'Dark times' in Russia, as disabled dissident sent to die in jail

When he was poisoned eight years ago, Russian dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza had a stroke, lost all feeling in his feet, and 17kg in weight.

"His wife came up with the idea of walking barefoot on sharp shells on the beach, so that the pain would get his nerves working again, and they did this over and over and over," his friend and British human-rights campaigner Bill Browder told EUobserver.

"It took a year of rehab for him to learn to walk again," Browder recalled, referring to...