Minister refuses to apologise after head of Wagner group was allowed to bypass sanctions to sue journalist

Minister for Europe and North America Leo Docherty was questioned by the foreign affairs committee today on the “Wagner group”, a Russian paramilitary group widely believed to be owned or financed by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a businessman with close links to Putin.

The government has come under criticism for issuing special licences so Mr Prigozhin so could override sanctions and pay his legal fees for a case where he sued a British journalist for reporting his ties to Wagner.

in light of this, Labour MP Liam Byrne asked the minister: “Do you want to just take this opportunity to apologise to [journalist] Mr. Higgins for Her Majesty’s Government having issued that sanctions waiver leading to him being sued in an English court?”.

Mr Docherty replied: “I don’t think it’s useful for me to comment on the specific case. I think it’s useful for me to make a comment about our general approach”.