(22 Jul 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
++PLEASE NOTE: AP IS OPERATING IN RUSSIA ACCORDING TO RUSSIAN RESTRICTIONS ON ALL REPORTING RELATED TO THE ONGOING MILITARY OPERATION IN UKRAINE++
ASSOCIATED PRESS
ARCHIVE: Kazan, Russia – 1 April 2024
1. Various of Russian-American journalist working for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Alsu Kurmasheva behind glass speaking to her lawyers and reporters
ASSOCIATED PRESS
ARCHIVE: Kazan, Russia – 1 February 2024
2. Close of smartphone screen, Kurmasheva in frame
3. Kurmasheva in glass cage
STORYLINE:
A court has convicted Alsu Kurmasheva, a Russian-American journalist for the U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, of spreading false information about the Russian army and sentenced her to six-and-a-half years in prison after a secret trial, court records and officials said Monday.
The conviction in the city of Kazan came on Friday, the same day that a court in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg convicted Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich of espionage and sentenced him to 16 years in prison in a case that the U.S. called politically motivated.
Kurmasheva, a 47-year-old editor for RFE/RL’s Tatar-Bashkir service, was convicted of “spreading false information” about the military, according to the website of the Supreme Court of Tatarstan.
Court spokesperson Natalya Loseva confirmed to The Associated Press by phone that Kurmasheva was sentenced to six-and-a-half in prison in a case classified as secret, with no details available of the nature of the accusations against her.
Asked Monday about the verdict, RFE/RL President and CEO Stephen Capus denounced the trial and conviction of Kurmasheva “a mockery of justice.”
Kurmasheva, who holds U.S. and Russian citizenship and lives in Prague with her husband and two daughters, was taken into custody in October 2023 and charged with failing to register as a foreign agent while collecting information about the Russian military.
Later, she was also charged with spreading “false information” about the Russian military under legislation that effectively criminalised any public expression about the conflict in Ukraine.
Kurmasheva was initially stopped in June 2023 at Kazan International Airport after traveling to Russia the previous month to visit her ailing elderly mother.
Officials confiscated her U.S. and Russian passports and fined her for failing to register her U.S. passport.
She was waiting for her passports to be returned when she was arrested on new charges in October that year.
RFE/RL has repeatedly called for her release.
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