The extra critical cost — an alleged violation of a vaguely-defined regulation supported by Russian President Vladimir Putin and enacted by Russia’s parliament simply after the nation’s invasion of Ukraine — was leveled Friday by a courtroom in Moscow, in keeping with a charging doc posted on Facebook by his legal professional, Vadim Prokhorov.
Kara-Murza, 40, who lives together with his household in Northern Virginia, faces as much as 15 years in jail if convicted.
The charging doc alleges that Kara-Murza “disseminated deliberately false information [about] the military forces of the Russian Federation” that “causes significant harm to the interests of the Russian Federation.”
Kara-Murza was arrested final week after giving an interview to CNN in which he predicted that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine would result in Putin’s downfall. “It’s not just corrupt, it’s not just kleptocratic, it’s not just authoritarian,” he mentioned of the Putin authorities. “It is a regime of murderers. It is important to say it out loud.”
Kara-Murza is a outstanding opposition chief and Russian mental who has written dozens of columns for The Post important of Putin’s regime. He has been poisoned twice, in 2015 and 2017, in incidents he has characterised as makes an attempt to silence him for urging Western nations to impose sanctions towards Russian officers suspected of human-rights violations.
He has maintained his defiance even whereas in jail. In a column revealed by The Post final week throughout his 15-day sentence, he wrote, “There will be a dawn” in Russia. “Russia will be free. I’ve never been so sure of it as I am today.”
Kara-Murza is a longtime affiliate of Boris Nemtsov, the Russian opposition chief who was assassinated exterior the Kremlin in 2015. He can be an writer, documentary director and former candidate for the Russian parliament.
He performed a key position in getting the United States, European Union, Canada and Britain to undertake sanctions legal guidelines in 2012, generally known as the Magnitsky Act, that concentrate on people in Russia and elsewhere who’re complicit in human-rights violations.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken tweeted earlier this month that the U.S. is “troubled” by Kara-Murza’s detention. He referred to as for his quick launch.
In addition to Kara-Murza, two different writers related to The Post have confronted arrest and persecution by international authorities in current years.
Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi Arabian author and dissident who was additionally a Post opinions contributor, was murdered in October 2018 by Saudi brokers in that nation’s consulate in Istanbul, in an assault the CIA and a United Nations panel concluded was ordered by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Iranian authorities in 2014 arrested Jason Rezaian, The Post’s correspondent in Tehran. He spent 544 days in jail in Iran with out trial earlier than his launch in early 2016. Rezaian is now a author for The Post’s Global Opinions, the part in which Kara-Murza and Khashoggi’s columns had been revealed.
In a press release on Friday, Post writer Fred Ryan mentioned Kara-Murza has “repeatedly risked his safety to tell the truth about Vladimir Putin’s heinous violations of human rights” and mentioned the fees towards him had been for a “sham offense.”
He added, “Americans should be infuriated by Putin’s escalating campaign to silence Kara-Murza. … And everyone who values press freedom and human rights should be enraged by this injustice and join in demanding Kara-Murza’s immediate release.”