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MANY VOICES: Justice for Colten! Justice for Colten!

VOICE 1: Indigenous lives matter!

MANY VOICES: Indigenous lives matter!

VOICE 1: Enough is enough.

VOICE 2: Justice for Colten!

[Sound: Singing]

AMT: Sounds of demonstrations and anger over the weekend that took place Regina, Saskatoon, North Battleford, Winnipeg, Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal. The response was swift from the Indigenous community and many others after a jury acquitted Saskatchewan farmer Gerald Stanley in the death of 22-year-old Colten Boushie, an Indigenous man. Gerald Stanley's trial has galvanized communities and raised issues about everything from Saskatchewan's rural divide, to dealing with crime in isolated communities, to how juries are selected across the country. Colten Boushie's family flew to Ottawa yesterday in anticipation of meetings with the Trudeau government to address what his cousin, Jade Tootoosis identifies as systemic racism in the Canadian justice system.

SOUNDCLIP

JADE TOOTOOSIS: There was no justice served here. We hoped for justice for Colten. However, we did not see it and we did not feel it throughout this entire process. We will fight for an appeal and answers to all of the racism that my family has experienced from the day that Colten was shot, until the jury delivered the verdict of not guilty.

AMT: Doug Cuthand is a First Nations columnist with the Saskatoon StarPhoenix and he joins us from Saskatoon. Hi.

DOUG CUTHAND: Hi.

AMT: What did you think when you heard that verdict?

DOUG CUTHAND: Oh, I was stunned and shocked. We were all in the media room. We were expecting it would be a manslaughter charge. But to just completely let him walk free was absolutely stunning. We had a hard time accepting that.

AMT: And we have seen demonstrations across the country over the weekend. But give me a better sense of what it's like in Saskatchewan right now. There is a divide.

DOUG CUTHAND: Well there's a very serious divide here in this province, especially in the rural areas. There were a lot of non-Aboriginal people that came out to the rally in Saskatoon here. We had over a 1,000 people in front of the courthouse down here. In rural Saskatchewan there is a real divide, especially in the Battlefords area. That has a long history of racial tension that goes way back to the very beginning of settlement. It's a long-time problem and it's getting worse actually.

AMT: And why is it getting worse?

DOUG CUTHAND: Well there are a number of reasons. But basically the Aboriginal population is growing and becoming more visible, taking up positions of power, and more wealth in the Aboriginal community. And at the same time the settler community is shrinking. People aren't passing their farms onto to their kids, so there's a lot less people in the rural areas. So it's become more of a fortress mentality out in the country. And there's a lot of insecurity and fear. Fear is a very powerful emotion that's really affected a lot of people here in rural Saskatchewan.

AMT: And when we look at this verdict then, how hard do you think this decision was on the family?

DOUG CUTHAND: Oh, it is terrible for them. They expected something. They weren't looking for revenge as much as they wanted justice. That was the whole object of this exercise was to get some justice and to be able to move on. But now they can't. It's just getting worse.

AMT: The family feels the Canadian system has failed them. Are they right?

DOUG CUTHAND: Yeah, I think the justice system has failed. Every time an Aboriginal person came forward from the jury pool, the defence lawyers would challenge them. And you had an all-white jury that. The idea that the lawyers can eliminate people from the jury has got to change. I think one of the big things that is going to come out of this is the selection of a jury.

AMT: So were you in a courtroom when that jury was selected?

DOUG CUTHAND: Yes I was.

AMT: And can you confirm that it was an all-white jury? They appeared to be an all-white jury...

DOUG CUTHAND: Yeah

AMT: Yeah.

DOUG CUTHAND: I can say they appeared to be an all-white jury. I'm pretty sure they were. You can't speak to jurors of course. But from my knowledge they all appeared to be a white jury. And when the defense was making this case, we were sitting in the media room and there was a camera on the jury and a lot of them were just sitting there nodding their heads in total agreement with what the defence was saying. So you could see that this wasn't going to go well.

AMT: So do you see a need for change in the system? You were talking about the divide in Saskatchewan, but that's a system that is actually controlled by legislation in Ottawa. Is it not?

DOUG CUTHAND: That's correct, yeah. It's the criminal code about the selection of juries. That's one thing. But more than that, it's just a general attitude. There's no reason why an all-white jury couldn't have come up with a different verdict. If you had a more cosmopolitan jury in a city like Saskatoon, you would probably come up with a different response. But out there as one lawyer friend of mine told me, 'Stanley really did have a jury of his peers'.

AMT: And you saw a lot of that trial. Did the Crown fail the family?

DOUG CUTHAND: Yeah, I think he did. I feel the Crown could have put forward a more decisive case. He could have put more emphasis on it. There were things in his submission he stated that he didn't believe Stanley told the truth. There were lots of gaps in his testimony and he pointed them out. But I wish he had done that when Stanley was on the stand. I think he didn't give a strong enough case for the jury.

AMT: Doug Cuthand we have to leave it there. Thank you for your thoughts today.

DOUG CUTHAND: You're welcome.

AMT: Doug Cuthand, an Indigenous with the Saskatoon StarPhoenix. He joined us from Saskatoon. A group of Saskatchewan's farmers' have been rallying around Gerald Stanley and his family. They have raised over $72,000 – crowdfunding—to help with the family's legal fees. My next guest is a grain farmer and a member of Farmers with Firearms. He's requested we not use his last name. We have reached him this morning on his farm, about an hour west of Saskatoon. We're using his first name. It is Ryan. Hello Ryan.

RYAN: Hey, how are you today?

AMT: Well I'm wondering what you thought when you heard Gerald Stanley pronounced not guilty?

RYAN: Actually, yeah, same as your previous caller there. I was actually a little bit surprised that likely a manslaughter charge wouldn't have came down to it. But at the same time I guess we're not in the courtroom. We didn't—I should state myself here—I didn't have all of the information of facts to base that decision off. All I was basing that off is what I've been hearing on news and social media and stuff like that.

AMT: And there is a crowdfunding campaign for the Stanley family for legal fees. How quickly did that happen?

RYAN: Not necessarily legal fees. If you check on the GoFundMe site, the family had to I believe sell their farm. It's been for sale for a couple years here now. That year that they had they weren't able to get crop off in time. They had bills to pay. Vehicle that was wrecked at the time of the event and stuff like that. I think it's been two days or something like that. A lot of support. Like I say living out where we do, it's a different way of life. And I guess you could say we understand it. And I get a lot of people probably on the other side of things do not understand what it's like.

AMT: Well you're a member of Farmers With Firearms. What is that?

RYAN: Yeah, so it's group that we set up, I want to say five or six months that happened before this Boushie accident. We had a local issue here in Western Saskatchewan. People jumped out on the road with handguns and were pointed at a farmer's heart hand. And this was a series of events that have been going on for the last three years now. Anyway we started this site here. It was more or less an awareness thing we started. Any vehicle suspicion or stuff like that we've seen the community, we would post stuff, get it out there. We've had a few vehicles that we were able to chase and pass on to the RCMP later on when they can finally get there. So it's actually gone over quite well the last two years.

AMT: The incident you described was not Indigenous men.

RYAN: That's correct, actually. Yeah. I'm going to go off a guess here, the last three years of stuff we've been posting on our site; I would say it's 50/50. This is not a race issue. No offense to media, I have a little bit of a problem one when you read articles and stuff and it says, 'Indigenous man shot by white man'. I don't know why we need to say. That's half the problem here. It should just be 'man got shot by another man'. So it's pretty frustrating. I get it. It makes the views, and it really riles people up. But it's not the case here.

AMT: But that's not how the Indigenous community sees it.

RYAN: Yeah, and I understand I guess. I do get somebody died in this scenario too, so it is a very, very touchy subject.

AMT: You seem to be saying that there is an isolation problem that you feel vulnerable because you're isolated?

RYAN: Yeah. I think everybody if you ask nowadays—times have changed. I know as a kid growing up we used to leave our farmhouse unlocked and stuff like that. So in the event of anybody ever having some problem in the middle of winter they could come inside, knock on your door, and use your phone. Now you'd be crazy to do such a thing. I think what it comes down to is how little bit of a problem with our judicial system is the way our laws are. Somebody can commit a robbery, a crime, and they can be out six months later and are doing it again. We don't have enough of a punishment system here I think. And the criminals are starting to catch on, 'well why would you do this in the town where the police response is very quick. Let's go somewhere where it's going to be hours and will get away with it'.

AMT: So do you see this verdict as a vote in favour of your use of guns for self-defence or what you would consider to be self-defense?

RYAN: I wouldn't say that because—I hope a lot people understand this—Gerald Stanley was not claiming self-defence on this. I mean he easily could have. He could have lied I guess and went that route because you've seen the rifle that they had in the vehicle, he could have said. But the route that they took was an accidental is what I understand of the court case. You know keep in mind 12 people have decided this. This wasn't a one person thing and it was a jury that was selected. And I understand that from your previous caller, all white jury got picked. However, hopefully people do know, there was 700 people I believe eligible for this. And it's picked through, I believe, our Sask Health Numbers. This is all random stuff. So when we start saying that we should be 100 percent appointing a Métis or a Native person to a jury, well now that's the definition of racism. You're allegedly favouring somebody to put them on something. And I absolutely disagree with that.

AMT: We have to leave it there, Ryan. Thank you for your thoughts.

RYAN: Hey, you betcha.

AMT: Ryan is a Saskatchwan grain and a member of Farmers with Firearms. He has requested we not used as a last name because he says he lives in an isolated area. He is west of Saskatoon. Well this verdict and the makeup of the jury, the reaction of the members of the Trudeau cabinet—it all raises issues. David Butt is a criminal lawyer. He's been tracking this and he joins me in our Toronto studio.

DAVID BUTT: Good morning, Anna Maria.

AMT: So muddy waters between politics and our legal system. First of all, let's just speak to the fact that the prime minister tweeted and as did the justice minister, as did the minister of Indigenous services. They all spoke about ensuring justice for all Canadians or related things. Is that problematic? Already the Conservatives have raised this as them stepping in.

DAVID BUTT: Yeah, two points to be made on that. First of all, it's obviously a case has touched a raw nerve across the country and politicians need to be sensitive to the country's mood and respond sometimes with soothing words where they think soothing words are warranted. So in that respect, from my perspective it falls into the realm of legitimate political response. Second thing to keep in mind is that they are ultimately responsible—the legislators not the courts—for reform of the system. If as a result of this case there is a broadly shared need for reform, it's appropriate for politicians to speak to that. I would also say that a couple of tweets and press releases from politicians aren't going to do a thing to compromise the independence of any judges who will hear this on appeal. We have world class judges who will disregard those tweets and so on and keep them in their proper form, which is reform directed and responding in a sympathetic way.

AMT: What were your initial thoughts with the decision of the jury?

DAVID BUTT: Well, you know, from a legal perspective there was an evidentiary foundation to acquit. There was an evidentiary foundation to convict. And juries are asked to make those tough calls. So from the perspective of the evidence, it's going to be very difficult if the Crown appeals for them to argue that was a wrong verdict to reach. My concern is with the systemic issue and the perception issue around the defence being able to use peremptory challenges to eliminate every potential juror who appeared Indigenous. That creates a perception issue. And lawyers are fond of saying that justice not only has to be done, but must be seen to be done. And it's the perception problem that from my perspective is the most significant one.

AMT: In February of 2013 the Ontario government published a report by retired Supreme Court Judge Frank Iacobucci looking at the representation of First Nations people on Ontario juries. So he's identified this already. It was a pretty comprehensive report, was it not?

DAVID BUTT: Yes, very comprehensive report. Seventeen recommendations. Justice Frank Iacobucci Is a nationally respected former Supreme Court of Canada justice. Very carefully researched. Well-written. Judges don't deploy rhetoric irresponsibly. And Justice Frank Iacobucci in his report said that the under-representation of First Nations people in the justice system is to use his word a "crisis." When you have a measured judged using that kind of word, we have a problem.

AMT: So the report has existed for five years. The Trudeau government is in its third year of a four-year mandate. Could they not have looked at this already?

DAVID BUTT: Absolutely. Justice Frank Iacobucci is far too much of a gentleman to be doing this, but I'm sure he's sitting in a comfortable chair somewhere thinking 'I told you so'. The blueprint to avoid this kind of large scale tragic fallout from a verdict was there in Justice Frank Iacobucci report. It hasn't been acted on and one can hope that this case will be impetus for some of those very sound recommendations to be put in place.

AMT: OK. Can I just ask for a couple of clarifications? We know the defense can actually challenge a potential juror and then they have to drop out. Does the Crown have that right as well?

DAVID BUTT: Yes, in every case the Crown and the defence have an equal number of challenges. It varies depending on the type of offence. But at all times the crown defence have equal, what are called peremptory or automatic challenges.

AMT: So did the Crown fail the system by allowing an all-white jury?

DAVID BUTT: I would say it's more of a systemic problem in the sense of very few Indigenous people being in the jury pool.

AMT: But they doubled the jury pool. They had something like 750 people and they picked to that jury before the end of the day. I think everybody was surprised at how quickly they picked that jury.

DAVID BUTT: I don't know the extent to which there were Indigenous people. But an ideal scenario is that you only get a maximum of 12, in some cases perhaps a bit more, peremptory challenges. If you have a jury pool in the hundreds and there is significant diversity in it, that small number of challenges makes it impossible to undermine the diversity of the jury. So if we have underrepresentation—this is something Frank Iacobucci spoke too – we have the potential for a systemic problem despite the best efforts of all the players. And I'm not absolving the Crown. I just don't know how they use their challengers and what the effect was. But if you have a very large and very diverse pool, you're not going to have that problem.

AMT: Just briefly, so how would the fair representations of First Nations people on a jury have quelled criticisms of justice not being done?

DAVID BUTT: The appearance here is that an all-white jury acquitted a white man who was charged with shooting a Native person and that appearance is problematic. And if it had been a diverse jury—let's say six Indigenous people and six white people—nobody could say that that appearance problem existed.

AMT: David Butt, thank you for coming in and sharing your thoughts.

DAVID BUTT: My pleasure. Thanks so much.

AMT: David Butt is a criminal lawyer in Toronto. He joined us in our Toronto studio. Stay with us. The news is next and then I'll be joined by a Russian political activist. It appears someone doesn't want him to live. Vladimir Kara-Murza has survived two poisonings – nothing less he says than an assassination attempt twice. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

[Music: Theme]

AMT: Still to come, our panel of under 35 Jewish-Israelis and Muslim-Palestinianslast week sparked a lot of discussion from you. We're following it up in our next half hour with a man who explains why more young Israelis supporter of the government of Benjamin Netanyahu. Plus, marijuana will be legal soon. What does that mean for people with pot convictions on their records? We'll hear arguments for amnesty and more. But first, ordered killed, but still standing opposed.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: In a hospital in Moscow, an outspoken critic of the Kremlin fights for his life. Vladimir Kara-Murza's wife Evgenia says her husband fell sick with sudden and mysterious organ failure last week.

REPORTER: What is your husband's official diagnosis right now?

EVGENIA: An acute intoxication by an unidentified substance.

REPORTER: What do you think that means?

EVGENIA: That's poisoning.

AMT: A CNN report from a year ago about Vladimir Kara-Murza, one of Russian President Vladimir Putin's most outspoken opponents. The assassination attempt on Mr. Kara-Murza last February was the second he's faced and survived. Critics say what happened to him is part of a grim pattern of political violence and murder that shows no sign of stopping in Russia. Nevertheless, Vladimir Kara-Murza is back working to oppose President Putin. He is the vice chairman of Open Russia, a Russian pro-democracy movement, and chairman of the Boris Nemtsov Foundation. Vladimir Kara-Murza is with me in our Toronto studio. Hello and welcome.

VLADIMIR KARA-MURZA: Thank you, Anna Maria. It's really great to be here and I sincerely mean this.

AMT: How are you? Are you fully recovered?

VLADIMIR KARA-MURZA: Well I'm certainly much better than I was a year ago. I think it's fair to say that I'm mostly recovered. I mean there are some residual effects even from the first poisoning in 2015 that are going to last forever.

AMT: Tell me about the first time you were poisoned. What happened?

VLADIMIR KARA-MURZA: I was at a work meeting. It was in Moscow. It was in May of 2015. And suddenly I began to feel very, very sick for no apparent reason. And within a space of under an hour, I went from feeling completely normal like I am now to basically being incapacitated. You know my heart started racing. I suddenly had difficulty breathing. Began to vomit and to sweat. And you know after about a couple of hours I lost consciousness and I do not remember anything else. So what I'm going to say next is what I know from my wife, my friends, my colleagues, and the doctors. Basically within a couple of days all of my major body organs shut down in a cascade, one after another. Multiple organ failure. The lungs, the liver, the kidneys, the heart, everything. And I was in a coma, on artificial life support, hooked up to cables and machines. And the doctors told my wife that I had about a five percent chance to survive. So I'm very, very happy and very fortunate to be sitting here today.

AMT: They were moving you around from hospital to hospital trying to figure out what was wrong with you.

VLADIMIR KARA-MURZA: They did because they didn't understand what was happening because the organs would fail one after another. So they would deal something then something else would give up. They would go to deal with that and then a third thing would collapse. And then finally after about a couple days they realized this was a central issue. It wasn't to do with any particular organ. And so of course the diagnosis both times—the first time and a second time—as you just quoted my wife saying there from the CNN interview, "toxic action by an unidentified substance," which translated from medical into human language is poisoning. I was in a coma for about a month. Then it took me more than a year to more or less recover. I mean I had to learn to walk again and to do everything. It's amazing how fast your body can just lose all strength completely when you're in a coma. But by the end of 2015 I was back in Russia and back to my work up. At Open Russia we had a parliamentary election 2016—a so-called parliamentary election. But we feel it is our position at the Open Russian movement that we have to use even this sham and truncated electoral process to still put forward an alternative to the current regime and to help train those young people, so this is what we were doing. And I was also making a documentary about Boris Nemtsov. I was filming it through 2015-16. And then just as I began to screen this documentary around the country in February of 2017—exactly one-year ago—this happened all over again in exactly the same way. The same symptoms. Same diagnosis. The same chance of survival.

AMT: The same feeling.

VLADIMIR KARA-MURZA: Absolutely. I woke up in the middle of the night not being able to breathe and I have to tell you this is really frightening as well as painful.

AMT: Do you remember ingesting anything? Like how did you get poisoned? Do you know?

VLADIMIR KARA-MURZA: Look, one thing we do know—to state the obvious given the way this was done—this was obviously some kind of a very powerful and sophisticated toxins. Not something you can go and buy in a pharmacy. Of course it leads my colleagues and me to make the conclusion that this bears the signature of the Russian domestic security services or at least of people connected to them. And as we well know the Soviet and then Russian domestic security services have perfected this practice of poisoning people for decades. They've had this lapse since the 1930s, developing these powerful toxins that are not only strong but also many of them untraceable. And you know as everybody knows they have been poisoning people, for example, in London in the last few years. I think it's not very difficult for them to do it in Moscow.

AMT: Is it something you could ever prove through toxicology? Were they able to do that? Were they able to look for something?

VLADIMIR KARA-MURZA: So the official diagnosis is "toxic action by an unidentified substance."

AMT: 'Cause they can't figure it out.

VLADIMIR KARA-MURZA: Poisoning but they cannot figure out what it was.

AMT: They can't even figure out how you were poisoned?

VLADIMIR KARA-MURZA: No., as it was explained to me by people who know much more about this than I do. I am a historian education. I'm not a chemist by any means. But I do know about this more than I care to know after what happened. It's been explained to me that there are so many ways of ingesting a poison into a human being. It's better not to think about this. But food and drink is still the easiest. And as I said if they can poison people in London, I'm sure they have no trouble doing it in Moscow.

AMT: Well Vladimir, hold that thought. I am speaking to Vladimir Kara-Murza, an opposition leader to Russian President Putin. And I want to bring in another guest who is listening in. Amy Knight is an historian specializing in Russia. Her new book is called Orders To Kill The Putin Regime and Political Murder. She joins us from New York City. Hello Amy Knight.

AMY KNIGHT: Hi Anna Maria.

AMT: How common has poison been as an assassination tool in Russia?

AMY KNIGHT: Well poison was used actually in the Stalin period as well. But what struck me when I was listening to Vladimir—you asked him whether this could be proven that whether this poison could be traced—it's interesting that in the case of Alexander Litvinenko who Vladimir alluded to, he was poisoned by polonium-210 in London in 2006. He was a former KGB, FSB officer. And the people who carried out this poison had counted it not being identified. And it was only because Litvinenko lived for over three weeks before he died that they were actually to find out what the poison was and then they were able to actually trace it back to the FSB.

AMT: He was having tea in a London hotel.

AMY KNIGHT: Yes, exactly.

AMT: They were able to trace it right to that. Did they not find trace elements of the radiation on a member of the Russian Duma?

AMY KNIGHT: Yes.

AMT: In his car or something.

AMY KNIGHT: Yes. Andrey Lugovoy and Kovtun inadvertently spread polonium everywhere they went in London. As one of the British commented "like Hansel and Gretel." They just spread these crumbs of polonium all over the place.

AMT: So how did political murder evolve after Vladimir Putin became president?

AMY KNIGHT: Well we saw quite a few murders, mainly back in the '90s under Yeltsin because of the Russian mafia arising and all sorts of battles over money and things like that. So Russia was becoming a pretty dangerous place if you were an oligarch, for example. People had to have protection. But then we had a very separate phenomena, which was getting rid of people who posed a threat to the regime. And in my book I talk about one of the first such murders, the killing of Galina Starovoitova in November 1998. Putin was not yet prime minister or president of Russia, but he was head of the FSB. And Starovoitova was a Russian Democrat who had a lot of enemies in St. Petersburg. They never really found who ordered the murder of Starovoitova.

AMT: What happened to her? How she was killed?

AMY KNIGHT: She was shot in the stairwell of her apartment building in St. Petersburg.

AMT: The murder of Litvinenko, is that the clearest link to Putin that you've identified?

AMY KNIGHT: I would say so. I don't know what Vladimir thinks about that. But it was really the only case where they made an effort to look into all the evidence. There was a hearing that was conducted by the British High Court and the Judge Sir Robert Owen after listening to months of testimony and seeing evidence was able to conclude that these two hired FSB thugs, Lugovoy and Kovtun actually did administer the poison- the polonium—to Litvinenko. Sir Robert equivocated it a little bit in tying it directly to Mr. Putin. He used the word "probably." And he talked about Putin and Putin's-then FSB chief who was also definitely responsible.

AMT: And of course that happened in Britain and there was great outrage because there were very disturbing traces of polonium left in Britain because of this. So suddenly another country got involved with a rule of law, right?

AMY KNIGHT: Yes, but interestingly enough it took a long-time before they had this public hearing. And there was quite a bit of resistance on the part of the British establishment because it presented some difficult diplomatic issues with Russia. For some of the members of the British government, they would have rather avoided confronting this very unpleasant fact that this murder was carried out on British soil.

AMT: Earlier, Validimir you mentioned Boris Nemtsov. I have a clip right now that I'd like to play. This is a CBC News report from the National's Susan Ormiston. It aired February 27th, 2015.

SOUNDCLIP

SUSAN ORMISTON: Shot in the back four times just before midnight Moscow time. Boris Nemtsov was walking with a woman on a bridge close to the Kremlin. A witness says a car stopped and several people shot him. Nemtsov, 55, was a prominent opposition leader. In politics more than 20 years rising to Deputy Premier in Boris Yeltsin's government and considered a possible successor. More recently Nemtsov had founded the People's Freedom Party and was mounting a large opposition rally this Sunday in Moscow. Tonight President Putin condemned the killing. But many will believe this was the work of assassins close to the government.

AMT: Valdimir Kara-Murza, you were close to Boris Nemtsov. Tell me about the moment you learned of his murder.

VLADIMIR KARA-MURZA: Well that is a moment that will forever divide my life into the before and after. I remember that day almost to the minute. That morning I come back to Moscow from Tomsk in Siberia, and just had some sort of you know meetings, conversations all day, and exchanging messages with Boris and we were supposed to see each other the following day actually February 28th. I was supposed to go to his house. And the last kind of message exchange that I still have on my phone—I cannot put myself to delete it I still have it—it's "See you tomorrow," and it's dated 11:13 p.m. He was killed 11:31 p.m. This was personal for me. He was not just a political colleague. He was not just an opposition leader. He was a very close friend. He was actually godfather to one of my children. But he was also the most prominent, the most effective, and simply put the strongest leader of the opposition to Vladimir Putin's regime. In the opposition to the corruption, to the authoritarianism, to the aggressive behaviour, to all the hallmarks of the current system of authoritarian kleptocracy that we have in Russia. I think it's very remarkable. Boris Nemtsov was a member of the very top political establishment in Russia. Boris Nemtsov could have easily chosen to either play by the new rules or to just leave public life to find a plush place in government or in business or in the worst case scenario to leave the country—so many others have also done. But this was not possible for him because he was a passionate Russian patriot and he could not just stand idly by and watch these things being done to our country; watch the future and the prospects of our country being destroyed by an authoritarian kleptocracy. So he chose to stay and he chose to fight. And his voice was the loudest and the clearest voice for years in opposition to everything Putin was doing.

AMT: President Putin said he would take personal control of the investigation into the killing. How did that work out?

VLADIMIR KARA-MURZA: Well it will soon be three years since the day Boris Nemtsov was assassinated on the bridge in front of the Kremlin. This is the most secure location probably in the entire Europe, not just in Moscow. I mean you cannot stand on that bridge for two minutes without plainclothes policemen running towards you and asking what are you doing. And of course there are dozens of security cameras that apparently had no footage from that evening. And in these three years that have passed since his assassination, five alleged perpetrators have been sentenced and convicted by a Russian court. And even if we just look at this official story, the man who was convicted of pulling the trigger—his name is Zaur Dadayev—at the time of the assassination of Boris Nemtsov, he was a serving officer of the Interior Ministry of the Russian Federation of the Interior Troops. And his commander was on the one side, General Viktor Zolotov, Commander of the Interior Troops and one of the people closest to Vladimir Putin. And on the other hand his commander was Ramzan Kadyrov, the Putin appointed strongman in the Chechen Republic. And when those alleged perpetrators—now convicted perpetrators—were arrested, General Alexander Bastrykin, who is the head of the investigation committee, the top law enforcement agency in Russia, has publicly declared that the case is solved and the case is closed. Any expert in criminology will tell you that you cannot consider a case solved and closed unless you have those who ordered and organized it, not just a low level, not just the actual perpetrators are carried out. And three years on, nobody is really even pretending to look for the organizers and masterminds and there's continuing official cover up and continuing impunity for the organizers and masterminds of the highest profile political assassination in modern Russia.

AMT: At the end of this month, outside the Russian embassy in Washington—the street outside that embassy—will be named after Boris Nemtsov. How do you think that's going go over in the Kremlin?

VLADIMIR KARA-MURZA: Frankly, I couldn't care less how it will go over in the Kremlin. I think there can be nothing more pro-Russian than to name a street in front of the Russian Embassy after a Russian statesman. We have been working on this initiative together with members of the U.S. Congress and members of the Washington D.C. City Council for more than a year now. And literally a few days ago the D.C. Council took the final vote and unanimously approved the measure. And on February 27th the political colleagues', friends, and family members of Boris Nemtsov, along with members of the U.S. Congress and members of the D.C. Council will gather for the official unveiling of unveiling of Boris Nemtsov plaza. This will be the first official commemoration of Boris Nemtsov anywhere in the world. And we're very grateful to citizens and to elected representatives and free countries that are doing this on our behalf. And I know there will be in the next few days an initiative announced right here in Canada for commemorations of Boris Nemtsov in Ottawa and Toronto. And this is being led by my very good friend are Irwin Cotler, the former justice minister of Canada and the former member of parliament. And Marcus Kolga who is a prominent activist here in Toronto and we are very grateful to them also for doing what we in Russia for now cannot do.

AMT: Amy Knight, we are talking about the killing of people involved in politics and trying to force a new kind of politics in Russia. Journalists in Russia have been targeted in as well. Give me an idea of the level of street violence against reporters.

AMY KNIGHT: Well the most famous or infamous case is of course Anna Politkovskaya, as she was murdered a week shot again in the stairwell of her apartment building just a month before the Litvinenko was poisoned. She knew that she faced danger. There is absolutely no question about it. But she like Nemtsov and many others, she was so courageous. And again she gave the Kremlin good reason to want her dead because she was a tireless reporter on the atrocities that were committed in Chechnya for example.

AMT: And she was not alone in the journalist killed, was she?

AMY KNIGHT: No. I mean we've seen other journalists being shot and beaten up. It's been a repeated pattern.

AMT: In her case there were trials and convictions. Was there any reason to question that justice was served in that case?

AMY KNIGHT: Well the Politkovskaya case is a lot like Nemtsov case. They find that triggermen, but they never really find the mastermind.

AMT: Valdimir Kara-Murza, has Russia's security service succeeded in undermining opposition through these killings?

VLADIMIR KARA-MURZA: Well I think today we see that despite the killings, despite the threats, despite the dozens of people imprisoned for their political views—let's not forget about them either—despite all of this there are people today, many people, who are not just increasingly opposing the current regime but are prepared to do something about it.

AMT: There are elections next month.

VLADIMIR KARA-MURZA: So-called elections. Yes.

AMT: Mr. Putin has barred Alexei Navalny, an opponent from running. How vocal can the opponents be?

VLADIMIR KARA-MURZA: You know it's not difficult to win an election when your opponents are not actually on the ballot. And when people speak about the so-called high popularity of Vladimir Putin, let's remember that this popularity—so-called popularity—was never tested in a free or fair election against genuine opponents. And I think a much better way of judging the real standing of the current regime, a much better way than bogus election figures or doctored opinion polls, is by the behaviour of the regime itself. A popular government would not need to rig elections one after the other. A popular government would not need to put its opponents in prison. It would not need to beat up and arrest and detain demonstrators of peaceful opposition rallies or censor television or threaten journalists. Now this is the behaviour of a regime that feels uncertain and insecure. And I think looking at those mass protests that we've been seeing in the last few months around the country, most of the participants in which were young people, the younger generation. I think frankly the Kremlin has right to be worried.

AMT: After that last attempt on your life have you maybe time to get out? Like maybe you should stop. You've got a wife and child. You've survived twice.

VLADIMIR KARA-MURZA: I have a wife and three children.

AMT: And three children.

VLADIMIR KARA-MURZA: That are outside of Russia for obvious reasons. But I feel that those of us who are the public faces of the opposition have a responsibility to continue our work. Again I think the best gift we could give to this regime is if we gave up and ran and that's not something we're intending to do.

AMT: You have said this is your country.

VLADIMIR KARA-MURZA: This is our country. And I think our country deserves so much better. And our people deserve so much better. But it's also very hopeful to see more and more young people. The people who were raised and certainly in many cases born under Vladimir Putin. Don't forget Russian citizens all turn 18 and come to vote for the first time in these so-called presidential elections next month will have been people born under Vladimir Putin. That's how long he's been in power. And increasingly more and more people in that generation, are beginning to rise up and say 'we've had enough of this'. And I think this is a very worrying sign for the Kremlin and Mr. Putin, but a very hopeful sign for the future of Russia.

AMT: We have to leave it there. Thank you both for your insights. Thank you.

VLADIMIR KARA-MURZA: Thank you very much.

AMY KNIGHT: Thank you.

AMT: Vladimir Kara-Murza is an outspoken critic of President Putin's; the vice chairman of Open Russia, a Russian pro-democracy movement; and chairman of the Boris Nemtsov Foundation. Vladimir Kara-Murza has survived two assassination attempts from poisoning. He joined me in Toronto. And Amy Knight is the author of Orders to Kill: The Putin Regime and Political Murder. She joined us from New York City. We contacted the Russian embassy in Canada to comment on the allegations made against the Putin government. The embassy's spokesperson replied "We don't comment on hearsay and fake news."

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In our next half hour we're continuing to explore how those who've grown up with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict see the future – this time with some who explain that young Israelis support the Netanyahu government and why. As well we're looking at marijuana convictions – should convictions be pardoned and should people who have been convicted get some help into the new business? This is The Current.

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