Russian dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza gets 25 years in jail.

 

Vladimir Kara-Murza

The journalist and Kremlin critic, Vladimir Kara-Murza, 41, who holds both British and Russian citizenship, has been sentenced to 25 years in jail after having been convicted of treason for spreading false information about the Russian army and for criticising Putin's war against the Ukraine. The trial, in Moscow, which Kara-Murza likened to a 1930s Stalinist show trial, was held behind closed doors.

Since the Russian army invaded the Ukraine in February 2022, Vladimir Putin has introduced strict wartime censorship laws to silence dissenting voices in Russia. "Discrediting" the army is now punishable by up to five years in jail and spreading false information about the army, can lead to fifteen years’ imprisonment. Vladimir Kara-Murza has described the Kremlin as a "regime of murderer's."

Like other Kremlin critics and Russian dissidents who have been imprisoned, Kara-Murza, could now be at risk of poisoning by heavy metals. His supporters say that he's already survived being poisoned twice. Before being shot dead in 2015, his close friend Boris Nemtsov, nearly died from poisoning which he blamed on the Kremlin. The Russian opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, who is currently in prison, was poisoned with the nerve agent Novichok and hospitalised in August 2020. Navalny, says he's also being poisoned in prison. 

Many Russian journalists and human rights activists, including those who have already fled the country,  have called on the Russian authorities to free Kara-Murza insisting that the charges against him are baseless and politically motivated. In a letter to the Russian authorities, they said: "Prosecute murderers and criminals rather than honest and responsible citizens who dare to speak the truth...Stop Russia's new slide towards Stalinism and a totalitarian system."

The authorities regard many of the signatories to the letter as traitors who desire Russia's defeat on the battlefield. Those Russian citizens who dare to question Putin's actions in the Ukraine, are regarded as a "pro-western fifth column trying to undermine the military campaign."

In a final speech at his trial in Moscow, which was made available to his wife and lawyer, Kara-Murza, said:

'I only blame myself for one thing. I failed to convince my compatriots and politicians in democratic countries of the danger that the current Kremlin regime poses for Russia and the world...For me as an historian, this is cause for reflection. Criminals are supposed to repent of what they have done. I, on the other hand, am in prison for my political views. I also know that the day will come when the darkness over our country will dissipate."

He declined to ask the court to acquit him and said he stood by everything he had said. The British ambassador in Russia, Deborah Bronnert, said the verdict was "shocking" and called for Kara Murza's immediate release. Amnesty International have designated Kara Murza a "prisoner of conscience."