Kremlin opponent and Ukraine war critic defiant in statement during treason trial

Prosecutor requesting 25-year sentence for Vladimir Kara-Murza Jr., to be served in a ‘strict regime’ prison colony

File: Vladimir Kara-Murza, Russian opposition activist, arrives to lay flowers near the place where Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov was gunned down, in Moscow, Russia, on February 27, 2021. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)
File: Vladimir Kara-Murza, Russian opposition activist, arrives to lay flowers near the place where Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov was gunned down, in Moscow, Russia, on February 27, 2021. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

Jailed Kremlin opponent Vladimir Kara-Murza Jr. likened judicial proceedings against him on Monday to the sham Stalin-era and later proceedings that condemned his countrymen to prison or death sentences.

Kara-Murza also said he’s proud of his public statements and behavior for which he’s facing charges of treason and spreading false information about the Russian military in Ukraine.

A journalist and a prominent government opponent who twice survived poisonings he blamed on the Kremlin, Kara-Murza has been behind bars since his arrest a year ago. He made his comments near the end of his closed-door trial in a statement posted on Russian social media sites.

Speaking to a Moscow court, he said the level of opaqueness about the charges against him surpassed the trials of Soviet dissidents in the 1960s and 1970s, and the language used against him was reminiscent of the 1930s, when Soviet citizens were arrested on fabricated charges and put on show trials.

Lawyer Maria Eismont, who is representing Kara-Murza, reported that a verdict is expected on April 17, with the prosecutor requesting a 25-year sentence to be served in a “strict regime” prison colony where conditions are harsh and prisoners are held in locked cells rather than in barracks.

The charges against Kara-Murza stem from his March 15 speech to the Arizona House of Representatives in which he denounced Russia’s military action in Ukraine. Investigators added the treason charges while he was in custody.

Vladimir Kara-Murza’s lawyer, Maria Eismont speaks to the media at the Moscow City Court in Moscow, Russia, Monday, April 10, 2023. Eismont said that prosecutors at his trial asked for a 25-year prison sentence. The verdict will be announced on Monday, April 17, 2023. Kara-Murza is a journalist and prominent opponent of the Kremlin who has been behind bars since his arrest a year ago. (AP/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

In his statement, Kara-Murza said he was jailed for his political views, “for speaking out against the war in Ukraine, for many years of struggle against [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s dictatorship.”

“Not only do I not repent of any of this, I am proud of it,” he said, adding that he looks forward to a day “when those who kindled and unleashed this war, and not those who tried to stop it, are recognized as criminals.”

Russia adopted a law criminalizing spreading “false information” about its military shortly after it sent troops into Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Authorities have used the law to stifle criticism of what the Kremlin calls “a special military operation.”

Kara-Murza was an associate of Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, who was killed near the Kremlin in 2015. Russian officials have denied responsibility for the poisonings Kara-Murza alleges occurred in 2015 and 2017.

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