Three members of Alexey Navalny’s legal team are in custody and facing extremism charges The politician’s associates sound the alarm over Navalny’s increasing isolation in prison
Three current and former members of Alexey Navalny’s legal team have been arrested in Russia. The opposition politician is now serving a 19-year sentence in a penal colony. His defense lawyers Vadim Kobzev and Alexey Liptser, as well as a former Navalny attorney Igor Sergunin, were all arrested today by the Russian authorities. According to Vyacheslav Gemadi, lead attorney of the Anti-Corruption Foundation’s legal department, the three defense lawyers are in custody with the status of criminal suspects, and remand hearings will likely follow later today.
The lawyers are reportedly prosecuted for taking part in an extremist organization. Vyacheslav Gimadi and ACF director Ivan Zhdanov write that all of the attorneys were subjected to house searches in connection with an organized extremism case. Although the federal Investigative Committee didn’t comment on the searches and arrests, the propaganda TV channel RT has reported that Navalny’s legal team is being prosecuted for extremism.
Early on October 13, Russian law enforcement searched the homes of three Navalny attorneys. Two of them, Igor Sergunin and Alexey Liptser, live in Moscow. Another defense lawyer, Vadim Kobzev, had his home in Kovrov of Russia’s Vladimir region searched. After the searches, all three lawyers were taken into custody. According to the Telegram news channel Sota, “Kobzev was arrested in Kovrov, near Navalny’s penal colony.” Navalny is currently incarcerated eight kilometers (or about five miles) from Kovrov.
Another police raid took place at the Moscow-based legal collegium Dalet, in which three Navalny defense lawyers are members. According to another member attorney, Svetlana Davydova, who spoke with Mediazona, the search was warranted by the prosecution of three Dalet member attorneys, presumably on charges of complicity in an extremist group. In conversation with RBC, Davydova added that the new extremism case against the lawyers was derived from Alexey Navalny’s own case. Novaya Gazeta reports that another search warrant has been issued for Navalny’s lawyer Olga Mikhailova, who is currently abroad.
Alexey Navalny believes that the prosecution of his legal team is indicative of the condition of Russia’s justice system. During a court appearance in Kovrov, which his attorney Vadim Kobzev wasn’t able to attend, Navalny asked the court to defer the hearing in view of his council’s absence. “Just like in Soviet times,” he said, “not only the activists are turned into political prisoners, but even their defense lawyers.” When asked if he plans to hire a different council, Navalny said that he first needs to find out “the scale of the catastrophe.” The politician also pointed out that Igor Sergunin didn’t work for him since at least a year ago, but was arrested anyway.
The Russian Federal Bar Association is planning to examine the lawfulness of today’s arrests. Genry Reznik, chair of the bar committee for defense of attorney rights, said that what’s happening “is clearly an exceptional event,” “but lawyers don’t have immunity to criminal prosecution” and procedure has so far been respected. Reznik also said that defense attorneys would be provided by the Bar Association to all the lawyers now in custody.
Commenting on today’s arrests, the legal advocacy organization Department One called them “absurd.” “Defense attorneys don’t take part in the activities of their clients, whatever those might be,” the organization wrote; “they ensure their right to defense, guaranteed by the federal Constitution.”
ACF lead attorney Vyacheslav Gimadi described the actions of the authorities as an attempt of intimidation. “The main goal of these searches and arrests is to intimidate Alexey Navalny’s lawyers, as well as other attorneys and the rest of the legal community and civil society, to make it impossible for defense lawyers to defend people,” said Gimadi in an interview with the ACF-founded media Sirena.
Navalny’s associates from ACF have linked the prosecution of the politician’s legal team with his upcoming transfer to a high-security penal colony. According to Ivan Zhdanov, steps are clearly being made to complete Navalny’s isolation from the rest of the world. On the eve of Navalny’s transfer to a still unknown location, former ACF chairman Leonid Volkov said that what’s taking place is “a dreadful step towards isolating him completely.”