UK imposes sanctions against judge and investigators in Kara-Murza case

The UK has added five Russian citizens to the sanctions list. Among them were the judge of the Basmanny District Court Elena Lenskaya, who decided to arrest the opposition politician and publicist Vladimir Kara-Murza (recognized as a foreign agent), and the head of the Main Investigation Department of the Investigative Committee of Russia (TFR), Major General Denis Kolesnikov, who approved the petition for initiation of a criminal case against Mr. Kara-Murza, follows from the sanctions list (.doc), published on the website of the British government.

Major Andrey Zadachin, an investigator for especially important cases of the main department of the TFR, was also included in the UK sanctions list, who made the decision to initiate a criminal case against the oppositionist.

The UK imposed restrictions on the judge and two investigators because they “support policies that destabilize Ukraine,” the document says.

In addition, restrictions for human rights violations were imposed against two FSB officers, Konstantin Kudryavtsev and Alexander Samofal. Allegedly, they were members of the task force that followed Mr. Kara-Murza and were involved in attempts to poison the oppositionist in 2015 and 2017.

On March 3, the US Treasury published new personal sanctions against six Russian citizens. Among them, in particular, were Mrs. Lenskaya and Mr. Zadachin.

In May 2015, Vladimir Kara-Murza was hospitalized with signs of severe poisoning and put into an artificial coma. The treatment was carried out by the chief resuscitator of Moscow, Denis Protsenko. In February 2017, he was again hospitalized with signs of poisoning. A diagnosis of “toxic effect of an unaccounted for substance” was made. Later, the oppositionist ordered research in France, which showed an excess of manganese (59.5 times), copper (1.8 times), zinc (2.25 times), mercury (1.2 times).

On April 17, the Moscow City Court sentenced Vladimir Kara-Murza to 25 years in a strict regime colony on charges of treason, spreading false information about the Russian army, and leading an undesirable organization. He is also banned from journalism for seven years.

Read more about the verdict – in the publication “Kommersant” “Vladimir Kara-Murza was awarded the maximum”.

Erdni Kagaltynov