A Moscow court has sentenced prominent opposition figure Vladimir Kara Murza to 25 years in prison for several crimes, including high treason, and banned him from practicing journalism for seven years.
Kara Murza, who was already considered by Russian authorities to be a foreign agent, was convicted Monday of treason, spreading false information about the Armed Forces and cooperation with an undesirable organization, earning him a lengthy sentence in a maximum security prison.
In addition, the court also fined him 400,000 rubles (about 4,470 euros), Interfax agency reports.
The defense has already announced that it will appeal the conviction of Kara Murza, who for years has been one of the most recognizable Kremlin-critical voices and survived two poisonings. He was arrested in April 2022, with the military offensive on Ukraine already underway, and his situation has been criticized on several occasions by human rights organizations.
The Kremlin’s persecution of Kara Murza is part of efforts to demoralize and crush civil activism,» lamented Human Rights Watch’s Europe and Central Asia officer, Hugh Williamson, last week. The oppositionist, a friend of the late Boris Nemtsov, was recently awarded the Vaclav Havel Human Rights Prize by the Council of Europe.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
