Navalny to face fresh criminal charges

Jailed opposition politician Alexey Navalny is facing fresh criminal charges for “vandalism motivated by hatred”, his team announced on Telegram on Friday.

“They really do launch a new criminal case against me every three months. Never before can a prisoner who has been in solitary confinement for more than a year have lived such a rich social and political life,” Navalny said.

The charges could see Navalny facing an additional three years in prison. It is the 14th criminal case to be brought against him, according to his press secretary Kira Yarmysh. In August, Navalny was sentenced to 19 years in a maximum-security prison for “establishing an extremist community”. He is currently serving a nine-year sentence for embezzlement.

On 13 October, a Moscow court ordered the detention of three lawyers representing Navalny, Igor Sergunin, Alexey Liptser and Vadim Kobzev. All three were charged with involvement with an “extremist community”.

The investigators alleged that “the lawyers used their privilege to gain access to [Navalny’s] prison and provided a permanent exchange of information between Navalny and other members of the extremist community to help him act as its leader”.

Olga Mikhailova and Alexander Fedulov, two other lawyers representing Navalny, left Russia in October to escape persecution.