Three lawyers for jailed Russian opponent Alexei Navalny were taken into custody on Friday after searches by Russian security services, his team said, in a case of “extremism” that carries stiff penalties.
These police raids took place at the homes in Russia of Vadim Kobzev, Igor Sergunin and Alexei Liptser, all of whom had defended Mr Navalny in the past.
All three were arrested by the court in the evening and held in custody until at least December 13th.
An expatriate aide to Alexei Navalny, Leonid Volkov, said on
“Everyone is already tired of using the expression ‘We have reached rock bottom’, but that’s exactly what happened today,” reacted another supporter of the opponent who had sought refuge outside Russia, Georgi Alburov.
“It’s like raids are happening on doctors who are treating the ‘wrong’ patient. The main goal is to deprive Alexei (Navalny) of legal representation and connection to the outside world,” he denounced on X.
Alexei Navalny was arrested in January 2021 upon his return from Germany, where he had been hospitalized after being poisoned, and has since been sentenced to severe 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 their country to avoid legal proceedings related to these bans.
Alexei Navalny, imprisoned not far from Moscow, said at the end of September that he would be transferred 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 which are then spread on 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.
published October 13 at 9:21 p.m., AFP
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