TALLINN, Estonia — A lawyer for imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny said Tuesday that Russian authorities charged her in absentia with participating in an extremist group. The same charges were brought against three other lawyers who represented Navalny and were jailed in October in a move his allies had decried as designed to put additional pressure on the politician.
Olga Mikhailova, who defended Navalny for over a decade and has left Russia, revealed on social media that the charges were brought against her. “For 16 years, you defend a person” who was accused of embezzlement, fraud, defamation and “and recently (became) an ‘extremist,’ so it means you yourself are an extremist,” she wrote in a Facebook post, rejecting the charges against her.
Three of her colleagues - Vadim Kobzev, Igor Sergunin and Alexei Liptser - were arrested in Russia on the same charges in October 2023. Upon court orders, they will remain behind bars until at least March 13, pending investigation.
Navalny himself was convicted on extremism charges last year and handed a 19-year prison term. His organizations in Russia - the Foundation for Fighting Corruption and a vast network of regional offices - were labeled as extremist groups in 2021 and outlawed.
According to Navalny’s allies, authorities accused the lawyers of using their status as defense attorneys to pass letters from the imprisoned politician to his team, thus serving as intermediaries between Navalny and what they called his “extremist group.”
Mikhailova said Tuesday she was on vacation abroad in October 2023, when Kobzev, Sergunin and Liptser were arrested. She decided not to return to Russia after that. “It makes no sense to return to jail,” she said, adding that she and her daughter now live in an undisclosed foreign country “without a home and with a load of problems.”
Navalny’s team has said that by targeting his lawyers, authorities are seeking to increase his isolation further. For many political prisoners in Russia, regular visits from lawyers - especially in remote regions - are a lifeline as it allows their families to know their lawyers have seen them, and also lets the prisoners report any abuse by prison officials.
Navalny, President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest political foe, has been behind bars since January 2021, but has still been able to get messages out regularly.
His 2021 arrest came upon his return to Moscow from Germany, where he recuperated from nerve agent poisoning that he blamed on the Kremlin. Navalny has since been handed three prison terms. He has rejected all charges against him as politically motivated.
Behind bars, the politician spent months in isolation over alleged minor infractions. He was recently transferred to a “special regime” penal colony in a remote town above the Arctic Circle - the highest security level of prisons in Russia - in a move his allies said was designed to further isolate him.
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