Russian opposition politician Alexey Navalny, currently serving his prison sentence at the Vladimir region penal colony, says that a criminal case on terrorism has been initiated against him, Russia’s state news agency TASS reports, citing its correspondent present at Navalny’s court hearing at Moscow’s Basmanny District Court.
“The prosecutor informed me that a new case has been initiated against me, on terrorism. Under this case, I will be tried by a military court,” Navalny said.
It is reported that the new case has been “extracted” from the extremism case that was opened against Navalny in October 2022.
Today, the court is considering the motion filed by the prosecution on limiting the time during which Navalny can review the materials of the extremism case. The court hearing is held behind closed doors on request of the Investigative Committee of Russia.
“Attempting to conduct this process behind closed doors means attempting to illegally restrict [my right to] to familiarise myself with the case materials and attempting to make it so no one knows about it,” Navalny responded. He was present at the hearing via video link.
Navalny also said on Twitter that he has been placed in solitary confinement again. This time, the new stint was announced immediately after he finished serving his previous punishment there.
“The hard rule of prisons, which was strictly followed both in the USSR and Russia, got abolished for me. Normally, after 15 days in the SHIZO, the prisoner must spend at least one day in a regular cell before getting another 15 days in the SHIZO,” he tweeted.
On 21 April, Ivan Zhdanov, head of the Anti-Corruption Foundation established by Navalny, said that a new big court trial against Navalny would begin soon.
Navalny’s associate Leonid Volkov thinks that this is a “political case that would retroactively get all of the foundation’s work going back to 2011 declared to be extremism, and [because of this] Navalny will be [facing] up to 35 years”.
