Biodun.BBC: BREAKING: Bill Browder arrested in Spain on Russian warrant

by Elodie Bagnol and Biodun Iginla, BBC News, Madrid

Financier Bill Browder, a high-profile critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has been arrested in Spain.

Mr Browder was sentenced to nine years in prison by a Russian court late last year, on fraud and tax evasion charges.

Interpol had previously refused to enforce a similar 2013 sentence for Mr Browder, deeming it "predominantly political in nature".

But on Wednesday, Mr Browder tweeted that Spanish police had arrested him on a Russian Interpol arrest warrant.

He also tweeted a photograph of an arrest document from the Spanish interior ministry, which said he was accused of fraud.

The US-born financier, who is based in the UK, is widely credited with the creation of the Magnitsky Act - a 2012 range of sanctions from the United States on top Russian officials accused of corruption.

The act was named after Mr Browder's former lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, who uncovered an alleged tax fraud in Moscow - and died in a Russian prison in 2009.

Since then, Mr Browder has campaigned for investigations into the alleged fraud.

He was put on trial in absentia in 2013 for tax evasion - in the same trial where the deceased Magnitsky faced charges, labelled "absurd" by observers.

Mr Browder was once one of the biggest foreign investors in Russia, controlling Hermitage Capital Management.

Russian prosecutors accused him of creating a firm for tax fraud purposes. Mr Browder has always said that the charges against him are politically motivated.