The United Kingdom has sanctioned five Russians after the sentencing to 25 years in prison earlier this week of opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza, a British-Russian dual national.
Foreign Secretary James Cleverly on April 21 sanctioned Judge Yelena Lenskaya, who approved Kara-Murza's initial arrest investigators Denis Kolesnikov and Andrei Zadachin, who participated in his arrest, and Aleksandr Samofal and Konstantin Kudryavtsev, officers of the Federal Security Service (FSB) who followed Kara-Murza during his trips before he was poisoned in 2015.
The five sanctioned Russian citizens are banned from entering the United Kingdom, and their assets in Britain will be frozen.
Last month, the United States designated six people, including three judges, for sanctions due to their role in Kara-Murza’s detention.
Judge Sergei Podoprigorov -- who sentenced Kara-Murza on April 17 on charges including high treason, cooperation with an undesirable organization, and spreading "false information" about the Russian armed forces involved in Moscow’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine -- was one of the first people sanctioned 10 years ago by the United States under the Magnitsky Act, which sets out sanctions for human rights violators in Russia.
SEE ALSO: The Week In Russia: A Long Prison Term And A 'Risky Path' For PutinRights watchdogs and Western governments have called the case against Kara-Murza politically motivated and demanded his immediate release.
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.
In August, Russian authorities added the charge of involvement in an “undesirable” foreign organization, and in October they added the treason charge for Kara-Murza’s public criticism of the Russian authorities on an international level.
Kara-Murza is the latest in a string of opposition activists, reporters, and others who have been arrested and prosecuted under the legislation amid a growing Kremlin crackdown on civil society.
According to the human rights group OVD-Info, almost 20,000 Russians have been detained for antiwar protests since the Kremlin launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.