Moscow jails Russian-American journalist Kurmasheva for over six years

4 months ago 23

A Russian court has sentenced Alsu Kurmasheva, a Russian-American journalist for US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), to 6-1/2 years in prison for spreading false information about the Russian army, the court revealed on Monday (22 July).

A spokesperson for the court in the southern city of Kazan said Kurmasheva had been sentenced on Friday following two days of court proceedings. Her lawyer did not immediately reply to a Reuters question about whether she would appeal and the US embassy did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

Friday was also the day a separate court in Yekaterinburg sentenced another US citizen, Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, to 16 years in prison for espionage, following a three-day trial held behind closed doors. His newspaper and the United States have called the trial a sham, and Washington says it is working to secure his release.

RFE/RL President and CEO Stephen Capus called Kurmasheva’s trial and conviction “a mockery of justice”.

“The only just outcome is for Alsu to be immediately released from prison by her Russian captors,” Capus said in a statement. “It’s beyond time for this American citizen, our dear colleague, to be reunited with her loving family.”

Kurmasheva, 47, is based in Prague and has been held since Oct. 18 when she was arrested while visiting family in her native Russian region of Tatarstan. She had first been detained briefly earlier last year while trying to leave Russia, and her passports were confiscated.

A court initially found her guilty of failing to declare that she had a US passport, mandatory under Russian law, and fined her. A week later, she was charged with failing to register as a “foreign agent”, to which she pleaded not guilty.

Her husband, Pavel Butorin, who also works for RFE/RL, wrote on X: “My daughters and I know Alsu has done nothing wrong. And the world knows it too. We need her home.”

Butorin has said her arrest was related to a book that she had edited entitled “Saying No to War. 40 Stories of Russians Who Oppose the Russian Invasion of Ukraine”.

Gershkovich and Kurmasheva are among at least a half dozen Americans convicted and jailed in Russia amid the biggest breakdown of relations between Moscow and the West since the Cold War.

RFE/RL, which has broadcast news about eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union since the Cold War, is funded by the US Congress.

Russia has designated it as a “foreign agent” and an “undesirable” organisation, classifications that carry negative Cold War overtones and effectively ban it inside Russia.

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Moscow has imposed long prison sentences on people convicted of criticising the war, under a law that bans spreading false information about the military.

Butorin has petitioned for the US government to designate Kurmasheva as wrongfully detained, as Washington views the case of Gershkovich, to open up further diplomatic avenues to negotiate her release.

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller declined to comment on the department’s deliberations on whether to call Kurmasheva wrongfully detained, but said Washington had called for her release.

Repeating that call, Miller told reporters, “She’s a dedicated journalist who is being targeted by Russian authorities for her uncompromising commitment to speaking the truth and her principled reporting.”