Navalny allegedly transferred from prison camp
There has been no trace of declared Putin opponent Alexei Navalny for a week now. He was supposed to be connected via video at a court hearing, but this never happened. Now a spokesperson has come forward with new information.
To the great concern of his team, there is still no contact with the imprisoned Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny. Navalny was not connected via video to a court hearing in the city of Kovrov on Tuesday either, his spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh wrote on the X news service. An employee of the IK-6 detention center had said that the prisoner had - literally - "left the colony". "Where they transferred him to, he allegedly doesn't know."
Yarmysh wrote that the authorities had at least backed away from the long-standing claim that Navalny could not be connected due to problems with the power supply in the camp. According to their assumption, the guards were allowed to say on Monday that the opponent of Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin was no longer in the camp in the Vladimir region east of Moscow.
There has been no sign of life from the opposition activist, who was sentenced to 19 years in prison, for a week. One of his lawyers, Alexei Tsvetkov, told Russian media that the last time he saw his client was last Tuesday. Since then, Tsvetkov has had no more information about Navalny's whereabouts. However, the lawyer did not rule out the possibility that the political prisoner had been transferred to another camp.
Navalny's wife Julija pointed out on Instagram that her husband had not been connected to the hearing in Kovrov via video on Monday. "The whereabouts of Alexei Navalny remain unknown," she wrote.
Kremlin: unable to track prisoners and their whereabouts
US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller again called for Navalny's release on Monday and blamed the Russian government for his fate. In Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov therefore accused the USA of interfering in internal Russian affairs. He did not comment on Navalny's whereabouts. "We have neither the intention nor the possibility to follow the fate of prisoners and their whereabouts in the relevant places," said Peskov.
Navalny's reputation as an opposition politician in Russia is based on his revelations of corruption in the ruling class and the organization of protests. However, he has also been criticized for earlier nationalist statements. In August 2020, Navalny narrowly survived an assassination attempt using the chemical agent Novichok. The Kremlin opponent blames Putin and the FSB domestic intelligence service for the attack.
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The Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, has refrained from commenting on Alexei Navalny's whereabouts, stating that they do not have the capability to track prisoners' whereabouts within Russian detention centers. Despite being transferred from the IK-6 detention center, Navalny's current location remains a mystery, as his wife, Julia, has not received any information about his whereabouts since the court hearing in Kovrov.
Source: www.ntv.de
