Three Navalny lawyers go on trial in Russia for ‘extremism’
Three lawyers who represented the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny have gone on trial for “extremism”.
Navalny died in February in unclear circumstances in an Arctic prison colony where he was serving a 19-year sentence for leading an “extremist” organisation.
Since his death, Russian authorities have escalated a campaign against his backers, allies and family – arresting journalists who covered his court hearings and adding his wife, Yulia Navalnaya, to a “terrorists and extremists” blacklist.
The trial of the three lawyers – Vadim Kobzev, Alexei Liptser and Igor Sergunin – opened on Thursday in a court in the Vladimir region east of Moscow.
The trio stood in a metal cage for defendants at the start of the hearing, before the judge granted the prosecution’s request to move the session behind closed doors, ejecting public spectators and journalists from the hall.
Arrested in October 2023, the three are accused of participating in an “extremist” organisation, charges that carry a maximum prison term of six years.
Investigators say the lawyers passed messages between Navalny and his associates outside prison, helping the Kremlin critic continue his outlawed political activity from behind bars.
At the time, Navalny’s team alleged the arrest of the lawyers was an attempt to isolate Navalny even further in prison, where he spent most of the time in solitary confinement.
At a pre-trial hearing, Sergunin pleaded guilty, independent media reported, while Kobzev and Liptser rejected the charges.
The Kremlin has rejected accusations from Navalny’s allies that President Vladimir Putin ordered for him to be killed in jail.
The west and Moscow were in talks about freeing Navalny in a prisoner exchange when he died.
Over a decade of opposing the Kremlin, the charismatic opposition leader drew tens of thousands of supporters to anti-government street demonstrations. He nearly died in 2020 after being poisoned on a campaign trip to Siberia before regional elections. An investigation by Navalny’s team, western and Russian media outlets connected the assassination attempt to FSB agents.
Most of his former allies and his wife, who has pledged to continue his work, live in exile.