Arrested Russian opposition leader Vladimir Kara-Mursa has been on trial for “high treason” since yesterday. The 41-year-old’s trial began behind closed doors in a Moscow courtroom.
In addition to “high treason”, the Public Ministry accuses him, according to his lawyer, of having spread “false news” about the Russian army and of having worked for an “undesirable” organization. If convicted, he faces up to 25 years in prison.
“We are back in the Stalinist era. We are back to massive Stalinist punishments,” lawyer Vadim Prokhorov said after the court hearing. The Russian judiciary also wants to close the trial against Kara-Mursa “at cosmic speed”. The next hearing is scheduled for Thursday.
Stuck last April
Kara-Mursa was first arrested in April last year on charges of spreading false information about the Russian military. In August, Kara-Mursa was also accused of collaborating with an organization classified as “undesirable”. He is also on the list of foreign agents.
In October, Kara-Mursa was accused of “treason” for criticizing the Russian government at three public events abroad. Her lawyer told the state-run Tass news agency at the time that those statements “did not pose any threat” to Russia.
The well-known Kremlin critic and former journalist was a confidant of opposition politician Boris Nemsov, who was assassinated near the Kremlin in 2015, and is also close to Russian government critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Kara-Mursa claims that he was twice the victim of poison attacks because of his political commitment.