we ban the people who killed sergei magnitsky from coming to the country and can we freeze their assets that was the genesis of the magnitsky act. >> broader's theory is that the magnitsky act affects putin directly. >> vladimir putin doesn't keep any money in his own name. he keeps money in the name of many russian oligarchs, and this piece of legislation can and will freeze the assets of those oligarchs. i believe putin is the richest man in the world. i believe he's worth $200 billion, and this piece of legislation puts that money at risk. >> interesting putin's wealth spiked in legal documents when offshore bank accounts were leaked to the press and became known as the panama papers. they pointed to money trail of approximately $100 million that reportedly led to putin but was held in the name of a musician friend, quite a large sum for an orchestra cellist. >> there's big confusion and big scandal and putin took it very personally because his personal life was exposed. >> putin is corrupt. he created a corrupt system in russia, and this system with all his friends is taking the mon

author would the late senator mccain to deal with the tragic episode in russia dealing with sergei magnitskyn circumstances similar to what we have here but as a lawyer not as a journalist. when a government violates basic human rights and does not hold itself accountable then these sanctions would prevent those individuals from using our banking system or visiting our country with visas. it's an appropriate sanction, but we need to do more. >> one of the things we heard from the white house yesterday which is that this journalist is not an american citizen. should gnat matter at all? >> no, it doesn't matter whatsoever. he obviously was contributing to "the washington post" as a reporter. he had privileges as a resident, to be able to come to america. but it's the u.s. leadership in protecting journalists and that the saudis have a critical relationship with the united states, and we have to make a clear that relationship will be changed if the saudi government's responsible for these types of actions. >> do you really feel there is momentum within the senate, within congress to actually en

london the us is looking at whether to take action against saudi arabia under a law named after sergei magnitsky the anticorruption accountant who died in russian custody this legislation could be used to impose financial sanctions on individuals behind short g.'s death robert but shinseki has been tweeting a lot about this he served as the deputy assistant secretary of state for democracy human rights and labor under the former u.s. president barack obama and he says the u.s. government has interpreted magnitsky authority incredibly broadly this means that sanctions aren't limited to those that directly carried out the killing the government doesn't even need to prove that a senior official say mohammed bin samantha ordered the murder to sanction him and robert but shinseki is now a senior vice president for policy at human rights first and joins me now from new york good to have you with us live on al-jazeera so let's just begin with the pressure that the white house is now under to be seen to be acting against saudi now that it's sort of has now that it hasn't had that full report yet it has

this act was passed in response to the death of sergei magnitsky, a russian attorney. he was arrested in russia and placed in jail where he was tortured until he died. the origins of the magnitsky act were to hold accountable those in the russian government who are complicit in magnitsky's abuse and death by sanctioning their assets and barring them from receiving american visas. subsequently, the magnitsky act has been expanded to include those who are a couple of acts of significant corruption and abuse. russian expert heather connally of the center for strategic and national studies testified recently at a banking committee hearing about the significance of magnitsky to putin. she said because the kremlin has based its economic model and its spiefl on kleptocracy, sanctions and other democracy denigrate the furtherance of corruption or worse yet in the minds of the kremlin of providing accurate information to the russian people about the extent of this corruption are a powerful countermeasure to russia's maligned behavior. the magnitsky sanctions, along with those de