Russian opposition leader Vladimir Kara-Murza (41) was tried twice for poisoning. He is now accused of high treason. – An attempt to remove all opposition, an expert tells VG.
Updated less than 30 minutes ago
is Tax and other Russian media reporting that Kara-Murza will be charged with high treason – and that her lawyers have been informed of this.
If found guilty, the penalty is up to 20 years in prison.
This is happening at the same time as the Nobel Committee on Friday awarded the Peace Prize to, among others, the Russian human rights organization Memorial.
It also became known on Monday that Kara-Murza herself won the Václav Havel Human Rights Award for 2022
– It takes enormous courage in today’s Russia to rise to power. Today, Kara-Murza is proving her courage from the jail cell, says Council of Europe (PACE) Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) leader Tiny Cox, who hands over the prize, valued at NOK 600,000.
Think you have been spying
Investigators in Russia believe Kara-Murza received up to $ 30,000 a month to provide information to organizations in NATO countries.
– It is simply a matter of clearing Russia of all opposition. Vladimir Putin will remove the opposition that still remains, says Inna Sangadzhieva of the Helsinki Committee.
– To explain!
– While Alexei Navalny and many others are in prison, many Russian opposition figures have chosen to leave Russia in recent years to avoid being imprisoned. Vladimir Kara-Murza remained one of the few left in Russia and continued to criticize the Putin regime.
Legislative changes
He points out that Kara-Murza has been open about the war and what he thinks of the regime in the Kremlin. This spring he was arrested after visiting the United States shortly before and giving a lecture at the state assembly in Arizona.
– The changes to the law, especially after the war that began on February 24, are a pretext for persecuting dissidents. The purpose of the accusation against Kara-Murza now is to threaten others to speak out like him, Sangadzhieva believes.
– What does this mean?
– This tells us that Russia is a country with a secret police that justifies the ongoing war by showing society that there are internal, foreign sponsored enemies that they arrest and judge. If they find nothing else, they make these accusations of treason and espionage against politicians and the opposition. Navalny and his office have been labeled “terrorists” – that says it all.
When VG met Vladimir Kara-Murza exactly two years ago, the politician claimed he was poisoned twice.
– The doctors gave me a five percent chance of survival. I survived, she said.
– Who is responsible? asked VG.
– Vladimir Putin has political responsibility. Whether he is the one giving the order I have no idea, but he is still responsible. There should be proper investigation to find out who ordered this. Unfortunately, we can’t count on getting it.
He worked for Nemtsov
- Kara-Murza first fell ill in May 2015. He woke up from a coma in early June. He himself has no doubts that it was a poisoning. He nearly died of kidney failure.
- The second time was in February 2017. He was placed in an artificial coma. He was treated by the same doctors who saved his life in 2015.
- Neither incident was properly investigated.
Vladimir Kara-Murza was once an advisor to Boris Nemtsov, the opposition politician who was shot and killed on a bridge right next to the Kremlin in 2015. He was also a good friend of John McCain, who wanted him to Kara-Murza was one of them carrying his coffin. He did it together with, among others, Joe Biden in 2018.
His wife Yevgeniya now tells Nastoyashchei Vremya:
– He fights for human rights in the country and calls for the prosecution of criminals in this bloody regime. And in response to that, the bloody regime calls him a traitor. The last piece fell into place, he says.
