MOSCOW (AP) — Russia’s Supreme Court on Tuesday extended the pre-trial detention of three lawyers who once represented the Russian court. assassinated opposition leader, Alexei Navalnyand now face charges of extremism. It also refused to transfer their case to another court, even when the defense argued a conflict of interest.
Vadim Kobzev, Igor Sergunin and Alexei Liptser were arrested in October in a case widely seen at the time as a way to increase pressure on the Kremlin’s greatest enemy.
According to Navalny’s allies, authorities accused the lawyers of abusing their status as defense attorneys to pass on letters from the jailed politician to his team, acting as intermediaries between Navalny and what they called his “extremist group.”
Navalny’s organizations in Russia — the Foundation for Combating Corruption and an extensive network of regional offices — were banned and labeled as extremist groups in 2021, a move that ensured that everyone involved could be prosecuted.
Lawyers for the three lawyers had filed a request with the Supreme Court to transfer their case to a court in Russia’s western Vladimir region, arguing that the court may not be objective or impartial.
The defense argued that most of the prosecution’s evidence was gathered during a police raid they consider illegal, and that it was ordered by a higher court in the same region — something they said posed a conflict of interest. It also alleged that courts in Vladimir pressured Navalny’s lawyers to release confidential communications with him before the politician’s death in a remote Arctic prison in February.
Navalny himself was serve prison sentences a total of more than 30 years, including extremism charges tied to his anti-corruption activism. He and his allies had dismissed all charges against him as politically motivated and accused the Kremlin of seeking to imprison him for life.
Russian authorities also put two of Navalny’s lawyers on a wanted list in February. One of them, Olga Mikhailova, who has defended the politician for a decade, said she had previously been charged in absentia with extremism after fleeing the country. The other, Alexander Fedulov, also said last year that he was no longer in Russia.
