Three lawyers who represented the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny are on trial on charges of “extremism”.
Navalny was serving a 19-year sentence for leading an “extremist” group when he died in February under unclear circumstances in an Arctic prison.
Since his death, Russian authorities have intensified attacks on his supporters, allies and family, arresting journalists who covered his court hearings and adding his wife, Yulia Navalnaya, to a blacklist of “terrorists and extremists.”
The trial of the three lawyers – Vadim Kobzev, Alexei Liptzer and Igor Sergunin – began on Thursday at a court in the Vladimir region, east of Moscow.
The three men stood in metal cages for defendants at the start of the hearing, but then the judge granted the prosecution’s request to clear spectators and reporters from the hearing room.
The three, arrested in October 2023, are accused of joining an “extremist” organisation, a charge that could carry a prison sentence of up to six years.
Investigators say the lawyers exchanged messages between Navalny and his associates outside the prison, helping the Kremlin critic continue his illegal political activity from behind bars.
At the time, Navalny’s team argued the arrests of his lawyers were an attempt to further isolate Navalny in prison, where he has spent most of his time in solitary confinement.
Independent media reported that during a pre-trial hearing, Sergunin pleaded guilty, while Kobzev and Liptzer denied the charges.
The Kremlin has denied accusations by Navalny’s allies that President Vladimir Putin ordered his murder in prison.
At the time of Navalny’s death, Western countries and Moscow were in talks about his release through a prisoner swap.
The charismatic opposition leader, a Kremlin opponent for more than a decade and who rallied tens of thousands of supporters to anti-government street protests, was nearly killed by poisoning while campaigning in Siberia ahead of local elections in 2020. Investigations by Navalny’s team and Western and Russian media blamed the assassination attempt on FSB agents.
Most of his former allies, as well as his wife, who had vowed to carry on his work, live in exile.
