A court in Russia’s Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad has sentenced rights lawyer Maria Bontsler, 66, to 12 years in prison for treason after prosecutors accused her of sharing information with Ukraine, Al Jazeera reports.

The rights group Slovo Zashchite identified Bontsler as the lawyer sentenced on Thursday, Nov. 12. It said she had represented a number of people accused of political offences in Kaliningrad, a Russian territory on the Baltic Sea between Lithuania and Poland.

A court statement published on Telegram did not identify the defendant by name. It said the FSB intelligence agency had detained her over allegations that she began passing information about security officers in Kaliningrad to Ukraine in 2024.

Prosecutors also alleged that she supplied information about criminal cases in the exclave that were of interest to Kyiv, according to the court statement cited by Al Jazeera.

Bontsler’s lawyers disputed the basis of the prosecution. According to Slovo Zashchite, they argued that none of the information cited by prosecutors was secret.

The rights group said the trial took place behind closed doors and that Bontsler and her lawyers were prevented from attending. It said she was permitted only to make a closing statement. The group also reported that she had been in ill health while detained.

Alongside the prison term, the court imposed an additional year of restrictions on her activity. Prosecutors had requested a 15-year sentence, Slovo Zashchite said.

Al Jazeera placed the case in the context of Russian prosecutions involving politically sensitive defence work. In January 2025, three lawyers for the late opposition leader Alexey Navalny received prison terms ranging from three and a half to five and a half years on “extremism” charges. That prosecution was widely seen as an effort to discourage lawyers from taking political cases, the outlet reported.

Sources