Moscow (EFE).- The opposition member and Russian journalist Vladimir Kara-Murzá, in pretrial detention for a year and accused of treason and two other criminal charges, was sentenced today by a Russian court to 25 years in prison.
According to the ruling, read by Judge Sergei Podoprigorov, the court has agreed to impose a 25-year prison sentence on Kara-Murzá “to be served in a high-security prison with subsequent restriction of liberty for one year and six months.”
The conviction of the prominent dissident generated great expectation and brought together nearly a hundred journalists and diplomats at the Moscow Urban Court building, according to the Mediazona digital portal.
In his last intervention, last week, Kara-Murzá assured that he “does not regret anything” and that he “loves Russia”, according to his lawyer María Eismont.
The court also fined the opponent 400,000 rubles (about $5,000) and banned him from practicing journalism for seven years.
Kara-Murzá, a journalist and opposition scourge of the Kremlin
Kará-Murzá, 41, was found guilty of high treason, a crime punishable by up to 20 years in prison, spreading false information about the actions of the Russian Army in Ukraine and cooperation with an NGO declared undesirable by the Russian Justice.
The judge thus satisfied the demand of the Prosecutor’s Office that had requested 25 years in prison for Kara-Murzá. The defense has already announced that it will appeal this ruling.
The dissident journalist had become a scourge of the Kremlin since from the beginning of his career he fought on the side of the opposition.
His desire to return to Russia to change the situation from within after the start of the military campaign in Ukraine turned out to be fatal for his future.
Declared a foreign agent by the Russian authorities and considered a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International (AI), he returned to his country last year from the US, where he lived, despite numerous warnings from his entourage regarding the growing repression against the opposition and his own Negative experience after having survived at the age of 41 two poisonings in 2015 and 2017.
According to the Bellingcat investigative group, Kara-Murzá was followed by the same unit of the Federal Security Service (FSB, formerly KGB) that later poisoned opposition leader Alexéi Navalni, who is also serving eight years in prison, with a chemical substance for military use. .