They tried to take a written undertaking not to leave the FBK lawyer who spent almost two days in a temporary detention facility.

They tried to take a written undertaking not to leave the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) lawyer Lyubov Sobol within the framework of a criminal case under the article on violation of the inviolability of the home (Part 2 of Article 139 of the Criminal Code). This was reported by MBKH Media with reference to FBK Director Ivan Zhdanov.

“The investigators chose a written undertaking not to leave the place, but she refused to give it, so the preventive measure is not considered chosen,” Zhdanov said. He added that investigators have not yet gone to court with a request for a preventive measure for Sobol.

On the evening of December 27, Sobol was released from the temporary detention center (IVS), where she was held for almost two days. On the day of her arrest, December 25, Sobol’s home was searched in connection with a criminal case for allegedly breaking into the home of one of the alleged participants in the poisoning of politician and FBK founder Alexei Navalny.

• On December 21, Alexey Navalnypublished a video in which he claims that he spoke on the phone with the participant in his poisoning, Konstantin Kudryavtsev, introducing himself as assistant to Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev. During the conversation, the interlocutor told Navalny the details of the assassination attempt. After the publication, Lyubov Sobol, journalists and security officials headed to Kudryavtsev’s house. That day, Sobol and three other people were detained ; later they were prosecuted under the article of disobedience to a police officer (Article 19.3 of the Administrative Code).
• On December 14, 2020, an investigation was published by a group of journalists from Bellingcat , The Insider and CNN with the participation of Der Spiegel and the Anti-Corruption Foundation founded by politician Alexei Navalny. Investigators found that a group of FSB officers with medical training had been monitoring Navalny since 2017, and that security forces tried at least three times to poison Navalny with a nerve agent from the Novichok group.
• Navalny became ill on the morning of August 20 on a plane flying from Tomsk to Moscow. He was dropped off in Omsk and taken to a local emergency hospital. According to Navalny’s associates, there were plainclothes operatives on the hospital grounds. After long negotiations, Navalny’s relatives ensured that on August 22 he was transported to the German Charité clinic. Two days later, representatives of the clinic announced that they had found signs of a chemical warfare agent from the Novichok group in his body. In October, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) confirmed the presence of traces of poison from the Novichok group in Navalny’s tests. The politician spent about two weeks in a coma.