(Moscow) Imprisoned Russian opponent Alexeï Navalny on Wednesday denounced the “absurdity” of the accusations of “extremism” against him, at a time when another Kremlin critic, Yevgeny Roizman, is being tried in another trial for having ” discredited” the army.
The authorities “ have advanced an absurd accusation which threatens me with a sentence of up to 35 years ” in prison, castigated Mr. Navalny, deploring a “ cynical parody ” of justice, in preliminary remarks broadcast by his team before a closed-door hearing.
In his eyes, the next legal step against him will be “perpetuity”, he further denounced.
The number one opponent of the Kremlin, imprisoned since 2021 after returning to Russia from convalescence in Germany following a poisoning of which he accuses the Kremlin, denounced an “illegal attempt” to try him behind closed doors.
Accused of “ extremism ” by the Russian authorities, Mr. Navalny faces a new prison sentence in yet another criminal case against him, a way, he denounces, to keep him in detention for life.
His lawyer, Olga Mikhaïlov, demanded to be able to “take cognizance” of the case, judging it “absolutely impossible” not to reveal the content of the exact accusations against her client.
Questioned by AFP, Kira Iarmych, the spokesperson for Mr. Navalny’s organization, estimated that in view of the prosecutor’s eagerness to “limit the familiarization time” of the defense “with the elements of the file”, the trial “could begin soon”.
According to his collaborators, Mr. Navalny, 46, also suffers in prison from an “unknown disease” and is left “without care”.
