A Russian court has sentenced Alsu Kurmasheva to six and a half years in prison for spreading false information about the Russian military, after a secret trial, according to court documents and officials, the Associated Press reports.
Kurmasheva has dual citizenship, Russian and American, and is a journalist for Radio Free Europe in Prague.
Russia sentences REL journalist Alsu Kurmasheva to six and a half years in prison
A Russian court has sentenced Alsu Kurmasheva to six and a half years in prison for spreading false information about the Russian military, after a secret trial, according to court documents and officials, the Associated Press reports.
Kurmasheva has dual citizenship, Russian and American, and is a journalist for Radio Free Europe in Prague.
The sentence in the Kazan court was handed down on Friday, July 19, the same day a Russian court in Yekateringburg sentenced Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich to 16 years in prison on espionage charges. The United States said that the case against journalist Gershkovich is politically motivated.
Kurmasheva, a journalist for the Tatar-Bashkir Service of Radio Free Europe, was convicted of “spreading false information” about the army, according to information published on the website of the Supreme Court of Tatarstan. Court spokeswoman Natalya Loseva confirmed to The Associated Press that Kurmasheva was sentenced to six and a half years in prison for the case, which is classified as secret, without giving details on the nature of the charges against her.
when asked about the decision, the president of REL, Stephen Capus, condemned the trial and sentence against Kurmasheva, describing it as “a mockery of justice”. He said that the only “fair result for Alsu is her immediate release from prison”.
“This American citizen, our beloved colleague, must be reunited with her family,” Capus said in a statement to AP.
Also Kurmasheva has been detained by the Russian authorities since October last year, on the grounds that she failed to register as a “foreign agent”.
Such registration is mandatory under a Russian law that aims to target journalists, civil society activists and those who disagree with the government.
Radio Free Europe and the US Government have said that the charges against her are retaliation for the work she did as a journalist for REL at the company’s headquarters in Prague. /REL
