25 Years in a Russian Penal Colony

``When he heard he`d got 25 years` împrisonment¸ he said: `My self-esteem has gone up, I understand that I did everything right.``

``Ìt`s the biggest score I could have got for what I did, for what I believed in as a citizen and a patriot`.`'

Maria Eismont, lawyer for Vladimir Kara-Murza, Kremlin critic

Vladimir Kara-Murza pictured during a hearing in October 2022   AFP

 

Found guilty by a Moscow court on Monday, 41-year-old British-Russian citizen Vladimir Kara-Murza has been sentenced to 25 years` imprisonment, the absolute harshest sentence of its kind following Russia`s invasion of Ukraine. Found guilty of treason and other related offences he denied he committed. That he is a critic of the Kremlin and of President Vladimir Putin, is without doubt. He has been lobbying Western governments for years to impose sanctions on Russia in recognition of its many human rights abuses.

He had been accused by state prosecutors of treason, of discrediting the Russian military by spreading `knowingly false information` about the conduct of Russian servicemen in Moscow`s `special military operation`in Ukraine, for which prosecutors requested a 25-year prison term. Prior to his arrest Kara-Murza in an interview said Russia was run by a `regime of murderers`. He had spoken throughout the United States and Europe, lecturing and accusing Russia of bombing civilians in Ukraine.

When he heard the verdict on his punishment after he was pronounced guilty of treason and other offences, and knowing the next 25 years he was destined to be an inmate in a maximum security penal colony, Kara-Murza, seated within a glass courtroom cage, pronounced his own verdict of his country: `Russia will be free`, he stated calmly. He smiled and said the harsh sentence was regarded by him as recognition of his effectiveness as an opposition politician.

A week ago in a final speech to the court, Kara-Murza compared his trial, held behind closed doors, to Josef Stalin`s show trials in the 1930s. He was proud, he said, of everything he had accomplished, declining to ask the court for an acquittal. His lawyer, Eismont, announced that the legal team planned to appeal the verdict which she described as having been marred by legal violations. 

"I love and hate this man for his incredible integrity,"

"He had to be there with those people who went out on the streets and were arrested,`

"He wanted to show that you shouldn't be afraid in the face of that evil and I deeply respect and admire him for that. And I could kill him!"

Vladimir Kara-Murza's wife, Evgenia

Britain in 2020 had imposed sanctions on the presiding judge, for human rights violations. And London summoned the Russian ambassador to protest the `politically-motivated`conviction. `Criminalization of criticism of government action is a sign of weakness, not strength`, commented U.S. Ambassador Lynne Tracy, speaking alongside British Ambassador Deborah Bronnert who told reporters Kara-Murza had been punished for courageously speaking out against Russia`s Ukraine war.

 

`Discrediting`` the army is punishable by up to five years in prison, in reflection of Moscow having introduced sweeping wartime censorship laws, used to silence dissenting voices. Accordingly, spreading `deliberately false information` about the war can result in a 15-year jail sentence. Mr. Kara-Murza hit the jackpot. 

Vladimir Kara-Murza will serve his 25-year sentence at a penal colony   Shutterstock