Oppositionist Vladimir Kara-Murza was sent to a solitary confinement cell in a pre-trial detention center

Opposition journalist and politician Vladimir Kara-Murza, who is in the Moscow pre-trial detention center “Vodnyk”, was sent to solitary confinement. Kara-Murza’s lawyer Vadim Prokhorov told about this TV channel “Dozhd”. According to Prokhorov, the reason for the disciplinary measure was that the suspect was lying on the floor after the lift.

On April 22, 2022, Vladimir Kara-Murza was included in the list of foreign agents by the Ministry of Justice of Russia. On the same day, he was arrested. Initially, the politician was accused of spreading “fakes about the Russian army.” Already when he was under arrest, cases of collaboration with an undesirable organization and treason were brought against him. In total, the accused faces more than 20 years in prison.

TV channel “Dozhd” clarifies that Dmitry Komnov is now the head of SIZO-5 “Vodnyk”. Previously, he headed the “Butyrka” pre-trial detention center, where in 2009 the lawyer of the investment fund Hermitage Capital, Sergey Magnitsky, fell seriously ill. Magnitsky repeatedly complained about the deterioration of his health, but he was refused medical assistance. The lawyer died in the pre-trial detention center “Matrosskaya Tishina”, where he was transferred a few hours before his death.

Komnov is included in the “Magnitsky list” – a list of law enforcement officers and FSIN employees involved in the death of the lawyer. It was Kara-Murza, among others, who achieved the adoption of the “Magnitsky Act” in the USA, which provides for a ban on entry into the country and freezing of assets for Russian politicians and officials responsible for human rights violations.

According to Magnitsky’s mother, Komnov was one of those who “took part in creating torture conditions” for her son, among which she called numerous night transfers between cells, deprivation of sleep, food and water.

After the death of Magnitsky, Komnov was removed from the position of head of Butyrka, for some time he was the deputy head of the second Moscow pre-trial detention center, and in August 2022 he headed Vodnyk.

• Vladimir Kara-Murza believes that he is being persecuted because of his political activity. Many international human rights organizations agree with him. Guarantors in defense of Kara-Murza were signed, among others, by the writer’s widow Natalya Solzhenitsyna, dissident Natan Shcharansky, writer Boris Akunin, Nobel laureate Dmitry Muratov, politicians Grigory Yavlinsky, Boris Vyshnevsky, Emilia Slabunova, Lev Shlosberg.
• In October 2022, the oppositionist was awarded the Vaclav Havel International Prize for the Protection of Human Rights, and in November – the Axel Springer Stiftung Prize for Personal Courage in Journalism.