The Basmanny District Court of Moscow granted the investigator's petition to extend the detention period for journalist and politician Vladimir Kara-Murza until October 12, 2022, RBC reports .
The petition of the defense party to choose a preventive measure not related to detention was denied.
Kara-Murza has been in a Moscow pre-trial detention center since April on charges of spreading “fakes” about the Russian army (part 2 of article 207.3 of the Criminal Code, punishable by a fine of up to 5 million rubles or imprisonment for up to 10 years).
During the arrest, the investigators were unable to explain what exactly Kara-Murza had done as "discrediting the army." They cited the possibility of his leaving the country and his British citizenship as grounds for arrest.
According to the ruling, the case was initiated because of Kara-Murza's speech in the Arizona House of Representatives on March 15, 2022. The investigator drew conclusions based on the translation from English into Russian, but there is no information on the qualifications of the translator in the file.
On August 4, Kara-Murza was charged with carrying out the activities of an undesirable organization for an event in support of political prisoners (Part 1, Article 234.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). This was announced by his lawyer Vadim Prokhorov.
According to him, Kara-Murza is accused of holding a conference in the Moscow Sakharov Center on October 27, 2021 in support of Russian political prisoners with the money of the non-governmental organization (NGO) Free Russia Foundation.
