Three lawyers for imprisoned opponent Alexei Navalny were the target of searches by Russian security services on Friday, his team said, as part of an “extremism” case that carries heavy penalties.
An exiled enemy ally, Ivan Zhdanov, confirmed this
According to Mr. Zhdanov, one of the lawyers, Igor Sergunin, was arrested.
“Obviously these are measures to completely isolate Navalny,” he denounced, pointing out that the searches were linked to an open investigation into “participation in an extremist company.”
Alexei Navalny was arrested in January 2021 after returning to Russia after being poisoned and has since been sentenced to heavy prison terms, most recently in August with 19 years in prison for “extremism”.
Its organizations were also banned for “extremism” in June 2021 and most of their activists were forced to leave the country to avoid legal proceedings related to these bans.
Alexei Navalny, who is being held in a colony not far from Moscow, said in late September that he would be moved to a cell with very strict conditions for a year, where his interactions with the outside world would be even more restricted.
Mr Navalny communicates mainly through messages he sends to his lawyers and then publishes on his social networks, in which he has continued to denounce the offensive in Ukraine and call on Russians to “resist” the Kremlin in recent months.
“Lawyers don’t play politics, they defend the accused,” the head of the opposing team’s legal department, Viatcheslav Guimadi, responded to X on Friday.