WASHINGTON, March 4, 2023 (BSS/AFP) - The US Treasury announced sanctions Friday on three Russians over their involvement in what it called a politically motivated prosecution of a prominent Kremlin critic.
 
  The sanctions targeted a Russian judge, an investigator and an expert witness over their "involvement in serious human rights abuse" against opposition politician and journalist Vladimir Kara-Murza, the Treasury said in a statement.
 
  Kara-Murza, long a thorn in the side of Putin, was arrested in April last year for denouncing the Kremlin's war in Ukraine and has been charged with high treason, which could see him jailed for two decades.
 
  Apart from the treason charge, the 41-year-old already had two criminal cases opened against him, potentially lengthening his sentence further.
 
  "Kara-Murza was subjected to arbitrary detention for speaking the truth about the Putin regime and its actions," the Treasury said.
 
  It denounced the charges against Kara-Murza as politically motivated, noting that he faces the prospect of more than 35 years in prison.
 
  The sanctions target Elena Lenskaya, a judge in Moscow who oversaw Kara-Murza's pre-trial detention hearing, along with Andrei Zadachin, a special investigator who ordered the initiation of a criminal case.
 
  The third individual is Danila Mikheev, who served as an expert witness for the Russian government in Kara-Murza's case.
 
  The State Department concurrently designated three others, including Russia's deputy justice minister who oversees the prosecution of criminal cases.
 
  It also imposed visa restrictions against Lenskaya and Zadachin, barring them and their immediate family from entering the United States.
 
  With the sanctions announcement, the individuals' property and interests in property within the United States are blocked and must be reported to the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control.
 
  Entities majority-owned by one or more blocked persons are also blocked, said the Treasury.
 
  Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a tweet: "The Kremlin's attempts to silence critics like Vladimir Kara-Murza will not succeed... We call for the immediate release of Vladimir and other prisoners of conscience."
 
  According to the Treasury: "Kara-Murza has been a major advocate for the adoption of Magnitsky-style sanctions... by the United States, Canada, European Union, and United Kingdom to target human rights abusers and corrupt actors in Russia."
 
  The Magnitsky act, a law under which Washington punishes foreign government officials implicated in corruption or human rights abuses, is named after Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.
 
  Magnitsky died in pre-trial detention in 2009 amid allegations of mistreatment in a Russian prison.