Vladimir Kara-Murza: Russia activist fears covert jail modification

A lawyer for Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Russian who opposes the government, says he has been taken to a different prison in Siberia’s Omsk region.

Worry about his safety had increased after the Russian-British man, who was found guilty of treason for speaking out against the war in Ukraine, disappeared from prison.

Transferring prisoners in Russia is kept a secret and can take a long time.

Previously, the UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron asked for clear information about where Mr Kara-Murza is.

First, people asked the prison in Omsk where he was kept, and they said he was not there anymore.

On Tuesday, his lawyers said he was moved to a new prison in the same area, according to the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta Europe.

In a letter to his lawyers, Mr Kara-Murza said he was moved as a punishment for not getting up when a guard told him to stand.

He said the guards thought that this was a mean breaking of prison rules.

“I’m goodI have clothes, shoes, food, and warmth. The people here are doing well too,” he said.

Mr Kara-Murza said he was put in a small room by himself and was told he might be moved after four months.

The wife of the activist, Evgenia Kara-Murza, shared the letter on Tuesday.

“I am very worried about Mr. Kara-Murza, who is a British citizen being held in Russia for speaking out against the invasion of Ukraine,” Lord Cameron wrote on X (formerly known as Twitter) on January 29th.

Mrs Kara-Murza found out on Monday that he has been taken from a punishment cell to somewhere else in the penal colony where he has been held since September 2023.

“He doesn’t have a reason to be moved, and that is very scary because the people who tried to kill him in 2015 and 2017 are the ones who have him now,” she said, talking about two times when he almost died after being poisoned.

The British foreign secretary said, “I support his wife. ”

Mr Kara-Murza got 25 years in jail in April for sharing wrong information about the Russian army and being part of a group that the government doesn’t like.

The person who used to be a journalist and a politician, and is now 42 years old, said that the accusations against him are not true.

For many years, he has been speaking against Russian President Vladimir Putin and has criticized the government’s actions against people who disagree with them, as well as the war in Ukraine.

He also helped convince Western governments to punish Russian officials for treating people unfairly and being dishonest.

Just before he was punished, he said online: “I believe that one day our country will become better. ”

The UK government didn’t like what he said, so they asked Russia’s ambassador to come in for a talk. They also said they would take action against the people who were responsible for his arrest and treatment.

The US state department said that Mr Kara-Murza is another person targeted by the Russian government’s increasing campaign of repression.

Mr Kara-Murza’s family was well-known for speaking out against the Soviet government. He got British citizenship when he moved to the UK as a teenager with his mother.

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who has been in jail since 2021 for reasons many people think are politically based, was moved to a different part of the prison in December. During this time, he was unable to communicate with his supporters for almost three weeks.