Russian human rights lawyer threatened with harsher charges unless she testifies against colleague

The son of the jailed Russian human rights lawyer Maria Bontsler has said that the security services are threatening his mother with more serious charges if she does not give false testimony against one of her colleagues, legal defence advocacy organisation Slovo Zashchite has reported.

According to Vyacheslav Medkov, investigators threatened to reclassify Bontsler’s charge of “confidential cooperation with a foreign state”, punishable by three to eight years in prison, to a more serious charge of treason, which is punishable by 12 to 20 years.

Russia’s Federal Security Service officers demanded that Bontsler testify against another lawyer in exchange for serving a sentence of “only two and a half years” while transporting her back to the detention centre from a meeting with her lawyers at the investigator’s office on 14 September. Medkov did not name the lawyer for security reasons.

Bontsler refused to testify against her colleague, telling her son that she would “lose respect” for herself if she did so. She then told Medkov what should be done with her body after death in case she does not survive prison.

Held since May, Bontsler, who is one of the few lawyers in Kaliningrad who has defended political prisoners and those charged with “discrediting” the Russian military since the beginning of the war, originally faced accusations of working with foreign intelligence. In the detention centre, despite chronic illnesses, she has systematically been denied medical care, restricted access to drinking water, and deliberately subjected to abuse.