Source : NEW INDIAN EXPRESS NEWS
According to Navalny’s allies, authorities accused the lawyers of using their position to pass information from him to his team.
Navalny, an anti-corruption campaigner and outspoken opponent of President Vladimir Putin, was arrested in 2021 upon his return from Germany, where he was recuperating from a nerve agent poisoning he blamed on the Kremlin. He was ordered to serve 2 1/2 years in prison.
After two more trials, his sentence was extended to 19 years. He and his allies said the charges were politically motivated and accused the Kremlin of seeking to jail him for life.
In December 2023, Navalny was moved from a penal colony in the Vladimir region east of Moscow to one above the Arctic Circle, where he died in February at the age of 47 under still-unexplained circumstances. His widow, Yulia Navalnaya, and members of his team alleged he was killed on orders from the Kremlin. Officials have rejected the accusation.
Two other Navalny lawyers, Olga Mikhailova and Alexander Fedulov, are on a wanted list but no longer live in Russia. Mikhailova, who defended Navalny for a decade, said she was charged in absentia with extremism.
Kobzev, Liptser and Sergunin have been deemed to be political prisoners, according to human rights advocates from Memorial, Russia’s most prominent rights group that won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022. The group demands their immediate release.
Independent Russian media reported Friday that Konstantin Kotov, an activist accused of donating to Navalny’s organization, left Russia before he was due to appear in a Moscow court Friday. He told Mediazona he decided to leave after a heart surgeon, Ivan Tishchenko, was jailed for four years for donating around $34 to Navalny’s organization.
SOURCE :- NEW INDIAN EXPRESS
