Russian-American Ksenia Karelina was sentenced by a Russian court to 12 years in a penal colony on Thursday after pleading guilty to treason earlier this month. She was arrested earlier this year while on a trip to Russia for donating $51 to an American-based humanitarian group helping Ukrainians suffering in the war, according to Russian state media.
Karelina’s lawyer, Mikhail Mushailov, said shortly after the sentence was handed down that Karelina would appeal.
“She admitted guilt in terms of transferring funds, but did not admit her intent aimed at transferring funds to those organizations where they most likely arrived,” Mushailov said. “She did not assume that the funds she transferred would be used for anti-Russian actions.”
Russia accused Karelina of collecting money used to purchase supplies for the Ukrainian army. She was detained in January when she was given a plane ticket as a gift by her boyfriend to fly back to see her parents and younger sister in the eastern city of Yekaterinburg, according to her former mother-in-law, Eleonora Srebroski.
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“This whole trial is bogus,” Karelina’s boyfriend Chris Van Heerden told CBS News. “Ksenia should be home, and I’m angry. I’m angry and I’m trying to hold my composure.”
Heerden said that because Karelina is a dual U.S.-Russian citizen, the U.S. State Department has had no access to her in detention.
“For the last 8 months, I was pushing for a wrongful detention [designation], so that when we do have a prisoner swap, that Ksenia is on that list and made a priority. I was slowed down. I was told we had time. I was told, ‘Chris, don’t worry there will be no prisoner swap until after the election or maybe early next year’… Guess what. There was a prisoner swap two weeks ago and Ksenia was not on that list.”
Karelina was initially detained by Russia’s Federal Security Service for “petty hooliganism,” but the charge was later upgraded to treason.
Ahead of the sentencing, Karelina’s lawyer called the prosecutor’s earlier request for a 15-year sentence “harsh” and said he would “take all legally significant actions” to try to have his client included in a future prisoner exchange. He said Karelina fully cooperated with the investigation.
On Thursday, Mushailov said he plans to perform “all legally significant actions to start the exchange procedure and finish it as soon as possible.”
Karelina’s trial was overseen by the same judge who saw Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich sentenced to 16 years in prison. Gershkovich was freed as part of a prisoner swap earlier this month.
“I’m not a begging man, but I’m begging to the American people to help me get Ksenia back,” her boyfriend, Chris Van Heerden, said Thursday. “Can we get her declared wrongfully detained right now?”