Jailed Russian dissident moved to prison hospital
Russian dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza, who was imprisoned following his criticism of President Vladimir Putin and Russia’s actions in Ukraine, has been admitted to a prison hospital, according to his wife.
Evgenia Kara-Murza reported on X that officials declined to disclose his condition when his lawyers attempted to visit him. Last year, Kara-Murza, a dual Russian-British citizen, was imprisoned and relocated to a Siberian prison colony.
His wife noted that he suffers from a neurological condition stemming from past poisonings. Kara-Murza, 42, has accused Russian authorities of attempting to poison him in both 2015 and 2017.
On Friday, lawyers for the dissident arrived at the Omsk prison colony but were kept waiting for five hours without information on his whereabouts. They were eventually denied permission to visit him in the hospital, according to Evgenia Kara-Murza.
An outspoken critic of the Kremlin, Kara-Murza was arrested in April 2022 and sentenced to 25 years in 2023 on charges of disseminating “false” information about the Russian military and association with an “undesirable organization.”
Throughout his activism, Kara-Murza has consistently condemned President Vladimir Putin’s policies regarding dissent and the conflict in Ukraine.
He had also played a key role in persuading Western governments to sanction Russian officials for human rights abuses and corruption.
The US state department has described Mr Kara-Murza as “yet another target of the Russian government’s escalating campaign of repression”.
Mr Kara-Murza, who comes from a Soviet dissident family, received British citizenship when he moved to the UK as a teenager with his mother.
His wife has expressed concern over his wellbeing while in prison, particularly following the death of opposition leader Alexei Navalny earlier this year.
