A BRIT political prisoner in Russia was rushed from solitary confinement to a prison hospital, his wife has revealed.
Vladimir Kara-Murza, 42, is serving a 25-year prison sentence for “treason” in Putin’s hellish penal colony in Siberia.
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From him health is known to be fragile after being poisoned twice by Russian intelligence.
His wife, Evgenia, said her lawyers were refused access to the opposition politician who has power in Russia and the United Kingdom. passports.
Kara-Murza – also a journalist – was arrested in April 2023 in a “show trial” for denouncing Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine and calling for Western sanctions.
There are great concerns that he will follow the example of prominent opposition politician Alexei Navalny by dying in his Russian prison.
Navalny, 47, was found dead in February amid suspicions that he was murdered on Putin’s orders.
Kara-Murza is known to suffer from a nerve disease called polyneuropathy after surviving the two poisoning attempts, and has repeatedly expressed concerns about his health in prison, his wife said.
She wrote on X (formerly Twitter): “[He] was transferred to a prison hospital. Lawyers were not allowed to visit.”
Kara-Murza was held in solitary confinement for more than 280 consecutive days and was not allowed to communicate with other prisoners – or with his family.
The cruel treatment at the IK-6 maximum security penal colony in the Omsk region is believed to have been on Putin’s orders.
The British citizen was transferred to regional hospital No. 11 of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia.
His lawyers were denied access to Kara-Murza on Friday and were told they would not be allowed to see him over the weekend.
Another arrested opposition politician, Ilya Yashin, 41, has previously warned that Kara-Murza’s life is in danger.
“The threat to your life is not only real, it is immense,” he said in February.
He was a close aide to murdered opposition politician Boris Nemtsov, – who was shot dead by a hit squad in Moscow in 2015 – and a vocal critic of Russiainvasion of Ukraine.
Dr Stepan Stepanenko, head of foreign policy think tank Forward Strategy, told The Sun he believes it is “Putin’s”.next” target.
“Vladimir Kara-Murza is imprisoned on false charges, he is very ill and following Navalny, of course he is next”
The father of three, who grew up and studied in Britain, suffers from a nervous disorder following two poisonings in 2015 and 2017, which he blames on the Kremlin.
“He may even die before he is murdered,” Stepanenko said. “Kara-Murza’s battle is not just against his captors, but against time itself.
“Stricken with polyneuropathy, the harsh reality is that he may never be reunited with his family.”
The UK must intervene to save it, he said. “We have a British citizen in Russian prison.”
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Kara-Murza’s heartbroken wife, Evgenia, also spoke out earlier this year, telling the world she fears “her husband’s life is in danger.”
She revealed that she is afraid he will suffer the same fate as Putin’s greatest enemy, Navalny, who Russia now claims died of “sudden death syndrome” and whose well-kept body was found covered in bruises.
“I have been afraid for my husband’s life since at least 2015, since that first call I received about Vladimir’s collapse in Moscow and entering [a] coma with multiple organ failure for no reason at all,” she told the BBC.
“Since then, I have been sleeping with my phone, fearing another such call.
“I believe my husband’s life is in danger, as are the lives of many other political prisoners in Russian prisons.”
Evgenia said Kara-Murza and other arrested dissidents suffering from “serious medical conditions” were denied adequate medical treatment “in order to deteriorate their state of health”.
She added that although she is afraid, she will always fight for her husband’s release.
“Continuing the fight is important, telling the stories of the people who suffer from the regime is important.”
The former activist and journalist was sentenced to 25 years in prison in April 2023 by Putin’s cronies for spreading “false” information about Russia’s war in Ukraine.
He denied all charges, comparing the case against him to a Stalinist show trial.
He was arrested just weeks after the full-scale invasion of Russia and just hours after CNN aired an interview with him in which he said Russia was ruled by “a regime of murderers.”
In January, Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron said he was “deeply concerned” about the fate of the dissident after he – like Navalny in December – suddenly disappeared from his prison cell.
Evgenia later discovered that he had been transferred to a new prison in Siberia and immediately placed in a punishment block.
His only crime was not getting up in time when the guard ordered him to “get up” and he was assaulted with a “malicious rape,” according to the letter he wrote to his lawyer.
The Cambridge graduate is now spending four months in painful solitary confinement.
More than 160 Russian citizens have been arrested for opposing the war, according to human rights group OVD-Info – however, Kara-Murza’s sentence is the harshest yet.
A total of 19,854 Russians were arrested between February 24, 2022 and January 28, 2024 for demonstrating or speaking out against the invasion.
Life of Alexei Navalny
PUTIN’s best-known opponent, Alexei Navalny, died in prison at the age of 47.
Here is a timeline that took the opposition leader from the face of freedom in Russia and the Kremlin’s greatest enemy to a hellish prison in Siberia and an early grave.
June 4, 1976 — Navalny was born in the western part of the Moscow region
1997 — Graduates from Russia’s RUDN university, where he graduated in law
2004 — Forms a movement against rampant overdevelopment in Moscow
2008 — Gains notoriety for denouncing corruption in state-owned companies
December 2011 — Participates in mass protests triggered by reports of widespread fraud in Russian elections and is arrested and jailed for 15 days for “defying a government official”
March 2012 – More mass protests break out and Navalny accuses the Kremlin’s main cronies of corruption
July 2012 — Russia’s Investigative Committee accuses Navalny of embezzlement. He rejects the allegations and says they are politically motivated
2013 — Navalny runs for mayor in Moscow
July, 2013 — A court in Kirov convicts Navalny of embezzlement in the Kirovles case, sentencing him to five years in prison – he appeals and is allowed to continue campaigning
September 2013 — Official results show Navalny finishes second in mayoral race
February 2014 — Navalny is placed under house arrest
December 2014 — Navalny and his brother, Oleg, are found guilty of fraud
February 2016 — The European Court of Human Rights rules that Russia violated Navalny’s right to a fair trial
November 2016 – Russia’s Supreme Court overturns Navalny’s sentence
December 2016 — Navalny announces he will run in the 2018 Russian presidential elections
February 2017 — Kirov court retries Navalny and upholds his five-year suspended sentence from 2013
April 2017 – Survives an assassination attempt that he blames on the Kremlin
December 2017 — Russia’s Central Election Commission bans him from running for president
August 2020 – Navalny falls into a coma during a flight and his team suspects he was poisoned. German authorities confirm he was poisoned with a Soviet-era nerve agent.
January 2021 — After five months in Germany, Navalny is arrested upon returning to Russia
February 2021 – A Moscow court orders Navalny to serve 2 and a half years in prison
June 2021 — A Moscow court closes Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation and his extensive political network
February 2022 — Russia invades Ukraine
March 2022 — Navalny is sentenced to an additional nine years for embezzlement and contempt of court
2023 – More than 400 Russian doctors sign an open letter to Putin, calling for an end to what they call Navalny’s abuse, following reports he was denied basic medication and suffering from slow poisoning
April 2023 – Navalny, from inside prison, says he faced new charges of extremism and terrorism that could keep him behind bars for the rest of his life
August 2023 – A court in Russia extends Navalny’s prison sentence by 19 years
December 2023 – He disappears from his prison because his team fears he could be murder. He then reappears weeks later in one of Siberia’s toughest prisons – the ‘Polar Wolf’ colony
February 16, 2024 – Navalny is found dead inside his Arctic gulag, with no official cause of death given
This story originally appeared on The-sun.com read the full story
