MOSCOW (AP) – Europe’s highest human rights court has ordered Russia to release imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny, a ruling swiftly rejected on Wednesday by Russian authorities seeking to isolate the Kremlin’s most prominent enemy.
The decision of the European Court of Human Rights had demanded that Russia immediately liberate Navalny and warns that failure to do so would be a violation of the European human rights treaty.
The Russian Justice Minister dismissed the court’s claim as “unfounded and illegal” and the State Department condemned it as part of Western interference in the country’s internal affairs.
Navalny, 44, an anti-corruption investigator and President Vladimir Putin’s most prominent critic, was arrested last month on his return from Germany, where he was recovering for five months from a nerve poisoning he blames on the Kremlin. Russian authorities have rejected the accusation.
Earlier this month, a Moscow court sentenced Navalny to two years and eight months in prison for violating the terms of his probation while on recovery in Germany. The verdict stems from a 2014 embezzlement conviction that Navalny dismissed as fabricated and ruled by the European court unlawful.
In its ruling on Tuesday, the ECtHR pointed to Article 39 of its regulations and required the Russian government to release Navalny, citing “the nature and extent of the risk to the applicant’s life”.
“This measure is effective immediately,” the Strasbourg court said in a statement.
The court noted that Navalny disputed the argument of the Russian authorities that they had taken sufficient measures to protect his life and well-being in custody after the nerve gas attack.
Russian Justice Minister Konstantin Chuichenko dismissed the court’s ruling as “clear and gross interference” in the Russian judicial system.
“This claim is unfounded and illegal because it does not indicate any fact or legal standard that would allow the court to make such a ruling,” Chuichenko said in a statement from Russian news agencies. “This requirement cannot be met because there is no legal ground under Russian law for that person’s release. The European judges are well aware of this and have clearly taken a political decision that could only exacerbate the restoration of constructive relations with the institutions of the Council of Europe. “
In the past, Moscow has adhered to the ECHR rulings to grant compensation to Russian citizens who have contested sentences in Russian courts, but it has never had a demand from the European court to release a convicted person.
Reflecting its dormant irritation over European court rulings, Russia passed a constitutional amendment last year declaring the priority of national law over international law. The Russian authorities could now use that provision to reject the ECHR ruling.
Mikhail Yemelyanov, a deputy head of the legal affairs committee in the Kremlin-controlled lower house, pointed to the constitutional change and noted that it gives Russia the right to ignore the ECHR ruling, Interfax news agency said.
But Navalny’s chief strategist Leonid Volkov argued that Russia’s membership of the Council of Europe obliges the country to comply with the court’s ruling. He warned on Facebook that the country is at risk of losing its membership in the continent’s main human rights organization if it does not abide by the order.
Navalny’s arrest and imprisonment sparked a wave of protests across Russia. Authorities responded with a sweeping crackdown, detaining about 11,000 people, many of whom were fined or given prison terms of 7-15 days.
Russia has dismissed Western criticism of Navalny’s arrest and crackdown on demonstrations as interference in its internal affairs.
In remarks on television, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova denounced the ECHR’s ruling as a blow to international law and “part of a campaign to put pressure on our country and interfere with it. the internal affairs of our country “.
A hearing on Navalny’s appeal against his sentence is scheduled for Saturday.
He has also been sued in a separate case charged with defamation of a World War II veteran. Navalny, who called the 94-year-old veteran and other people in a pro Kremlin video ‘corrupt front men’, ‘unscrupulous people’ and ‘traitors’, has dismissed the allegations of defamation, describing them as part of official attempts to belittle him. .
With his usual sardonic humor, Navalny compared his conditions in Moscow’s maximum-security Matrosskaya Tishina prison to the isolation of a space traveler.
“People in uniforms coming up to me say just a few formula phrases, a light that indicates a working video camera on their chest – they look like androids,” he said in an Instagram comment. “And just like in a space travel movie, the ship’s command center communicates with me. A voice from the intercom would say, “3-0-2, get ready for sanitation treatment.” And I replied, “Okay, just give me 10 minutes to finish my tea.” ”