Opposition leader refuses to submit to special police interrogation in defamation case

The Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny has refused to testify during a special police interrogation in connection with defamation charges against him. Navalny says he won't participate in an ochnaya stavka (an investigative procedure where a suspect meets their accusers and their statements are read to each other) with Vitaly Ruvinsky, the online editor of the independent radio station Echo of Moscow. 

Navalny's lawyer, Vadim Kobze, told the news agency Interfax that he considers the ochnaya stavka to be illegal, given that Navalny has yet to enter any testimony or present any evidence in the investigation. “Therefore, [Navalny's statement] cannot be in conflict with anyone else's testimony,” Kobze explained, arguing that the grounds to stage the special interrogation are absent.

According to Ruvinsky, whom police have named a witness in the case against Navalny, investigators already called him in for an ochnaya stavka and asked him the same questions they've asked twice before, focusing specifically on the operations of Echo's blog portal.

On July 14, investigators questioned Navalny in connection with defamation charges brought against him by former Interior Ministry investigator Pavel Karpov (one of the Russian officials implicated in the murder of Sergei Magnitsky). After the interrogation, Navalny's lawyer complained that his client is still unsure why exactly Karpov is suing, except that it apparently involves content published on Echo of Moscow's website.