Earlier in the week, on 10 April 2016, Russian state TV channel Rossia 1 had broadcast the trailer of a film ('The Browder Effect' - the film was broadcast on 13 April 2016) alleging that Aleksei Navalny was the paid agent of Bill Browder. As The Moscow Times reported, Navalny said he would file a lawsuit against the state-owned TV company (VGTRK). The film, which as The Moscow Times reports, 'features a series of Skype conversations allegedly between Navalny and Browder, in which Browder assigns Navalny different tasks aimed at “changing constitutional order” in Russia,' made the claim that the CIA had organ­ised the with­hold­ing of med­ical care to Sergei Mag­nit­sky while he was held in a pre-trial detention centre. 

In a response to the film, the Sergei Magnitsky Justice Campaign said: 'The Kremlin’s pro­pa­ganda is in con­tra­dic­tion with all offi­cial Russ­ian doc­u­ments describ­ing the tor­tur­ous con­di­tions that had been cre­ated by Russ­ian author­i­ties for Sergei Mag­nit­sky dur­ing his 358 days in deten­tion and the fact that senior offi­cials in the Russ­ian Gen­eral Prosecutor’s Office refused his writ­ten requests for med­ical atten­tion.' 

Allegations by Pavel Karpov against Browder and Navalny are not new. In December 2015 Pavel Karpov had accused Aleksei Navalny of having ties to Bill Browder, among other things saying the Russian opposition politician had been active in 'promoting and spreading' videos made by Browder exposing Karpov's role in Magnitsky's death. In 2013 the English high court threw out a libel claim brought by Pavel Karpov against Bill Browder in connection with the latter's campaign for justice for Sergei Magnitsky. In March 2015, a Russian court had awarded Karpov 100,000 roubles in a defamation suit he brought against Browder.