2024-01-30 10:46:18
The Kremlin is once again “playing” with the fate of its opponents imprisoned in Russian prisons. As he did a few weeks ago with Alexei Navalni, the main opponent of Vladimir Putin who after several days in an unknown whereabouts appeared in an Arctic prison, he has released Vladimir Kara-Murzá, sentenced to 25 years, from the prison where he was kept. years in prison for high treason and for criticizing the war in Ukraine.
The opponent left the Siberian prison where he had been since October 2023 with an uncertain destination, according to what his supporters reported this Monday, who went to visit him and did not find him.
The Administration of the IK-6 prison in the Omsk region confirmed that Kara-Murzá had been transferred when human rights activist Alexandr Podrabinek tried to send him a letter, Efe reports. Podrabinek assured on Facebook that he does not know the whereabouts of Kara-Murzá, who was held for less than half a year in Omsk, 2,700 kilometers from Moscow.
In September 2023, the opponent and journalist was taken from Moscow to Omsk for almost three weeks, a particularly traumatic process known in Russia as “etapirovanie” (transfer in stages). As soon as he arrived at IK-6, Kara-Murzá was locked in a punishment cell for having committed an infraction.
The Russian prison authorities ordered the transfer of the opponent without waiting for the Justice to rule on an appeal filed by his defense, according to Efe. The United States Embassy in Moscow has condemned the political persecution of the opponent, a process it considers “politically motivated.”
The opposition considers that the Kremlin had for years sworn to Kara-Murzá, one of the initiators of the Magnitsky Law, the first list of sanctions against the Kremlin, despite the fact that he returned to Russia at the beginning of the year.
Kara-Murzá, who wrote opinion articles for media such as “The Washington Post”, was arrested in April for allegedly collaborating with NATO countries and discrediting the Armed Forces in a speech given in the Arizona House of Representatives (USA). March 15th.
Considered a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International, he was awarded the 2022 Václav Havel Human Rights Prize awarded by the Council of Europe.
He had been sentenced to 25 years in prison for treason and other charges linked to his criticism of the war in Ukraine and suffered an attempted poisoning. He is considered one of Putin’s greatest opponents.
The United Kingdom asks urgent explanations from Moscow
The United Kingdom Foreign Minister, David Cameron, asked the Russian authorities this Monday to “urgently” communicate the whereabouts of Vladimir Kara Murza. “Russia must urgently inform Vladimir Kara Murza’s lawyers of his whereabouts following reports that he has been transferred from Omsk to an unknown location. I am deeply concerned for Mr Kara Murza, a British citizen imprisoned in Russia for speaking out against of the invasion of Ukraine,” he noted.
Likewise, the head of British diplomacy has shown his support for the opponent’s wife, Eugenia Kara Murza, with whom he “plans to meet soon”, as he indicated through his profile on the social network .
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