The Khimki court, which held a meeting at the police department, chose a preventive measure for Alexei Navalny in the form of 30 days of arrest. The Khimki city court at the suit of the Federal Penitentiary Service arrested opposition leader Alexei Navalny for 30 days, until February 15. The off-site court session was held in the 2nd department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Khimki. Mr. Navalny was taken there on January 17 after being detained at Sheremetyevo. The representative of the Ministry of Internal Affairs announced multiple violations of the conditions of the probationary period and asked to arrest Alexei Navalny for 30 days. The judge Elena Morozova granted this request. Mr. Navalny said that he was taken out of his cell to a meeting with lawyers, but was brought to a session of the Khimki court, where the issue of taking him into custody was considered. The Ministry of Internal Affairs explained the need for the offsite meeting by the fact that the oppositionist did not have an up-to-date coronavirus test result. At the same time, the assistant to the chairman of the Khimki city court said that it was decided to hold a meeting in the police department so that “journalists were present”. About 200 people came to the police station. On January 17, FSIN officers detained Alexei Navalny at the Sheremetyevo passport control, where he flew from Berlin after treatment and rehabilitation after alleged poisoning. The Federal Penitentiary Service announced that the oppositionist has been on the wanted list since December 29 "for multiple violations of the probationary period" in the case of embezzlement in the Yves Rocher company. Navalny was formally detained, not arrested Oppositionist, founder of the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK; included in the register of “foreign agents”) Alexei Navalny is formally in the status of a detained, not arrested, follows from the text of the decision of the Khimki City Court. It was posted by FBK director Ivan Zhdanov on Facebook. The document says that it was decided to "extend the term of the politician's detention to 30 days, that is, until February 15th." The judge extended the term of the politician's detention on the basis of Art. 46 of the PEC, as well as Art. 396, 397 and 399 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. These norms do not say anything about the detention of a conditionally convicted person in connection with evasion of punishment. The PEC article regulates the liability of a convicted person to correctional labor. Articles of the Criminal Procedure Code deal with other issues of execution of the sentence. “All these articles are in the public domain, and everyone can make sure that they have no right to either put a suspended convict into custody (as requested by the police), or extend the term of detention, as the court did,” Mr. Zhdanov wrote. “There is still no confirmation that Navalny was placed in Matrosskaya Tishina. But most likely there,” the FBK director added. Khodorkovsky compared Navalny's arrest to his detention in 2003 Former Yukos owner Mikhail Khodorkovsky, in an interview with Reuters, compared the arrest of opposition leader Alexei Navalny to his own arrest in 2003. In his opinion, the oppositionist could face up to 10 years in prison, and much depends on how the Russian society reacts to the arrest. “Navalny's arrest was similar to my arrest in 2003. He courageously decided that he had to return, like me,” he said. Mr. Khodorovsky added that he would like to believe that Alexei Navalny will be released, but in reality everything could be much worse. Mikhail Khodorkovsky was arrested on October 25, 2003. He believes that Western countries, if they want to have some kind of influence on the Kremlin after the arrest of Alexei Navalny, should act more than talk. In his opinion, Western leaders should impose sanctions against a number of Russians who are involved in the expansion of the Russian corruption network around the world, rather than targeting Nord Stream 2.


Author: Anna Dorozhkina

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