Russian court sentences RFE/RL journalist Kurmasheva to 6.5 years in prison By Reuters

MOSCOW (Reuters) -A Russian court has sentenced Alsu Kurmasheva, a Russian-American Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) journalist, to 6-1/2 years in prison for spreading false information about the Russian army, the court’s press service said on Monday.

A spokesperson for the court in Kazan said Kurmasheva was sentenced on Friday, the same day that a court in Yekaterinburg sentenced Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich to 16 years in prison for espionage following a trial condemned by his newspaper and the U.S. as a sham.

Stephen Capus, RFE/RL president and CEO, told the Associated Press on Monday that her conviction is „a mockery of justice” and said that „the only just outcome is for Alsu to be immediately released from prison by her Russian captors.”

Kurmasheva, a mother of two, is a Prague-based journalist and has been in custody in her native Russian region of Tatarstan since Oct. 18. She was earlier briefly detained last June while trying to fly out of Russia after visiting her mother.

A court first found her guilty of failing to declare that she had a U.S. passport, mandatory under Russian law, and fined her. She was then charged with failing to register as a „foreign agent”, to which she has pleaded not guilty.