Kremlin critic Vladimir Kara-Murza placed in 'punishment cell' in Siberian prison

Sept. 24 (UPI) -- Vladimir Kara-Murza, an imprisoned critic of the Kremlin, has been transferred to a maximum security prison in Siberia and placed in a "punishment cell."

Kara-Murza, 42, was convicted of treason earlier this year for denouncing Russia's war in Ukraine and sentenced to 25 years in prison as President Vladimir Putin's regime cracked down on dissent.

He arrived at the IK-6 prison in the Siberian city of Omsk on Thursday, his lawyer Vadim Prokhorov said in a statement on Facebook.

Prokhorov appeared to criticize Moscow for taking three weeks to transport Kara-Murza "in the 21st Century" and detailed where his client had been held along the way.

"It is good that Vladimir Kara-Murza was found. But there is also very disturbing information," Prokhorov said.

He added that Kara-Murza has survived two poisonings in 2015 and 2017, leaving him hospitalized.

Kara-Murza was monitored by the same unit of the Federal Security Service -- the successor agency of the Soviet-era KGB -- that monitored Alexey Navalny before he was poisoned in August 2020, according to a 2021 investigation.

That investigation was carried out by Bellingcat, a company that publishes open-source intelligence, which worked with Russia's The Insider and Germany's Der Spiegel.

The nonprofit organization OVD-Info, which documents such arrests in Russia, noted that Prokhorov himself was forced to leave Russia a few days before Kara-Murza was sentenced due to the threat of criminal prosecution.