After The Wall Street Journal Repoter, Russian Court Of Journalists RFE/RL Kurmasheva 6.5 Years In Prison

JAKARTA - A Russian court sentenced Alsu Kurmasheva, a US-funded Russian-American journalist to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) for spreading false information about Russian soldiers.

A court spokesman in the southern city of Kazan said Kurmasheva was sentenced on Friday, July 19. It was the same day that a separate court in Yekaterinburg sentenced another US citizen, Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, to espionage, following a trial criticized by his newspaper and the US as a false trial.

RFE/RL president and CEO Stephen Capus called the trial and the sentence an "insult to justice", and said "the only fair result was that Alsu was immediately released from prison by his kidnappers from Russia."

"It is time for this American citizen, our beloved partner, to reunite with his beloved family," said Capus.

Kurmasheva, 47, lives in Prague and has been detained since October 18 when he was arrested while visiting his family in his home region, Russia, Tatarstan. He was first detained early last year while trying to leave Russia, and his passport was confiscated.

The court initially found him guilty of not declaring he had a US passport, which was required according to Russian law, and imposed fines on him.

A week later, he was charged with failing to register as a "foreign agent", and pleaded not guilty.

Kurmasheva's husband, Pavel Butorin, who also works for RFE/RL, said his arrest was related to a book he edited entitled "Saying No to War. 40 Stories of Russians Who Oppos the Russian Invasion of Ukraine".

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

RFE/RL, which declared Kurmasheva's detention unfair, was funded by the US Congress. Russia has designated it a "foreign agent", a classification with a negative Cold War nuance.

Butorin has petitioned the US government to designate Kurmasheva as an illegally detained person, as Washington views the Gershkovich case, which will open up diplomatic channels to negotiate his release.