Two years after Russian opposition politician #Vladimir #Kara-#Murza's arrest and conviction on terrorist charges viewed as politically motivated, U.S. lawmakers say they haven't forgotten their "friend."
At an April 9 conference in Washington organized to coincide with the anniversary of Kara-Murza’s arrest, the lawmakers said they will fight for him until he is released and called on the State Department to declare him wrongfully detained.
Kara-Murza was arrested on April 11, 2022, upon his return to Russia following talks in the United States and Europe where he called President Vladimir Putin a war criminal for his decision to invade Ukraine.
Putin in March 2022 outlawed criticism of the war -- which he calls a "special military operation" -- and the armed forces as part of a sweeping post-invasion crackdown on freedoms.
A court sentenced Kara-Murza, 43, to a quarter-century in prison, the longest jail term handed to a Kremlin opponent in post-Soviet Russia and one more reminiscent of Stalinist times. The long sentence is symbolic of the harsher pivot Putin has taken since launching the war.
https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-kara-murza-us-congress/32897978.html