Russia's Supreme Court on Tuesday extended the pretrial detention of three lawyers who once represented the slain Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny and now face extremism charges. It also refused to transfer their cases to another court, despite allegations by defense lawyers of a conflict of interest.
Vadim Kobzev, Igor Sergunin and Alexei Liptser were arrested in October in a case that was seen at the time as a means of increasing pressure on the Kremlin's arch-enemy Navalny.
According to Navalny’s allies, the government accuses the lawyers of using their status as defenders to forward letters from the jailed politician to his team, thus acting as intermediaries between Navalny and what they call an “extremist group.”
Navalny’s organizations in Russia — the Anti-Corruption Foundation and its extensive network of regional offices — were banned and labeled extremist groups in 2021, a move that makes anyone involved with them subject to prosecution.
The three lawyers have petitioned the Supreme Court to move their case from a court in Russia's western Vladimir region, arguing the court may not be objective or neutral.
The defense argued that much of the prosecution evidence was gathered in police raids they said were illegal, and had been ordered by a high court in the same region — something they said was a conflict of interest.
They also allege that a court in Vladimir pressured Navalny's lawyers to reveal secret communications with him before the politician's death in February in a remote Arctic prison.
Navalny himself has served more than 30 years in prison, including on extremism charges related to his anti-corruption activism. He and his allies have dismissed the charges against him as politically motivated, and accused the Kremlin of trying to keep him in prison for life.
In February, Russian authorities also added two more of Navalny’s lawyers to the wanted list. One, Olga Mikhailova, who has defended the politician for a decade, said she had previously been charged in absentia with extremism after fleeing the country. Another lawyer, Alexander Fedulov, also said last year that he was no longer in Russia. (lt/ab)
