{"id":217584,"date":"2025-01-17T13:30:10","date_gmt":"2025-01-17T13:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/17\/russian-court-sentences-lawyers-for-navalny-for-passing-along-his-letters\/"},"modified":"2025-01-17T13:30:11","modified_gmt":"2025-01-17T13:30:11","slug":"russian-court-sentences-lawyers-for-navalny-for-passing-along-his-letters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/17\/russian-court-sentences-lawyers-for-navalny-for-passing-along-his-letters\/","title":{"rendered":"Russian Court Sentences Lawyers for Navalny for Passing Along His Letters"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/01\/17\/multimedia\/17russia-navalny-fgpq\/17russia-navalny-fgpq-facebookJumbo.jpg?ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Russian Court Sentences Lawyers for Navalny for Passing Along His Letters\" title=\"Russian Court Sentences Lawyers for Navalny for Passing Along His Letters\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-0\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">A Russian court on Friday sentenced three lawyers for the late opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny to as much as five and a half years in prison for passing on correspondence from him to his allies, a clear reminder of how the Kremlin is still pursuing his associates even after his death.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The three lawyers \u2014 Vadim Kobzev, Igor Sergunin and Aleksei Liptser \u2014 were arrested in October 2023 while Mr. Navalny was in a high-security prison colony in Siberia, in a stark warning that the Kremlin was intent on severing Mr. Navalny\u2019s links to the outside world. <\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The city court in Petushki, about 80 miles east of Moscow, convicted the three lawyers, all of whom represented Mr. Navalny at some point over the past decade, of involvement in an extremist group, Russian news agencies reported from the courtroom.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Even from prison, Mr. Navalny was the most popular opposition figure in Russia, defiantly challenging the rule of President Vladimir V. Putin, and the authorities banned his nationwide movement as extremist shortly before the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-1\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Kobzev was sentenced to five and a half years in prison, Mr. Liptser to five years and Igor Sergunin, the only one of the three to plead guilty, to three and a half years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Yulia Navalnaya, Mr. Navalny\u2019s widow, in a <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/yulia_navalnaya\/status\/1880177628109500520\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">statement<\/a> on Friday, called the three lawyers political prisoners and urged their release. And Lyubov Sobol, one of Mr. Navalny\u2019s longstanding allies, <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/SobolLubov\/status\/1880145735091454327\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">said on X<\/a> that the ruling was \u201cdictated by the Kremlin and seeks to take revenge against those who stayed by Navalny\u2019s side till the end.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Prosecutors said during the trial that the lawyers \u201cused their position\u201d to pass along Mr. Navalny\u2019s correspondence from a prison colony in Petushki, where he spent time before being transferred to Siberia, to his allies in Russia and abroad.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In their ruling, the court agreed with their claim that doing so had allowed Mr. Navalny \u201cto carry out his role as the leader and head of an extremist organization.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Two other lawyers for Mr. Navalny, Olga Mikhailova and Alexandr Fedulov, were charged in absentia because they had fled the country. Their case has yet to be heard.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-2\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Navalny was serving a 19-year prison sentence on several charges when he died at a high-security prison colony in February last year. The Russian authorities attributed his death to a series of diseases aggravated by heart arrhythmia, a conclusion that was strongly rejected by his family and allies, with Ms. Navalnaya suggesting that the state was responsible for his death.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Some of the letters and prison diaries that the lawyers helped to get out of the Petushki prison were included in Mr. Navalny\u2019s <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/10\/21\/books\/review\/patriot-alexei-navalny.html?searchResultPosition=1\" title=\"\">memoir<\/a>, which was published posthumously late last year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Navalny\u2019s lawyers argued in the trial that they were being prosecuted for routine legal work, such as liaising between a client and their family or associates.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Kobzev, who worked side by side with the opposition leader, told the court that \u201cwe are being tried for transmitting Navalny\u2019s thoughts to other people,\u201d according to the Novaya Gazeta newspaper.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The three lawyers had been placed in a cage in the courtroom, and at the start of the hearing on Friday, supporters chanted \u201cWe\u2019re proud of you! You\u2019re Russia\u2019s best people!\u201d as they smiled to supporters and journalists, according to social media footage.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-3\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In an apparent attempt to dampen the show of support, the police on Friday morning detained four journalists and one supporter as they arrived by train in Petushki. They were released without being charged after the verdict was announced, according to Mediazona, an independent media outlet in Russia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The prosecution of the lawyers was in keeping with the Kremlin\u2019s attempt to isolate Mr. Navalny, who managed to remain an important voice in Russian politics despite his incarceration, and his Anti-Corruption Foundation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Lawyers who represented their three colleagues told reporters outside the court they were not intimidated by the prosecution. \u201cThings can be different but being a lawyer is not about getting scared,\u201d said one, Denis Leisle, who represents Mr. Liptser, speaking to Mediazona.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ivan Zhdanov, chairman of the Anti-Corruption Foundation, said the ruling would set a dangerous precedent for the country\u2019s legal system, because people could be held liable for something as innocuous as passing along correspondence.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cLawyers already knew they were being monitored during meetings with their clients,\u201d he wrote on his Telegram channel. \u201cNow they will know they were being monitored, recorded and that this could be used against them in court to convict them.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/01\/17\/world\/europe\/navalny-lawyers-sentenced-russia.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Russian court on Friday sentenced three lawyers for the late opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny to as much as five and a half years in prison for passing on correspondence from him to his allies, a clear reminder of how the Kremlin is still pursuing his associates even after his death. The three lawyers [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":217585,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/01\/17\/multimedia\/17russia-navalny-fgpq\/17russia-navalny-fgpq-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[171544,171542,1625,155970,10853,33496,78378,142,36469,167181,202,1461,5917,171543],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217584"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217584"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217584\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":217586,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217584\/revisions\/217586"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}