Open Kremlin critic Vladimir Kara-Murza was jailed for a quarter of a century by a Moscow court on Monday, the harshest judgment of its kind ago Russia raided Ukraine, after being set up shamefaced of disloyalty and other offences he denied.
Kara- Murza, 41, a father of three and an opposition politician who holds Russian and British passports, spent times speaking out against President Vladimir Putin and lobbied Western governments to put warrants on Russia and individual Russians for purported mortal rights violations.
State prosecutors, who had requested the court jail him for 25 times, had indicted him of disloyalty and of discrediting the Russian service after he criticised what Moscow calls its” special military operation” in Ukraine.
In a CNN interview broadcast hours before he was arrested, Kara-Murza had contended that Russia was being run by a” governance of manslayers”. He’d also used speeches in the United States and across Europe to charge Russia of bombing mercenary targets in Ukraine, a charge Moscow has rejected.
After hearing his judgment on Monday, Kara-Murza, who was calmly harkening to proceedings inside a glass courtroom pen dressed casually in a jacket and jeans, said” Russia will be free”, a well- known opposition watchword.
In his final speech to the court last week, Kara- Murza compared his trial, which was held behind unrestricted doors, to Josef Stalin’s show trials in the 1930s. He’d declined to ask the court to acquit him, saying he stood by and was proud of everything he’d said.
“Culprits are supposed to rue of what they’ve done. I, on the other hand, am in captivity for my political views. I also know that the day will come when the darkness over our country will dissipate,” he’d said.
One of his attorneys, Maria Eismont, was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying that Kara-Murza’s legal platoon would appeal Monday’s verdict, which she said had been marred by numerous serious legal violations.
