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northAfter Alexei Navalnyj’s phone call with one of his alleged assassins, an ally of the Kremlin critic was arrested in Russia. After the criminal investigations began, Lyubov Sobol was first heard as a witness on Friday before being indicted and detained for 48 hours, Ivan Zhdanov, a Navalnyj employee, said late at night.
Sobol was charged with “trespassing” under the “use or threat of violence,” Zhdanov said Friday morning on Twitter. On Monday, Sobol tried to visit the FSB agent at his apartment, who had admitted in the phone call with Navalnyj that he was involved in the poison attack on him.
“Lyubov Sobol is now officially suspected in the context of this investigation, his status has changed,” Zhdanov said on Twitter. Sobol’s lawyer, Vladimir Voronin, confirmed the information without giving details. Navalnyj’s confidant faces two years in prison.
In the 45-minute phone call posted by Navalnyj on Monday, in which the 44-year-old claimed to be a representative of the Russian Security Council, alleged FSB agent Konstantin Kudryavtsev admitted the attack. In the recording, Kudryavtsev reported that the poison was adhered to the inside of Navalnyj’s underwear.
Navalnyj collapsed on a Russian inland flight in August. Two days later he was taken to the Charité University Hospital in Berlin, in a coma. According to three European laboratories, the results of which have been confirmed by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), Navalnyj was poisoned with a nerve chemical agent from the Novichok group. The Kremlin denies any involvement in the attack.
Sobol, 33, was arrested Monday when she rang the doorbell of Kudryavtsev’s apartment on the outskirts of Moscow to no avail. After several hours in police custody, she was released.
On Friday morning she was arrested by the police in her Moscow apartment, which was also searched. Surveillance camera footage in front of the apartment showed masked and uniformed men on the landing until the lens was sealed. One of them carried a crowbar.
