In a warning to Kremlin critics everywhere, the prominent Russian opposition leader Vladimir Kara-Murza has today been sentenced to 25 years in a penal colony by a Moscow court. His conviction is based on several charges, all of which he denies, including treason and ‘discreditation of the Russian Army’ – a move that has been internationally criticised as politically motivated.
Kara-Murza’s sentence is significant for being the longest to be handed down to critics of Vladimir Putin’s regime so far. Not even Alexei Navalny, so hated by Putin he famously refuses to ever call him by name, received a sentence that long – last year he began a nine-year term on the basis of trumped up fraud charges.
Kara-Murza now joins a long list of voices hounded into exile, incarcerated or murdered for criticising Putin’s regime
Kara-Murza, a dual British and Russian national, was arrested in April 2022 at his home in Moscow.
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