Russian opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza was transferred to a new penal colony in the Omsk region of Siberia and placed in a penal block, Novaya Gazeta Evropa reported on Tuesday, citing his lawyer.
Novaya Gazeta Evropa reported that Kara-Murza wrote to lawyer Maria Eismont that the move was punishment for not getting up on time, which authorities considered a "malicious offence".
He said he was sent to a type of punishment cell known by its Russian initials as EPKT, which is the strictest form of isolation from other prisoners, reports Reuters.
Kara-Murza is convicted last year to 25 years in prison for treason and other charges he denied, comparing his case to trials during the Stalinist regime.
His wife said on Monday that he had been transferred from the previous prison in Omsk and that his whereabouts were unknown.
The case of Kremlin critics
Kara-Murza was arrested in April 2022, after returning from abroad and accused of refusing to obey a police officer.
He was later accused of discrediting the Russian military, a charge stemming from Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine and Moscow's need to deal with critics. After that, he was additionally charged with treason for criticizing the Kremlin's policies outside of Russia.
In April, Kara-Murza was found guilty on all charges and sentenced to 25 years in prison.
A few months after his sentencing, a Moscow court sentenced him on December 1, 2023, for allegedly violating the "foreign agents" law.
The court accused him of not reporting his activities to the Ministry of Justice every three months while he was in prison, given that he was labeled a "foreign agent", for which he had to pay a fine of 560 euros.
Vladimir Kara-Murza is a Russian activist and journalist who was allegedly poisoned twice between 2015 and 2017, which left him in a coma. According to Western media, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) is behind his poisoning.
Kara-Murza was one of the key proponents of the US Magnitsky Act, which provides sanctions for human rights violators in Russia.
Investigative group Bellingket revealed that Kara-Murza was being followed by Russian agents who were also allegedly involved in the poisoning of another opposition figure, Alexei Navalny.
Accusations against Vulin
Kara-Murza was interviewed for the daily "Nova" in 2022 accused of the then Minister of the Interior, Aleksandar Vulin, that he was in Moscow in order to hand over the transcripts of the conversations of the Russian opposition members from the meeting in Belgrade.
"Then he met with Patrushev, and then they formed the so-called Working Group for the Fight against Color Revolutions," Kara-Murza said.
Vulin then replied that it was a lie.
Vulin received two awards in the last few days in Russia – Federal Security Services of Russia and the president Vladimir Putin.
