3 lawyers for the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny were arrested in a Russian court
Three lawyers who represented the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny were jailed in Russia on Friday, part of a crackdown on the Kremlin that has reached levels not seen since Soviet times.
Vadim Kobzev, Igor Sergunin and Alexey Liptser were sentenced to between 3½ and five years at the court in Petushki, 100 kilometers east of Moscow. Navalny was arrested in October 2023 on charges of involvement with extremist groups as his networks were targeted by authorities.
The case was seen as a way for defense lawyers to increase pressure on the opposition to avoid filing political charges.
At the time, Navalny was serving a 19-year sentence on various criminal charges, including extremism. In the year He died in a Russian prison in February 2023.
“We are being tried by passing on Navalny’s ideas to other people,” Kobzev said in his final statement in court on January 10, according to Russia’s independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta.
Navalny’s networks have been deemed extremist following a 2021 decision outlining his organizations – the Foundation to Fight Corruption and the Network of Regional Offices – as extremist groups.
The decision, which would expose anyone involved with the companies to prosecution, was condemned by Kremlin critics as politically motivated and designed to stifle Navalny’s activities.
According to Navalny’s allies, authorities have accused his lawyers of using him to pass on information from him to their group.
He died in prison
Navalny, President Vladimir Putin’s anti-corruption campaigner In 2021, he was recovering from nerve agent poisoning after he was arrested on his return from Germany and blamed on the Kremlin. He was sentenced to 2½ years in prison.
After two more trials, the prison sentence was extended to 19 years. He and his associates have accused the case of being politically motivated and that the Kremlin wants him in prison for life.
In the year In December 2023, Navalny was transferred from a penal colony in the Vladimir region, east of Moscow, to a place high above the Arctic Circle, where he died in February at the age of 47 under still unknown circumstances. His widow, Yulia Navalnaya, and members of the group say he was killed on orders from the Kremlin. Officials have denied the allegations.
Two other lawyers for Navalny, Olga Mikhailova and Alexander Fedulov, are on the wanted list but cannot live in Russia. Mikhailova, who has defended Navalny for a decade, has been accused of extremism in absentia.
In the year Kobzev, Liptser and Sergunin are considered political prisoners, according to human rights activists from the commemoration of Russia’s most famous human rights activist, who will receive the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize. The group demanded their immediate release.
