Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service has given Kremlin’s top critic Alexei Navalny one day to report to the office or he could face jail time
MOSCOW – Russia’s federal penitentiary service gave top Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny one day on Monday to report to his office, otherwise he would face jail time if he returned to Russia after the deadline.
Navalny is recovering in Germany after his poisoning in August with a nerve agent attributed to the Kremlin. The Russian authorities have denied their involvement.
The federal correctional service issued a statement on Monday saying that an article by doctors from Charite Hospital in Berlin and published in the medical journal The Lancet indicates that Navalny has made a full recovery.
The prison service demanded that Navalny report to his office in accordance with the terms of a 3 1/2 year suspended sentence he was given for a 2014 conviction. If he misses the deadline, he could be incarcerated, the statement said.
Navalny’s lawyer, Vadim Kobzev, tweeted that the agency had told the politician to show up at his office Tuesday morning. Navalny, who previously said he intended to return to Russia once he made a full recovery, scoffed at the demand, saying that the Federal Penal Service’s reference to the Lancet article amounted to the government accepting that he was poisoned. used to be.
“That means the state has officially recognized the poisoning,” he tweeted. “And where is the criminal case then?”
Navalny fell into a coma on August 20 on a domestic flight from Siberia to Moscow. The plane made an emergency landing and was transferred from a hospital in Siberia to the hospital in Berlin two days later. Labs in Germany, France and Sweden, and tests by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, showed he was exposed to a Soviet-era Novichok nerve agent.
Russian authorities have insisted that doctors treating Navalny in Siberia before he was flown to Germany found no trace of poison and challenged German officials to provide evidence of his poisoning. They declined to open a full criminal investigation, citing the lack of evidence that Navalny had been poisoned.
The European Union imposed sanctions on six Russian officials and a state investigation institute after tests by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons concluded that Navalny had been exposed to Novichok. Russia has hit back with its own sanctions against EU officials.
Last week, Navalny released the recording of a phone call he made to a man he described as an alleged member of a group of Federal Security Service, or FSB officers, who supposedly poisoned him in August and then tried to hide it. up.
Navalny called hours before the Bellingcat research group released a report claiming that FSB agents with specialized training in chemical weapons followed him for years and were close by when he was poisoned.
In the call, Navalny introduced himself as a security officer and enticed his interlocutor to share details of the alleged poisoning operation and acknowledge that he was involved in “processing” Navalny’s underwear so that “there would be no traces” of poison.
The FSB rejected the recording released by Navalny as a fake.