Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was rushed to a makeshift courtroom on Monday, just a day after his arrest at a Moscow airport. The court session was set up at the police station in Khimki, on the outskirts of the Russian capital.
Navalny's aide accused authorities of denying him access to his lawyers, saying he was notified at the last minute of the makeshift hearing.
The judge handed Navalny a sentence of 30 days in prison.
"I've seen a lot of mockery of justice... but they have ripped up and thrown away" Russia's criminal code, Navalny said in a video of the proceedings that was released by his team.
"This is impossible. It's ultimate lawlessness," the 44-year-old added.
Navalny called on Russians to join him in protesting the government, in a video posted on YouTube from the police station.
"Do not be silent. Resist. Take to the streets," he said. "Don't go out for me, go out for yourself and your future," the anti-corruption activist added.
Some 200 hundred Navalny supporters gathered outside the police station to demand his release, Reuters reported.
DW's Moscow correspondent Emily Sherwin said it was noteworthy that Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov had initially said he was unaware of the circumstances of the arrest.
"That's of course in keeping with the Kremlin's general policy to downplay the importance of Alexei Navalny here in Russia and on the international stage," said Sherwin. "In fact, Vladimir Putin has never actually referred to Alexei Navalny using his name. He always refers to him as 'the blogger,' and also more recently as 'the Berlin patient.'"
However, according to Vladimir Ashurkov, executive director of the Anti-Corruption Foundation and a friend of Navalny, the Kremlin feels threatened by the opposition leader's versatility.
"He can play on different chessboards, he can organize mass protests, he can build an effective organization," Ashurkov told DW. "He has gained his fame in investigations of corruption in large state-owned companies and among government officials. So he is quite versatile and he has proven that his resolve is really unrivaled."
Merkel: Navalny's case 'weighs' on relations
Navalny was arrested on Sunday, as he was returning home from a months-long stay in Berlin. He was flown to Germany for treatment at the city's Charite Hospital, suffering from what the German government determined to be poisoning with a Novichok nerve agent.
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Who is Alexei Navalny?
Face of Russia's opposition
The lawyer-turned-political campaigner has been among the most prominent figures of Russia's opposition to President Vladimir Putin. Navalny came to prominence in 2008, when his blog exposing malpractice in Russian politics and among the country's major state-owned companies came to public attention. Revelations published on his blog even led to resignations, a rarity in Russian politics.
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Who is Alexei Navalny?
Disputed parliamentary elections
In 2011 Navalny was arrested for the first time. He ended up spending 15 days in prison for his role at a rally outside the State Duma in Moscow. A recent parliamentary election victory for Putin's United Russia had been marred by instances of ballot stuffing, reported by demonstrators on social media. Upon his release, Navalny pledged to continue the protest movement.
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Who is Alexei Navalny?
Second jail term
After being reelected president in 2012, Putin ordered Russia's Investigative Committee to launch a criminal inquiry into Navalny's past. The following year the campaigner was charged and sentenced again, this time for five years, for alleged embezzlement in the city of Kirov. However, he was released the following day pending affirmation from a higher court. The sentence was later suspended.
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Who is Alexei Navalny?
Anti-Kremlin platform grows
Despite being embroiled in legal troubles, Navalny was allowed to run in the 2013 Moscow mayoral election. A second-place finish behind Putin ally Sergei Sobyanin was seen as an overwhelming success and galvanized the Russian opposition movement.
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Who is Alexei Navalny?
Navalny takes to social media
His anti-Kremlin rhetoric led Navalny to be banned from appearing on Russian state-owned television. That forced him to deliver his political message over social media and his blog. His talent for public speaking, punchy use of language and humorous mockery of Putin and his loyalists mobilized a legion of young followers.
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Who is Alexei Navalny?
Presidential ambitions
In December 2016, the opposition leader announced the formal start of his campaign to run for the Russian presidency in March 2018. However, repeated accusations of corruption, which his supporters say are politically motivated, ultimately barred him from running for public office.
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Who is Alexei Navalny?
Convicted of corruption
In 2016 the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Russia had violated Navalny's right to a fair trial in the Kirov case. Although Russia's Supreme Court overturned the five-year sentence, the verdict was sent back to the Kirov court. In 2017, this court again handed Navalny a suspended five-year sentence.
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Who is Alexei Navalny?
Moscow's biggest protests in 6 years
In February 2017, anti-corruption rallies across dozens of Russian cities led to the arrests of over 1,000 demonstrators, including Navalny. The protests, believed to have been the largest in the Russian capital since 2012, were spurred by a report published by Navalny linking Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev to a property empire valued at billions of euros. Navalny was released 15 days later.
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Who is Alexei Navalny?
Physically assaulted
Navalny was assaulted and hospitalized in April 2017 after being hit in the eye with a chemical green dye. The attack permanently damaged his right cornea. Navalny accused Russian authorities of stopping him from seeking medical treatment abroad due to the embezzlement conviction against him. He was eventually permitted by the Kremlin human rights council to travel to Spain for eye surgery.
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Who is Alexei Navalny?
Repeated arrests
In 2018, Navalny was jailed for 30 days. After his release in September, he faced another 20-day stint. In April 2019, the European Court of Human Rights ruled Russia had violated Navalny's rights by holding him under house arrest for most of 2014 during the Kirov embezzlement case.
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Who is Alexei Navalny?
Alleged poisoning
In July 2019, only weeks after being released from a 10-day jail sentence, Navalny was again jailed for 30 days for violating Russia's strict protest laws. The opposition leader accused Russia of poisoning him with an allergic agent while in jail.
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Who is Alexei Navalny?
Raids and frozen assets
Using YouTube and social media, Navalny had amassed a following of millions by late December 2019. Then police raided his Anti-Corruption Foundation headquarters (above), detaining him in the process. His staff said officials wanted to confiscate their tech equipment. Just a few months later, in March, Navalny reported that his bank accounts and those of his family members had been frozen.
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Who is Alexei Navalny?
A plane — and a coma
On August 20, Navalny's spokesperson announced the activist became violently ill during a flight from Siberia to Moscow. The plane made an emergency landing, and Navalny was rushed to a hospital in Russia's Omsk and later evacuated to Berlin's Charite clinic (above). Doctors said he was in a coma. Navalny's associates claimed he had been poisoned and pointed to previous attacks on the activist.
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Who is Alexei Navalny?
Back from the brink
Navalny was taken out of the coma less than three weeks later and was said to be responsive. Not long afterwards, he was posting on Instagram, saying he was slowly regaining strength following weeks of only being "technically alive." The German government said labs in France and Sweden both confirmed that Navalny had been poisoned with the Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok.
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Who is Alexei Navalny?
A smoking gun?
Months later, Navalny released the recording of a phone call he made to a man he said was a member of Russia's Federal Security Service, whose headquarters is pictured above. The alleged agent said he was not directly involved in poisoning Navalny, but deeply involved with efforts to clean up any traces of Novichok. Moscow dismissed the recording as fake.
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Who is Alexei Navalny?
Return, arrest, and trial
Navalny had promised to return to Russia and he did so, despite warnings that he would be arrested. He was taken into police custody shortly after arriving in Moscow. The dissident, seen here at a passport control point, had said he was "not afraid of anything." He was sentenced to 30 days in prison at a swiftly convened trial the following day.
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Who is Alexei Navalny?
Conviction and sentencing
Navalny was ordered to spend two years and eight months in a penal colony for violating terms of his probation while recovering in Germany from his poisoning. He dismissed the proceedings an attempt by the Kremlin to scare Russians into submission.
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Who is Alexei Navalny?
Ruling sparks unrest in Russia
Navalny supporters took to the streets soon after the prison sentence was announced. Navalny's aides called for a rally in Moscow's Manezhnaya Square, which was blocked off by riot police.
Author: David Martin
German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday decried Navalny's "arbitrary" arrest.
"The chancellor condemns the arbitrary arrest of Mr. Navalny... which violates the principles of the rule of law," Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert told reporters, saying Germany called on Russia "to release Mr. Navalny immediately."
Seibert said Russia had arrested the "victim" of "attempted murder with chemical weapons" and "not the perpetrator."
Merkel had "repeatedly" noted that Russia's treatment of Navalny "weighed on" relations between Berlin and Moscow, Seibert added.
Charged with fraud
Russian authorities have said Navalny was detained for violating the terms of a suspended sentence he was given in 2014 on fraud charges. Critics view the proceedings as a pretense designed to prevent him from running for office in future elections. Monday's hearing's nominal goal was to decide whether he had violated the terms of that suspended sentence.
The leading opposition figure also faces the threat of fresh charges, as part of an investigation launched last year, that he misappropriated political donations.
Nevertheless, Navalny insisted on returning to Russiaafter receiving medical treatment for his poisoning in Germany. Russia is set to hold elections later this year.
International outcry
His detention has been widely condemned internationally, with German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas calling it "totally incomprehensible" and Britain's Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, saying it was "appalling."
Jake Sullivan, US President-elect Joe Biden's national security adviser, has criticized Moscow for arresting Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, calling the Russian politician's arrest "not just a violation of human rights, but an affront to the Russian people who want their voices heard."
"Mr. Navalny should be immediately released, and the perpetrators of the outrageous attack on his life must be held accountable," Jake Sullivan wrote on Twitter.
Baltic states responded even more sternly. Lithuania's Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis called for EU sanctions against Moscow.
"The detention of the opposition leader and poisoning survivor Alexei Navalny is totally unacceptable. The EU should discuss further sanctions on those involved," Landsbergis told AFP news agency.
European Union members Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia also called for the "imposition of restrictive measures" against Russia.
jcg/msh (dpa, AFP)
