Russian court sentences Putin’s critic, Kara-Murza to 25 years imprisonment

Reuters said the sentencing is the severest of its kind since Russia invaded Ukraine, adding that the charges against Kara-Murza emanated from a March 15 speech he made.

Kara-Murza had appeared before the Arizona House of Representatives in the United States, in which he denounced Russia’s war in Ukraine.

The report further disclosed that investigators added the treason charges while he was in custody, according to Reuters.

Russia adopted a law criminalising spreading “false information” about its military shortly after it sent troops into Ukraine on February 24, 2022.

Authorities have regularly used the wartime law to stifle criticism of what the Kremlin calls “a special military operation”.

Kara-Murza, 41, a father of three and an opposition politician who holds Russian and British passports, spent years speaking out against Putin.

He lobbied Western governments to enforce penalties on Russia and individual Russians for purported human rights violations.

The British government on Monday summoned the Russian ambassador to make clear its condemnation of what it described as the “politically motivated” conviction and sentencing.

In a CNN interview broadcast hours before he was arrested, Kara-Murza had alleged that Russia was being run by a “regime of murderers.”

He had also used speeches in the United States and across Europe to accuse Moscow of bombing civilian targets in Ukraine, a charge it has rejected.

In his final speech to the court last week, Kara-Murza had compared his own trial, which was held behind closed doors, to Josef Stalin’s show trials in the 1930s and had declined to ask the court to acquit him, saying he stood by and was proud of everything he had said.

“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 had said.