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On Friday, lawyers for convicted opposition leader Alexei Navalny were to visit him at Kolchugino prison, a three-hour drive northeast of Moscow.
After several delays, lawyers were said to have been informed that Navalny had been transferred to another prison.
Now Navalny’s lawyers don’t know where he is, nor will they, Navalny’s lawyer, Olga Mikhailova, tells Ekho Moskvy radio channel.
– You must track it
She tells the radio channel that they have not been notified in advance that Navalny would be transferred to another prison, and reprimands the penitentiary for not notifying them.
“Right now we don’t know where he is,” Mikhailova told Ekho Moskvy.
– The Prison and Probation Service should have notified the relatives where he has been transferred, but this will not be done, he continues.
And he also says that this is not the first time that it has been transferred to Navalny without anyone being notified.
– Last time we had to track it ourselves. Now, obviously, he again encourages us to track him down on his own, says the lawyer.
Sentenced to prison
Navalny is now serving a two-and-a-half-year prison sentence. He must serve his sentence in a prison colony.
The sentence is from 2014, and was actually conditional, but after alleged breaches of the duty to report, Navalny’s sentence earlier this year was changed to an unconditional prison sentence.
Many of the alleged breaches of the duty to report, a condition for the 2014 suspended sentence, stem from Navalny’s stay in Germany last year.
Last summer, the opposition leader was poisoned with the neurotoxin Novitsjok, and was medically evacuated to Berlin, where he received treatment and subsequent rehabilitation.
His defense in the judicial process, which had to decide whether to serve a prison sentence, was therefore simple:
“I was in a coma.”
Detained at the airport
In January this year, he returned to Russia, and was immediately arrested at the Moscow airport, precisely for violating the duty to inform.
After converting the conditional sentence to unconditional, Navalny had to appear again in court, this time accused of defamation.
Uploaded after Twitter message
Navalny was indicted after a Twitter message allegedly defamed a 94-year-old war veteran. Navalny again pleaded not guilty, but was again convicted. This time the penalty was a significant fine.
Navalny, his supporters and attorneys believe both verdicts against him are politically motivated.
