In a closed-door session, a Moscow court on March 13 began to consider the treason case against jailed opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Murza, who faces nearly 25 years in prison for high treason after making comments critical of the Kremlin.
It wasn’t immediately clear what was discussed at the day’s session. The treason trial itself -- which Western governments and rights groups call politically motivated -- is scheduled for March 16.
Kara-Murza’s Twitter account said on March 13 that “the press and diplomats were not allowed beyond the courthouse entrance. The bailiff explained it by the fact that the case was ‘super-secret’ and that the press would eavesdrop at the door.”
In comments to RFE/RL, his wife, Yevgenia, said that the case against the activist “is an undisguised, naked hypocrisy.”
She said he has become subject to persecution because of his “public speeches against the policy of the current government, against repressions in the country, against the aggressive, monstrous war against Ukraine, of course, in the eyes of the current government, damage Russia and jeopardize its security.”
Vadim Prokhorov, one of his lawyers, told reporters on March 13 that "we have returned to Stalinist times. To enormous Stalinist sentences."
The Moscow court on March 6 extended Kara-Murza’s pretrial despite a physician's request to release him immediately due to his illness -- described as polyneuropathy, a disease affecting peripheral nerves.
Kara-Murza's lawyer said the jailed politician's illness was a result of two separate incidents in Moscow -- in 2015 and 2017-- when he fell deathly ill with symptoms consistent with poisoning.
Kara-Murza and his associates have said the Kremlin must have been behind his poisoning. The Kremlin has denied involvement.
The 41-year-old politician was detained in April last year and sentenced to 15 days in jail on a charge of disobeying police. He was later charged with spreading false information about the Russian Army for talks he held with lawmakers in the U.S. state of Arizona.
On March 3, the U.S. State Department and Treasury announced a new round of sanctions against those involved in what U.S. authorities called the "arbitrary detention" and "serious human rights abuses" of Kara-Murza.