherwise directing, acts of significant corruption.
On December 20, 2017, the President, invoking the authority of, inter alia, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701-1706) (IEEPA), issued Executive Order 13818 (82 FR 60839, December 26, 2017) (E.O. 13818), effective at 12:01 a.m. eastern standard time on December 21, 2017.
In E.O. 13818, the President determined that serious human rights abuse and corruption around the world constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States and declared a national emergency to deal with that threat.
OFAC is issuing the Global Magnitsky Sanctions Regulations, 31 CFR part 583 (the “Regulations”), to implement the Act and E.O. 13818, pursuant to authorities delegated to the Secretary of the Treasury in E.O. 13818. A copy of E.O. 13818 appears in appendix A to this part.
