Wife of jailed dissident Kara-Murza fears for his life in Siberian penal colony

LONDON (Reuters) -The wife of jailed Russian opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza, who suffers from a nerve disorder after surviving two poison attacks, said on Wednesday she feared for his life after his transfer from Moscow to a Siberian penal colony.

Kara-Murza, 42, has a condition called polyneuropathy that takes away the sensation in his limbs unless controlled by medicines and exercise.

His wife Evgenia Kara-Murza said exercise was now impossible for him in a cell measuring just 3 x 1.5 metres (9.8 x 4.9 feet), furnished with only a bed and a backless stool, where he has been held since September in a maximum-security penal colony in the city of Omsk.

“His medical condition will of course deteriorate in the present situation … They’re using these punishment cells as a method of torture,” she said during a ceremony at Britain’s House of Lords to receive a freedom award on his behalf.

She also fears her husband is vulnerable while in prison to another attempt to kill him, after poisoning episodes in 2015 and 2017 that both times sent him into a coma.

Bellingcat and other investigative news outlets have reported that Kara-Murza was tailed before both attacks by the same squad from the FSB security service that tried to assassinate opposition leader Alexei Navalny with a nerve agent in 2020. Russian authorities denied involvement in either attack.

“I have no reason to believe that no further attacks would take place. The fact that they’ve isolated him to the maximum of course makes me very concerned for his life,” Evgenia Kara-Murza said.

Reuters has requested comment from Russia’s federal penitentiary service.

‘ANOTHER SAD MEETING’

Kara-Murza, who holds Russian and British passports, was jailed for 25 years in April for treason and spreading “false information” about Russia’s war in Ukraine, following a trial he compared to the Stalinist show trials of the 1930s.

He is one of a small number of prominent opposition figures who stayed in Russia and continued to speak out against President Vladimir Putin after his February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Evgenia Kara-Murza was critical of what she described as a lack of effective support from Britain’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) for one of its own citizens.

She said she had held “another sad meeting” at the FCDO on Tuesday with an official whom she did not name but said was unfamiliar with her husband’s case.

“Every time I go to the FCDO I meet new people … I don’t have any continuous dialogue with anyone. Every time I come to see them, I have to tell the entire story yet again. And the lady I met for the first time yesterday, she has no idea who Vladimir is,” she said.

An FCDO spokesperson said Britain regularly raised Kara-Murza’s case with Moscow and would continue to do so. It had also imposed sanctions on two people involved with his poisoning and 11 in relation to his sentencing.

“The politically motivated conviction of Vladimir Kara-Murza is deplorable. We reiterate the Prime Minister’s call on Russia to release Mr Kara-Murza immediately and unconditionally,” the spokesperson said.

“Our staff are providing tailored support to Mr Kara-Murza’s family as they continue to highlight this gross injustice.”

Accepting the award from Liberal International, a worldwide federation of liberal political parties, Evgenia Kara-Murza read out a letter from her husband in which he wryly apologised that he could not be there in person “for reasons beyond my control”.

He added: “I have no doubt that in the end, our vision of Russia will prevail. I say this because I am a historian by background and know that even though it may not bend as fast as we would like, the arc of history does bend towards liberty.”

(Reporting by Mark TrevelyanEditing by Mark Heinrich and Gareth Jones)