Russia keeps Alexei Navalny prison a secret: “He has been transferred to where he should be”

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny transferred to a penal colony where he is to serve a two-and-a-half-year sentencethe head of Russian prisons announced this Friday.

“He was transferred to the place where he was to be found by court order,” said Alexander Kalashnikov, quoted by Russian news agencies, adding that the opponent had not “No threat to his life or health.”

The adversary “He will serve his sentence under absolutely normal conditions”, he said, indicating that “Mr. Navalny, if he wishes, will participate in the production activities ”.

A legacy of the Soviet Union, most prison sentences in Russia are served in prisons that are sometimes far from everything. Prisoners are often forced to work in sewing or furniture-making workshops, for example.

A spokeswoman for the Russian prison service FSIN told the news agency AFP that he was unable to provide details of Navalny’s place of detention because he was not allowed to reveal personal data about the detainees.

For his part, the opponent’s lawyer, Vadim Kobzev, told AFP that you weren’t aware of your client’s location.

Russian justice last week upheld the verdict against the 44-year-old opponent in a fraud case in 2014, What Navalny, several countries and NGOs consider it political.

The anti-corruption activist was arrested on January 17 on his return from Germany, where he stayed five months to recover from poisoning he attributes to the Kremlin but that he denies. In addition, in another case he was fined for “defamation”.

His arrest resulted in imajor protests in Russia, resulting in more than 11,000 arrests.

Most of the opponent’s collaborators were arrested.

This week, the NGO Amnesty International decided stop seeing the adversary as a “prisoner of conscience” for some people hate statements he has done so in the past, although he continues to demand his release.

In the 2000s, Navalny was doing racist comments primarily criticizing migrants from Central Asia or Russian Muslim republics. Although he gave up on that speech, he never apologized for it.

(With information from AFP)

MORE ON THIS TOPIC: