Russian government critic Alexej Navalny, who has been in prison since 2021, has been transferred to another penal colony. Navalny’s confidant Maria Pewtschich tweeted on Tuesday that she had “no more information” on where exactly he was being taken. So Navalny did not attend a planned meeting with his lawyers. The 46-year-old had previously been to the Pokrov penal colony, 100 kilometers from Moscow.
This is considered one of the colonies with the most adverse conditions in Russia. A lawyer for Navalny told Russian news agency TASS that he was told in Pokrov that Navalny had been transferred to a “penal colony with strict conditions”.
Sentence increased to nine years
The lawyer added that the transfer is related to the recent verdict against Navalny. A court increased the opposition leader’s prison term to nine years in May after convicting him of embezzling donations to his political organizations. His first conviction was based on allegations of fraud. Navalny rejects all allegations and considers them politically motivated.
Russian authorities have not provided any information about the new whereabouts. Navalny supporters assume that prison conditions are harsher than in Pokrov.
navalny is gone
“As long as we don’t know where Alexei is, he will be alone against a system that has already tried to kill him,” his spokeswoman Kira Jarmysch wrote on the Telegram online service. “Our most important task now is to locate him.” According to Jarmysch, neither Navalny himself nor his lawyers or his family were informed of his transfer.
Navalny was arrested in January 2021 while returning from Germany at Moscow airport. He had previously been treated in Berlin for poisoning he suffered in Russia with a neurotoxin from the Novichok group, for which he blames Russian President Vladimir Putin.