Moscow:
Outspoken Kremlin critic Vladimir Kara-Murza was sentenced Monday by a Moscow court to a quarter of a century in prison, the harshest sentence of its kind since Russia invaded Ukraine, after pleading guilty to treason and other crimes he denied.
Kara-Murza, 41, a father of three and opposition politician with Russian and British passports, has spoken out against President Vladimir Putin for years and lobbied Western governments to impose sanctions on Russia and individual Russians for alleged human rights abuses.
Prosecutors, who had asked the court to jail him for 25 years, charged him with treason and discrediting the Russian military after he criticized what Moscow calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine.
In a DailyExpertNews interview broadcast hours before his arrest, Kara-Murza had claimed that Russia was run by a “regime of killers”. He had also used speeches in the United States and across Europe to accuse Russia of bombing civilian targets in Ukraine, a charge Moscow has dismissed.
After hearing his verdict on Monday, Kara-Murza, calmly listening to the proceedings in a glass courtroom, dressed casually in a jacket and jeans, said “Russia will be free,” a well-known opposition slogan.
In his final court speech last week, Kara-Murza compared his trial, which was held behind closed doors, to the show trials of Josef Stalin in the 1930s. He had refused to ask the court for an acquittal, saying he was watching and proud of everything he had said.
“Criminals are supposed to repent of what they have done. I, on the other hand, am in prison because of my political views. I also know that the day will come when the darkness will disappear over our country,” he had said.
One of his lawyers, Maria Eismont, was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying Kara-Murza’s legal team would appeal Monday’s verdict, which she said was marred by many serious legal violations.
Envoy summoned
In London, Britain said it had called on the Russian ambassador to protest what it said was a “politically motivated” sentencing.
Outside court in Moscow, British ambassador Deborah Bronnert told reporters that Kara-Murza had been punished for speaking out courageously against Russia’s war in Ukraine and demanding his immediate release.
US Ambassador Lynne Tracy, speaking alongside her, said Kara-Murza’s sentencing was an attempt to silence dissent.
“Criminalizing criticism of government action is a sign of weakness, not strength,” Ms Tracy said.
Shortly after Russia sent tens of thousands of troops to Ukraine last February, it introduced sweeping wartime censorship laws used to silence dissenting voices in society.
“Discrediting” the military is currently punishable by up to five years in prison, while deliberately spreading false information about the military can result in a 15-year prison sentence.
Russian pro-government politicians view the conflict in Ukraine as an existential struggle with the West and say unity in society is vital. They have described Russian citizens questioning Moscow’s actions in Ukraine as part of a pro-Western fifth column trying to undermine the military campaign.
Twice, in 2015 and 2017, Kara-Murza fell suddenly ill from what he said were poisonings by Russian security services, both times falling into a coma before eventually recovering.
Russian authorities denied involvement in those incidents. Kara-Murza’s lawyers say he suffers from a serious nerve condition called polyneuropathy as a result.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DailyExpertNews staff and is being published from a syndicated feed.)