Russia puts late opposition leader Alexey Navalny’s lawyers on trial
Al Jazeera
Vadim Kobzev, Igor Sergunin and Alexei Liptser face up to six years in prison over ‘extremism’ charges.
Three lawyers, who once represented the late Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny, have gone on trial in Russia over “extremism” charges.
Vadim Kobzev, Igor Sergunin and Alexei Liptser were seen standing in a metal cage for defendants at a district court just east of Moscow on Thursday before Judge Yulia Shilova granted the prosecution’s request to move the session behind closed doors.
The trio, who face a maximum of six years in prison, were arrested in October last year and have been in pre-trial detention since. In November, they were added to Russia’s list of “terrorists and extremists”.
Investigators say they passed messages between imprisoned Navalny and his associates in the outside world, helping the outspoken Kremlin critic continue his outlawed political activity from behind bars.
At the time, Navalny’s team alleged the arrest of the lawyers was an attempt to isolate the politician and anticorruption activist even further in prison, where he spent most of the time in solitary confinement.
