MOSCOW, January 26 (RAPSI) - Interpol has rejected a request filed by Russian authorities to issue an arrest warrant for William Browder, CEO of Hermitage Capital Management, once the largest foreign investor in the Russian stock market, reads the statement of the company released on Monday.

Russia unsuccessfully requested to issue an Interpol Red Notice for Browder for the third time, according to the statement. A Red Notice would have meant that Browder would be arrested at any international border and potentially extradited back to Russia. Interpol dismissed the request as politically motivated.

Last summer, two similar Russia’s requests to arrest Browder were rejected because they violated Interpol’s Constitution which prohibits the organization to be used for political persecution.

To make the latest application to Interpol, Russia used the posthumous trial against Browder's deceased Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, the statement reads.

Magnitsky worked for Firestone Duncan and represented Hermitage Capital which was accused of tax evasion by Russian authorities. Magnitsky was arrested on fraud charges in November 2008 and found dead in a Moscow detention center in November 2009. The lawyer’s death provoked an international outcry.

Last July, Moscow's Tverskoy District Court found Magnitsky guilty of tax evasion and closed the case due to his death. According to the case materials, Magnitsky’s and Hermitage Capital director William Browder’s actions cost the Russian Federation over 500 million rubles (about $8 mln). Browder was sentenced to nine years in prison in absentia.

In the summer of 2013, a Russian court sentenced Browder in absentia to nine years in a penal colony. The court found that in 1997-2002, Magnitsky created and applied an illegal tax evasion scheme in the interests of Mr. Browder.