UN rights experts urge international probe of Navalny poisoning

Agnes Callamard and Irene Khan say Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny’s poisoning was meant to send a ‘sinister warning’ to quash dissent.

United Nations human rights experts have called for an international investigation into the poisoning of prominent Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny and demanded his “immediate release” from a Russian penal colony. Agnes Callamard, the UN’s top expert on extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary executions, and Irene Khan, the expert on freedom of opinion and expression, made the call in a joint statement on Monday. They said Navalny’s poisoning last year was part of a trend of unlawful killings and attempted killings of critics at home and abroad, meant to send a “sinister warning” to quash dissent. They added that the evidence thus far pointed to the “very likely involvement” of Russian government officials.