Navalny’s Moscow apartment was confiscated

After Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov announced on Wednesday that Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny would be able to return safely to Moscow after being discharged from Germany’s Sharite Hospital, it has now become clear that the Russian authorities have seized his apartment in the capital.

Also, your accounts are also frozen and you cannot have them. This was announced by his associates in Russia.

According to Kira Yarmish, an opposition spokesman, the authorities confiscated his apartment in southeast Moscow.

Therefore, they are enforcing a court decision to collect the fine imposed on Navalny in the amount of 88 million rubles ($ 1.2 million) for moral damage to the reputation of the food factory “Moscow Schoolboy” after the publication of an investigation on its Anticorruption Foundation (FBK).

The fine owed to the plant was bought by the catering company Concord, owned by magnate Sergei Prigogine, close to President Vladimir Putin, who has publicly vowed to ruin Navalny.

The “Moscow Schoolboy” plant is related to the businessman, who according to some is the reason for his strong reaction to Navalny and his colleagues.

FBK’s own investigation shows how the plant, which is in fact a monopolist in the market for provision of catering services for schools in Moscow, offers children low-quality food, which has caused several children to be admitted in hospital for poisoning.

Natalia Shilova, a former employee of the Moscow Schoolboy, also spoke in front of the FBK camera, telling in detail about the schemes in the company and the quality of the food it delivers for schools and kindergartens.

The food factory immediately filed a defamation lawsuit against the Anti-Corruption Foundation, which it won. Thus, in July, Navalny had to officially shut down the FBK to avoid paying the huge fine. The court also ordered Navalny to remove the video and issue a rebuttal. However, changes in Russian law could force him to pay the amount, despite the closure of the foundation.

Then came a deal to buy the debt of Prigogine, who in turn activated levers to raise money from the opposition.

This is what led to the actions for the confiscation of the opponent’s apartment as a guarantee of payment of his debts under the fine in question.

“Rather than side with the affected children, the court sided with Prigogine,” Yarmish commented in a Twitter video. “As a result, they confiscated the property and apartment of a man who was in a coma.”

The 44-year-old anti-corruption activist in Russia and an opponent is rehabbing in Germany after recently emerging from a coma. Yarmish says Navalny plans to return to Russia as soon as he recovers from the poisoning.

The seizure of the apartment prohibits Navalny from renting it, selling it, giving it away or bequeathing it, but it does not mean that he can no longer live there, his spokesman explained.