Alisher Usmanov, an Uzbek billionaire who was added to the list of those affected by sanctions after the outbreak of the Russo-Ukrainian war, is preparing a complaint to the German Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe to protest an inclusion he believes is unlawful. The metallurgy tycoon who was credited with a fortune of over before the war 14 billion euros, Believes that the marginalization of business opportunities and the impossibility to set foot on European soil are arbitrary as they played no part in the planning and execution of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The German lawyer Dietrich Murswiek was commissioned to write a brief on behalf of Usmanov before the highest German court. The Süddeutsche Zeitung recalls that the reason for the appeal being made on German soil is that before the war Usmanov lived for a long time on an estate near the Tegernsee mountains in Bavaria. Since then, Usmanov has lived permanently in Taskhent, the capital of Uzbekistan, and due to his closeness to President Vladimir Putin, has his 156-metre maxi yacht worth half a billion euros, the “Dibar”, officially owned by his sister and now under seal in Hamburg.
Usmanov’s appeal is based on the desire to emphasize once again that Europe’s ad personam sanctions violate “human dignity” and above all “the principle of personal responsibility of the Basic Law”. In other words, while Usmanov was a business partner of many Russian oligarchs and had a positive relationship with Putin in the past, he had nothing to do with the war. And it cannot be punished for its outburst with asset, asset and business opportunity freezes.
Murswieck is supported in the case by Peter Gauweiler, a Munich lawyer and longtime representative of the CSU, the party that has ruled Bavaria for decades and is the CDU’s local offshoot at the highest level. The two want to defend Usmanov’s position, citing the lack of upstream allegations that could justify his presence on the sanctions list, unless they want to make the tycoons “hostages to foreign policy” as “tools to put pressure on the Kremlin.” and exercise Putin”. .
The appeal, if successful, will carry weight. So much so that even the respected Süddeutsche Zeitung spoke cautiously about it: “If the Karlsruhe judges side with Usmanov, such a decision will benefit all other pro-Kremlin billionaires, oligarchs and businessmen who have fallen under EU sanctions. The question is fundamental: How effective are the measures against those super-rich who, according to the EU, support Putin’s system and thus contribute at least indirectly to the war against Ukraine? A question which, according to Usmanov and his lawyers, breaks down in the face of the need to prove the allegations against a subject before sanctioning or punishing him. And the Karlsruhe Appeal can set an important precedent in this respect.