ECHR orders Russia to pay 40,000 euros to opposition politician Alexey Navalny for refusal to investigate 2020 poisoning

The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that the Russian authorities violated opposition politician Alexey Navalny’s rights by refusing to investigate his poisoning in 2020.

According to the court, Russia violated Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects the right to life. The body ordered the Russian government to pay Navalny 40,000 euros ($42,747) in compensation.

“The applicant complained about the Russian authorities’ refusal to institute criminal proceedings in respect of his attempted murder. He alleged that he had been poisoned with a chemical agent which only the State security services had had access to, and complained that the Russian authorities had failed to conduct an effective investigation,” read the court’s ruling.

In August 2020, Alexey Navalny fell ill while on a flight from Tomsk to Moscow. He was initially taken to a hospital in Omsk, but two days later, after falling into a coma, he was evacuated to a hospital in Berlin. In September, the German government announced that German doctors believed he had been poisoned with a substance from the Novichok group of poisons.

Bellingcat and The Insider have concluded that a team from Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) was responsible for the poisoning. Later, Navalny published a recording of a conversation he had with one of the agents responsible for the poisoning in which the man effectively admits to his role.