(Moscow) A Moscow court began to try Monday behind closed doors the opponent Vladimir Kara-Mourza, who faces up to 25 years in prison, in particular for high treason, the latest example of the accelerated repression of critics of the Kremlin.
Russian authorities have stepped up prosecutions against critics of Vladimir Putin since the launch of his offensive against Ukraine, and the case of Mr. Kara-Mourza, 41, is one of the most emblematic.
In the same case, he is targeted by three serious charges: “high treason”, spreading “false information” about the Russian army, and illegal work for an “undesirable” organization.
One of his lawyers, Vadim Prokhorov, told AFP that the opponent risked up to 25 years in prison for these three cumulative charges.
“We have returned to Stalinist times. We have returned to the enormous Stalinist sentences,” Mr. Prokhorov denounced after the closed-door hearing on Monday.
And “the authorities want to settle all of this at cosmic speed,” he added, indicating that the next hearing was scheduled for Thursday.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY MOSCOW MUNICIPAL COURT VIA REUTERS
Vladimir Kara-Mourza discusses with his lawyer during a preliminary hearing on March 6.
Vladimir Kara-Mourza, in pretrial detention since April 2022, is a longtime opponent of Vladimir Putin. He almost died after being, according to him, poisoned twice, in 2015 and 2017, from assassination attempts which he attributes to the Russian regime.
Triple charge
Last spring, he was charged with spreading “false information” about the army after his speech in March 2022 before American deputies in Arizona, during which he had criticized the Russian offensive in Ukraine.
Then, in August 2022, he was charged with working with an “undesirable organization”, a crime punishable by prison too, for having organized a conference in support of political prisoners in Russia.
Finally, in October, the authorities opened a third case against him for “high treason”, the most serious of the charges, for having criticized the authorities in public interventions abroad, his lawyer told AFP. Russian state news agency Tass.
Mr. Kara-Mourza is also classified as a “foreign agent”, a status reminiscent of that of “enemies of the people” used in the Soviet era.
“As a true patriot of Russia, he is charged with high treason for his tireless fight for a Russia without Putin,” his wife, Evgenia, wrote on Twitter on Monday.
“I am always a heartbeat away from you, my love, and I will continue to fight for and with you for as long as it takes,” she added.
Russian by birth, Mr Kara-Mourza also has British citizenship, having moved to the UK with his mother when he was 15.
As an adult, he became close to the Russian opposition, in particular Boris Nemtsov – shot dead a stone’s throw from the Kremlin in 2015 – and Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a wealthy businessman who spent a decade in prison for his opposition. to Vladimir Putin.
In an interview with AFP in 2021, he assured that he had no intention of leaving Russia, despite the risks.
“We are Russian politicians, our place is in Russia,” he said then. He believed that “the greatest gift” that opponents of Vladimir Putin could give him was “to give up and run”.
Most of the Kremlin master’s detractors are now in prison or in exile.
Alexei Navalny is serving a nine-year prison sentence for fraud, a case widely seen as political. He was arrested in January 2021 on his return to Russia, after convalescing in Germany following poisoning in Siberia of which he accuses the Kremlin.
Another opposition figure, Ilya Yashin, is serving an eight-and-a-half-year prison sentence after being convicted in December for his criticism of the offensive against Ukraine.
