Jailed Russian opposition politician's health 'relatively stable'

Sky News

Updated 10 July 2024 at 1:45 pm·1-min read

Imprisoned Russian opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza's health is "relatively stable", his lawyer has said, after he was transferred to a prison hospital.

One of Mr Kara-Murza's lawyers was able to visit him in the prison hospital on Wednesday where he had been held incommunicado for several days, his legal team said.

They had tried to visit him last Thursday at the penal colony in the Siberian city of Omsk, but were told he had been transferred to hospital for an unspecified "examination," according to his wife Evgenia and lawyer Vadim Prokhorov.

Mr Prokhorov said they were denied access to the politician over "bogus excuses" from hospital staff for several days after that.

The lawyer who visited on Wednesday described his health as "relatively stable", Mr Prokhorov said, adding that the exact reasons for the examination at the hospital are being clarified.

Mr Kara-Murza, a dual Russian-UK citizen, is serving a 25-year prison sentence on treason charges he says are politically motivated.

The charges stemmed from public remarks which were critical of the Kremlin.

His arrest in April 2022, weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine, came as authorities ratcheted up their crackdown on dissent to levels unseen since Soviet times.

Mr Kara-Murza's wife and lawyers have repeatedly sounded the alarm about his health deteriorating in prison.

In 2015 and 2017, he suffered two near-fatal poisonings and developed polyneuropathy, a condition that deadens the feeling in the limbs.

It comes months after Alexei Navalny, an opposition leader and vocal critic of President Vladimir Putin at the maximum security prison where he was being held.

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