WASHINGTON, May 16. /TASS/. The US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has designated on the basis of the Magnitsky Act Chechnya's Terek Special Rapid Response Team and five Russian nationals, including Terek's commander Abuzayed Vismuradov, as responsible for human rights violations.

OFAC also designated Russian citizens Gennady Karlov, Sergey Kossiev, Ruslan Geremeyev and Elena Trikulya.

Kossiev, former head of penal colony No 7 in the Karelia region, was sentenced to 2 years and six months in prison on January 16 by the Segezhsky city court for abuse of power. According to OFAC, Karlov and Trikulya work for the Russian Investigative Committee.

The Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act was passed by the US Congress and signed by then-President Barack Obama in December 2012. The law particularly specified sanctions against a number of Russian officials, including law enforcement officers, believed by Washington to have played a role in the death of Sergei Magnitsky, an auditor at the Hermitage Capital Management company, who died in a Moscow detention center in November 2009.

The act envisages sanctioning Russian officials whom the US considers to be responsible for human rights violations. It particularly allows the US government to freeze assets and ban visas for officials.