Vladimir Kara-Murza, the Russian opposition figure who was jailed for criticizing the war in Ukraine and later convicted of treason, has been transferred to another prison in the Omsk region of Siberia, according to his lawyer. His silence and lack of communication with the outside had raised concerns about his safety. The transfer was first reported by independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta Europe. The Russian authorities are known to be secretive about prison transfers, and they can take several weeks.
Mr. Kara-Murza, a Russian-British national, was sentenced in April 2023 to 25 years in prison after being found guilty of spreading “false” information about the Russian army and being affiliated with an “undesirable organization”. He had spent years critical of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his government’s crackdown on dissent, as well as the war in Ukraine. He had also played a significant role in persuading Western governments to sanction Russian officials for human rights abuses and corruption. Mr. Kara-Murza had denied all the charges.
Concerns for his safety were raised after he disappeared from jail, and inquiries regarding his whereabouts received responses suggesting that he was no longer being held in the penal colony in Omsk. However, his lawyers have now confirmed that he has been transferred to a new penal colony in the same region. According to Mr. Kara-Murza, he was punished for not standing up when told to “rise” by a guard and as a result, was sent to an isolated cell.
The British government had previously condemned Mr. Kara-Murza’s sentencing, with Lord Cameron, the UK Foreign Secretary, referring to him as a “British national imprisoned in Russia for speaking out against the invasion of Ukraine”. The US State Department had also described Mr. Kara-Murza as “yet another target of the Russian government’s escalating campaign of repression”.
Mr. Kara-Murza comes from a well-known Soviet dissident family and received British citizenship when he moved to the UK as a teenager with his mother. The activist’s wife, Evgenia Kara-Murza, has expressed her concern for his safety, stating, “There are no grounds for his transfer, and that makes it even more frightening as my husband is in the hands of the same people who tried to kill him twice, in 2015 and 2017.
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