Court denies closing statement to jailed journalist convicted of ‘assaulting’ prison staff

A court in the Russian city of Barnaul has upheld a sentence of one year and 10 months against Maria Ponomarenko, a reporter with independent news channel RusNews, convicted of “assaulting prison staff” in late March, the outlet reported on Friday.

Ponomarenko was convicted in February 2023 of “spreading fake news about the Russian army” and given a six-year sentence after posting about Russian military strikes in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol on her Telegram channel.

The judge did not allow Ponomarenko, who attended the hearing via video link from a pretrial detention centre in Rubtsovsk, a town in the Altai region, to make a closing statement, and muted the video link when she angrily questioned her decision, RusNews reported.

“I don’t trust Russian courts at all. Whoever’s sitting in the judge’s chair, I don’t trust them. I’ve been in prison for over three years, although there is not one shred of evidence in my case,” Ponomarenko, who was detained in April 2022, said during the hearing.

A woman who wished to remain anonymous told RusNews on Thursday that she had recently been to the pretrial detention centre to visit her friend Ponomarenko, who told her she planned to make a closing statement in court as she had “something to say”.

Ponomarenko, who had previously attempted suicide and gone on hunger strike in prison, had spent “long periods of time” in solitary confinement, her friend said, adding that she had not received letters from her friends and supporters for over a month. “She declared another hunger strike, and she has fresh cuts on her arms … She said she had done it as a sign of protest.”