Russian opponent Alexei Navalny will serve his sentence in Vladimir prison, 200 kilometers from Moscow

The main opponent of the Kremlin, Alexei Navalny, arrived this Sunday in an area 200 kilometers east of Moscow to be admitted to a penal colony where he will serve his sentence, a public body said on Sunday.

“Alexei Navalny arrived at a Russian prison service establishment of the Vladimir region, to carry out his sentence, ”the Moscow State Supervisory Commission (ONK) said in a statement.

ONK Secretary General Alexei Melnikov told Russian Interfax news agency that Navalny would first be quarantined before being transferred to one of the prisons in the region.

Navalny will be transferred to penal colony number 2 located in the small town of Pokrov, Vladimir region, in European Russia, said sources interviewed by news agencies TASS and Ria Novosti.

This detention center, with a capacity of 800 detainees, is under “normal regime”, that is to say the conditions of detention are less severe than in other prisons, the media said.

As in the days of the former Soviet Union, most prison terms in Russia are served in prison camps which are sometimes far from it all.. The work of prisoners, usually in sewing or furniture workshops, is often compulsory.

Those convicted in this country are usually transferred for days or weeks in special wagons, a process known as “stagingAnd that he is strongly criticized by human rights defenders for his lack of humanity. The transfer can take weeks or even months, since the distances in Russia can be thousands of kilometers, for which inmates make stops and posts in special preventive prisons spread throughout the national penitentiary geography.

During this process, detainees remain incommunicado, while the law does not require authorities to inform families of their whereabouts until they reach their new destination.

Last Friday, the head of the Russian prison service, Alexander Kalashnikov, announced that Navalny had already been relocated. “He has been transferred to where he should be found by court order,” Kalashnikok said.

“No threat to his life or his health” weighs on the main adversary of the country, he added. Navalny “will discharge his sentence under absolutely normal conditions,” he said, adding that “if he wishes, he will participate in production activities”.

On Thursday, lawyers and members of Navalny’s family announced his release from the Moscow detention center where he had been held since his arrest.

The European Union announced this week that it will adopt new sanctions against Russia for the sentencing of Navalni, who was poisoned in August 2020 in Siberia with the chemical agent Novichok, after which he was in a coma for two weeks. and a half in a German. clinical.

Navalni accuses Russian President Vladimir Putin of having ordered the Federal Security Service (FSB, former KGB) to assassinate him.

Russian justice last week confirmed the conviction of the 44-year-old anti-corruption activist in a 2014 fraud case that he, as well as many Western capitals and NGOs, denounce as a politician.

Navalny was arrested on January 17 upon his return from Germany, where he had spent nearly five months recovering from a poisoning he accuses the Kremlin of causing. The activist was also fined for “defamation” and is awaiting new trials and an investigation for fraud, punishable by ten years in prison.

(With information from AFP and EFE)

MORE ON THIS TOPIC: