Vladimir Kara-Murza: Fears for Russian activist after secretive jail move

Vladimir Kara-Murza at an appeal hearing in Moscow in July

A lawyer for jailed Russian opposition figure Vladimir Kara-Murza says he has been moved to another prison in Siberia's Omsk region.

Concern for his safety had grown since the Russian-British national, convicted of treason after criticising the war in Ukraine, vanished from jail.

Russian prison transfers are shrouded in secrecy and can take weeks.

Earlier, UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron demanded clarity on Mr Kara-Murza's whereabouts.

Initial inquiries addressed to the penal colony in Omsk where he was held received responses saying he was no longer there.

On Tuesday, his lawyers reported that he had been transferred to a new penal colony in the same region, as reported by independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta Europe.

In a letter written to his lawyers, Mr Kara-Murza said he had been transferred as punishment for not standing up when told to "rise" by a guard.

He said guards had considered this a "malicious violation" of prison rules.

"Everything is okay with me - I'm clothed, shod, fed and warm, the people here are all fine," he added.

Mr Kara-Murza said he had been sent to an isolated cell and was told he could be moved back in four months.

The activist's wife, Evgenia Kara-Murza, published the letter on Tuesday.

"I'm deeply concerned for Mr Kara-Murza - a British national imprisoned in Russia for speaking out against the invasion of Ukraine," Lord Cameron had posted on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, on 29 January.

Mrs Kara-Murza said she learned on Monday that he had been moved "in an unknown direction" from a punishment cell in the penal colony where he has been held since September 2023.

"There are no grounds for his transfer and that makes it even more frightening as my husband is in the hands of the same people who tried to kill him twice, in 2015 and 2017," she said, apparently referring to two alleged assassination attempts when he nearly died after being poisoned.

The British foreign secretary added: "I stand with his wife."

Mr Kara-Murza was sentenced in April to 25 years for spreading "false" information about the Russian army and being affiliated with an "undesirable organisation".

The former journalist and politician, 42, denied all the charges.

He had spent years speaking out against Russian President Vladimir Putin and has criticised the government's crackdown on dissent, as well as the war in Ukraine.

He had also played a key role in persuading Western governments to sanction Russian officials for human rights abuses and corruption.

Shortly before he was sentenced, he said in remarks posted online: "I know that the day will come when the darkness engulfing our country will clear."

His sentence was condemned by the UK government, which summoned Russia's ambassador and said it would look at measures for holding those involved in his detention and "mistreatment" to account.

The US state department described Mr Kara-Murza as "yet another target of the Russian government's escalating campaign of repression".

Mr Kara-Murza, who comes from a well-known Soviet dissident family, received British citizenship when he moved to the UK as a teenager with his mother.

When Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny - who has been in jail since 2021 on multiple charges widely seen as politically motivated - was transferred within the penal system in December, there was no contact with his supporters outside for nearly three weeks.