Who is Vladimir Kara-Murza, the Putin critic jailed for 25 years?

On Monday, Russian Opposition leader and Putin critic Vladimir Kara-Murza was sentenced to 25 years in prison. The 41-year-old was convicted of treason and sentenced to 25 years in prison for publicly the Ukraine war. But who is Kara-Murza? Let’s take a closer look: Who is he? Kara Murza is a historian, journalist, and Opposition leader who holds dual Russian and British citizenship. He went to Cambridge University where he received an MA (Cantab.) in History, as per the NATO website. According to the website Bellingcat, Kara-Murza began his journalism career at 16. According to Frontline, Kara-Murza was an adviser to Opposition leader Boris Nemtsov – who was assassinated near the Kremlin – from 2000 to 2003_._ He also stood as a candidate for Parliament in 2003. Kara-Murza founded the Nemtsov Foundation and served as deputy chief of the People’s Freedom Party. He was also vice-president of Open Russia and the Free Russia Foundation – groups the Kremlin labelled ‘undesirable’.

He was a critical figure in the implementation of the Magnitsky Act, as per Bellingcat.

The law lets Washington freeze the overseas assets of Russian officials and high-profile figures linked to Vladimir Putin who have committed human rights abuses. Kara-Murza served as Washington bureau chief of Russian independent TV station RTVI between 2004 and 2012. According to the NATO website, Kara-Murza has received a slew of awards including the Sakharov Prize for Journalism as an Act of Conscience, the Magnitsky Human Rights Award, and the Geneva Summit Courage Award. He is married and has three children. Tussle with Russian authorities Kara-Murza in 2015 and 2017 fell sick twice in what he said were poisonings by the Russian security services. Though he recovered from both incidents despite twice falling into a coma, his lawyers say Kara-Murza has been left with a serious nerve disorder called polyneuropathy as a result. Russian authorities have denied involvement in the incidents. He has been one of a small number of Opposition politicians who remained active in Russia after it invaded Ukraine in February 2022 and publicly condemned the war in defiance of new censorship laws. Kara-Murza has continued to speak out against President Vladimir Putin despite the mounting risks. [caption id=“attachment_12415402” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Russian president Vladimir Putin. AP File[/caption] **Kara-Murza, Alexei Navalny and more: The growing list of Vladimir Putin critics facing long jail terms** He was arrested in April 2022, hours after CNN broadcast an interview in which he said Russia was being run by a “regime of murderers”. He was declared a “foreign agent” and accused of spreading false information about the actions of the Russian military in Ukraine in connection with a speech he had given the previous month in the Arizona House of Representatives, where he said Putin was “dropping cluster bombs on residential areas, mothers’ homes, hospitals, and schools”. In July he was additionally charged over his involvement with two foreign-based opposition forums that are labelled by the Russian state as “undesirable”. Finally, on 6 October, he was charged with treason over public speeches he had made in Lisbon, Helsinki and Washington. Kara-Murza’s health has deteriorated in custody, leading to the development of polyneuropathy — disease of or damage to nerves — in both his feet, according to his lawyers. ‘Russia will be free’ Prosecutors requested a 25-year jail term. The trial was held behind closed doors but Kara-Murza’s wife and lawyer released a copy of a speech he delivered to the court. He said he had done nothing wrong and compared the proceedings to Josef Stalin’s show trials of the 1930s. “Criminals are supposed to repent of what they have done. I, on the other hand, am in prison for my political views. I also know that the day will come when the darkness over our country will dissipate,” said Kara-Murza, who has described the entire case against him as being based on “political vengeance”. After hearing he’d been ordered to spend the next 25 years in a maximum-security penal colony, Kara-Murza, who had calmly listened to proceedings inside a glass courtroom cage, said “Russia will be free”, a well-known Opposition slogan. [caption id=“attachment_12466342” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Vladimir Kara-Murza, in an enclosure for defendants during a court hearing in Moscow, Russia. Reuters[/caption] He also smiled and - according to one of his lawyers, Maria Eismont - said he regarded the harsh sentence as recognition of his effective work as an opposition politician. “When he heard he’d got 25 years he said: ‘My self-esteem has gone up, I understand that I did everything right. It’s the highest score I could have got for what I did, for what I believed in as a citizen and a patriot,’” she said. “I know that the day will come when the darkness engulfing our country will dissipate,” Kara-Murza, a father of three, told the court in remarks that were posted on his Twitter account.

“This day will come as inevitably as spring comes to replace even the frostiest winter.”

Amnesty International has denounced Kara-Murza’s sentence as “yet another chilling example of the systematic repression of civil society, which has broadened and accelerated under the Kremlin since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year.” With inputs from agencies Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News , India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and  Instagram.