MELEKHOVO, Russia — Imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny went on trial Monday on new fees of extremism that could keep him at the back of bars for decades.
The trial opened at a most safety penal colony in Melekhovo, 250 kilometers (150 miles) east of Moscow, the place Navalny, 47, is serving a nine-year sentence for fraud and contempt of court docket — fees he says are politically motivated.
Navalny, who uncovered respectable corruption and arranged main anti-Kremlin protests, was once arrested in January 2021 upon returning to Moscow after recovering in Germany from nerve agent poisoning that he blamed at the Kremlin.
Navalny, dressed in his jail garb, appeared gaunt on the consultation however spoke emphatically in regards to the weak point of the state’s case and gestured energetically.
Navalny has mentioned the new extremism fees, which he rejected as “absurd,” could keep him in jail for any other 30 years. He mentioned an investigator informed him that he would additionally face a separate army trial on terrorism fees that could doubtlessly raise a existence sentence.
Monday’s trial got here amid a sweeping Russian crackdown on dissent amid the combating in Ukraine, which Navalny has harshly criticized.
The Moscow City Court, which opened the listening to at Penal Colony No. 6, didn’t permit journalists within the court they usually watched the lawsuits by way of video feed from a separate development. Navalny’s folks additionally have been denied get entry to to the court docket and adopted the listening to remotely.
Navalny and his legal professionals instructed the pass judgement on to carry an open trial, arguing that government are desperate to suppress main points of the lawsuits to hide up the weak point of the case.
“The investigators, the prosecutors and the authorities in general don’t want the public to know about the trial,” Navalny mentioned.
Prosecutor Nadezhda Tikhonova requested the pass judgement on to habits the trial at the back of closed doorways, bringing up safety issues.
The feed from the consultation to media room was once then lower, nevertheless it wasn’t in an instant transparent if it was once since the pass judgement on made up our minds to near the trial or if it was once for one more reason.
The new fees relate to the actions of Navalny’s anti-corruption basis and statements by way of his most sensible pals. His allies mentioned the costs retroactively criminalize the entire actions of Navalny’s basis since its advent in 2011.
One of Navalny’s pals, Daniel Kholodny, was once relocated from a special jail to stand trial along him.
Navalny has spent months in a tiny one-person mobile, also known as a “punishment cell,” for purported disciplinary violations equivalent to an alleged failure to correctly button his jail garments, correctly introduce himself to a guard or to clean his face at a specified time.
Navalny’s pals and supporters have accused jail government of failing to supply him with correct clinical help and voiced fear about his well being.
The German govt criticized the trial and reiterated its name for Navalny’s rapid liberate.
“In case of of the opposition politician Alexei Navalny, the Russian authorities keep looking for new excuses to extend his imprisonment,” govt spokesman Wolfgang Buechner informed journalists in Berlin.
“The German government continues to demand of the Russian authorities that they release Navalny without delay,” he added. “Navalny’s imprisonment is based on a politically motivated verdict, as the European Court of Human Rights concluded back in 2017.”
Asked whether or not Germany could supply any help to Navalny or practice the trial, Foreign Ministry spokesman Christian Wagner mentioned German officers have been doing what they could “on the few channels that we have,” however said it was once “very difficult at the moment” given the present state of family members with Russia.
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Associated Press creator Frank Jordans in Berlin contributed.
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