A Russian court has sentenced the prominent opponent Vladimir Kara Murza to 25 years in prison for various crimes, including high treason, and has been banned from practicing journalism for seven years. A considered judgment the harshest ever dictated against a critic of the Kremlin.

Kara Murza, who was already considered by the Russian authorities as a foreign agent and has a British passport, was sentenced on Monday for treason, dissemination of false information about the Armed Forces and cooperation with an undesirable organization, crimes for which he has been sentenced to a long sentence in a maximum security prison. In addition, the court has also fined him 400,000 rubles (the equivalent of about 4,470 euros).

This is The harshest sentence imposed by the Russian Justice against an opponent and his case has also gained relevance at an international level. In fact, representatives of several embassies attended this Monday’s hearing, including the United States, according to the Interfax agency. Kara Murza’s defense has already announced that it will appeal the sentence.

For years, yours has been one of the voices critical of the Kremlin more recognizable and has survived two poisonings. He was arrested in April of last year, with the invasion of Ukraine already started, and his situation has been criticized on several occasions by organizations defending Human Rights, which have now also rejected his condemnation.

“The verdict against Vladimir Kara Murza is a judicial travesty,” lamented the person in charge of Europe and Central Asia at Human Rights Watch, Hugh Williamson, who has called on the Russian authorities to annul “immediately” the sentence and release “unconditionally” ” to the opponent, who was recently honored with the Council of Europe’s Vaclav Havel Human Rights Prize.

Until her arrest, Kara Murza was the main opposition political figure left free in Russia, after the rest of the dissidents had ended up in exile, assassinated – like her friend Boris Nemtsov, shot in Moscow in 2015 – or imprisoned – like Alexei Navalniwhose health has precisely worsened in recent weeks.

The defendant himself denounced during the trial that the trial against him had “exceeded those of Soviet dissidents in the 1960s and 1970s” and claimed to be behind bars “for political ideas”, according to Bloomberg. However, he was “proud” of his position: “For speaking out against the war in Ukraine, for fighting for many years against the dictatorship of Vladimir Putin.”

For her part, Kara Murza’s wife, Evgenia, has shown herself “infinitely proud” of her partner’s opposition workand has pointed out that the 25-year prison sentence is “an outstanding” for “courage, consistency and honesty” in his years of work.