LONDON (Reuters) -Three lawyers for the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny were found guilty on Friday of belonging to an extremist group by a Russian court and sentenced to between 3 1/2 and 5 1/2 years, the Mediazona news outlet reported.
Vadim Kobzev, Igor Sergunin and Alexei Liptser were arrested in October 2023 and added the following month to an official list of “terrorists and extremists”.
Navalny, who died suddenly in an Arctic penal colony in February last year, was himself convicted of extremism and other charges, all of which he denied. His wife Yulia Navalnaya has described the lawyers as political prisoners and said they were arrested for simply doing their job.
The Kremlin says it does not comment on individual court cases, but authorities have cast Navalny and his supporters as Western-backed traitors seeking to destabilise Russia.
Mediazona said Sergunin was sentenced to three and a half years in a penal colony. Liptser got five years, and Kobzev five and a half.
Their trial was conducted behind closed doors.
(Reporting by Reuters, writing by Mark TrevelyanEditing by Andrew Osborn)
Comments