Exiled Politician Leonid Gozman Sentenced to 10 Years in Absentia for Promoting Terrorism

A military court in Moscow sentenced exiled politician Leonid Gozman to ten years in prison in absentia for «justifying terrorism,» as reported by authorities on Friday.

The Investigative Committee of Russia, which handles major criminal cases, stated that the accusations arose from an interview Gozman conducted with a «foreign media outlet» in 2023.

The exiled news platform Mediazona revealed that the outlet in question was the Russian-language version of the German newspaper Bild, mentioning that Gozman was alleged to have expressed support for Ukrainian drone strikes in Moscow and bombings on the bridge connecting annexed Crimea with Russia.

Previously, Gozman received an in absentia sentence of eight and a half years for disseminating «false information» about the Russian military. Earlier this year, Russia’s financial watchdog, Rosfinmonitoring, classified Gozman as one of the “terrorists and extremists.”

Gozman left Russia in September 2022 after serving two consecutive 15-day jail sentences related to blog posts from 2013 and 2020 that compared the Soviet government to the Nazi regime.

Months prior, the Justice Ministry designated him as a «foreign agent» and detained him for allegedly not disclosing his dual Russian-Israeli citizenship to the authorities.

Gozman was the last leader of the Union of Right Forces, a minor political party that included exiled former Putin advisor Anatoly Chubais and the assassinated opposition politician Boris Nemtsov. The party disbanded in 2008.