Imprisoned Kremlin critic convicted again, gets 3-year sentence for opposing war in Ukraine.
Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Gorinov was convicted again on Friday and sentenced to three years in prison for opposing Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine.
The three-day trial against Gorinov also revealed Russia’s intolerance of dissent.
Gorinov, 63, is a former Moscow city council member who is serving seven years in prison for public criticism of the attack, according to the Associated Press.
Noting his previous conviction and sentence, Russia’s Vladimir regional court ordered Gorinov to serve five years in a maximum security prison. Independent Russian news site Mediazona quoted Gorinov’s lawyer, who said the new sentence meant he would spend a year longer in prison compared to his previous sentence.
Gorinov was first found guilty in July 2022, when a Moscow court sentenced him to 7 years in prison for “spreading false information” about the Russian army at a municipal council meeting. Gorinov was accused of expressing doubts about a children’s art competition in his area and saying that “every day children die” in Ukraine.
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Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Gorinov stands in a cage in court as his second trial for criticizing Russia’s actions in Ukraine draws to a close in Vladimir, Russia, Friday, Nov. 29, 2024. (AP)
He was the first known Russian to be arrested under a 2022 law that bans any public statements about the war that deviate from Moscow’s narrative.
In March 2023, Gorinov told the Associated Press from prison that “the authorities need an example that they can show others (of an ordinary person), not an ordinary person.”
Last year, authorities filed a second case against Gorinov, his supporters said. He was said to have “justified terrorism” in talks with colleagues about Ukraine’s Azov militia, which Russia dismissed as a terrorist organization, and the 2022 Crimean bridge bombing, which Moscow considered an act of terrorism.
Gorinov dismissed the accusations against him on Wednesday, according to the independent news site Mediazona, which quoted him as saying that the Crimean peninsula is under Ukraine and called Azov part of the Ukrainian military.
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Imprisoned Kremlin critic Alexei Gorinov sits in a courtroom cage as his second trial for criticizing Russia’s actions in Ukraine draws to a close in Vladimir, Russia, Friday, Nov. 29, 2024. (AP)
His trial began on Wednesday in the Vladimir region, where he has been serving time in prison since his previous conviction. Photos from the court, published by Mediazona, showed Gorinov in the defendant’s cage with a hand-drawn peace sign on a piece of paper covering his prison badge and holding a hand-written sign: “Stop killing. Let’s stop the war.”
“My crime is that I, as a citizen of my country, allowed this war to happen and I could not stop it,” Gorinov said in his closing statement in court, Mediazona reported.
“But I would like to be organizers, collaborators, supporters of war, and prosecutors of those who stand for peace shared with me,” said Gorinov. “I continue to hope that this will happen one day. In the meantime, I am asking those who live in Ukraine and our fellow citizens who were victimized by the war to forgive me.”
Imprisoned Kremlin critic Alexei Gorinov is escorted to court as his second trial for criticizing Russia’s actions in Ukraine draws to a close in Vladimir, Russia, Friday, Nov. 29, 2024. (AP)
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About 1,100 people have been convicted of crimes because of their anti-war status since the war against Ukraine began in February 2022, according to OVD-Info, a leading rights group that monitors political arrests. About 350 of them are currently incarcerated or committed to medical facilities.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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