BRUSSELS, November 30. /TASS/. The EU plans to approve a sanctions regime similar to the Magnitsky Act in the near future, Nabila Massrali, EU spokesperson for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, told reporters on Monday.

"It is being discussed at the Council [of Europe], so we are waiting for it. <…> Everybody is making sure that it will be soon adopted," she said.

In September, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen informed that an act similar to the Magnitsky Act is being developed by the EU.

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. According to the Hermitage Capital sources, the auditor died as he had been denied medical assistance.

After that, similar acts were approved in Canada, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, with the corresponding bills being under discussion in several other states.