25 years in prison for Kara-Murza

The opponent is considered a foreign agent and, therefore, a traitor to the State. In the “Stalinist” process, a judge intervened who has already been sanctioned by the US. In the past, Kara-Murza has been spared from two poisoning attempts. Fears that the regime wants to eliminate him in prison.

Moscow () – The Moscow court sentenced Vladimir Putin’s most prominent opponent after Navalny to 25 years in prison. This is the publicist and university professor Vladimir Kara-Murza, considered a “foreign agent”, for which reason the charge against him is “treason” against the State for being a member of undesirable organizations. Once his sentence has been completed, he will be prohibited from engaging in public activities, especially journalism, for a term of 7 years.

The measure seems Stalinist in nature, both because of the way the investigation and trial were carried out and because of the “exemplary” sentence, designed to instill fear in any form of dissent in Russia. The court session was held behind closed doors. During the audience, a line of ambassadors from various countries waited in front of the building, having been prevented from entering.

The judge who presided over the hearing, Sergei Podoprigorov, could only be biased, Kara-Murza’s lawyers argued. The magistrate appears on the “Magnitsky List”, which lists the people sanctioned for having participated in the persecution that led to the death of Sergei Magnitsky, an opponent of Putin, in a prison camp in 2008. On one occasion, the judge He had justified stating that his inclusion in the jury was “a coincidence, just because he was on duty that day”, and in 2017 he had requested the United States Department of the Treasury to be removed from the list.

In his last appearance before the court, Kara-Murza maintained that he was “the victim of persecution for purely political reasons” and added: “I have nothing to regret.” Much less did he regret his criticism of the war in Ukraine that they were sentenced for discrediting the Armed Forces, one of the many charges that led to his sentence.”I subscribe to each one of the words that I uttered and that today are attributed to me as a crime.”The activist did not ask to be acquitted: “I knew what I was facing, this is the price that is paid today in Russia for the courage not to remain silent”.

Former president of the Boris Nemtsov Foundation for Freedom in Russia, the politician also worked as a television journalist, and his programs were broadcast between 2019 and 2022. In addition, he was one of the initiators of the “People’s Party of Freedom”, as well as of the democratic movement “Solidarnost”. He had been arrested a year ago at his home in Moscow, in a spectacular assault with a deployment of members of the special forces in black uniforms and masks. At that time, the report also included an accusation of resisting authority, since “before the appearance of the security forces, the suspect began to walk in another direction, quickening his pace and trying to hide”, instead of turning himself in directly. to their torturers.”

The incident that had most irritated the Kremlin leadership – and which triggered the punitive operation – was Kara-Murza’s intervention in a videoconference with members of the House of Representatives of the US state of Arizona, on March 15, 2022. He ordered his immediate arrest to avoid the “flight risk” of the defendant, for having British and Northern Irish nationality, and being “the owner of financial means deposited in foreign banks.”

In 2015 and 2017, the opponent had entered a clinic with symptoms of intoxication. The first time, the diagnosis was “acute renal failure,” and Kara-Murza underwent recovery treatment outside of Russia, but then returned after a laboratory test in France confirmed the presence of poisonous substances in her blood. The second time, the renal symptoms appeared even more severe, so the patient was placed in a pharmacological coma to undergo hemodialysis. The current arrest looks like a repeat of attempts to remove Putin’s fierce opponent prematurely, as has already happened with Navalny. They are the new heroes of dissent in Russia.