Navalny’s brother, aide arrested in raids

MOSCOW: Police in Moscow detained Oleg Navalny, the brother of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, and searched the homes of the opposition politician’s associates and other properties linked to him yesterday, his allies said.

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets on Sunday to demand that the Kremlin release Alexei Navalny from jail, where he is serving a 30day stint for alleged parole violations, which he denies.

Police had said the protests were illegal and OVDInfo, a monitoring group, said officers had detained close to 4000 people. More protests are planned.

Ivan Zhdanov, director of Alexei Navalny’s AntiCorruption Foundation, tweeted that Oleg Navalny had been in his brother’s apartment as it was being searched.

Oleg Navalny was released from prison in 2018 after serving three and ahalf years for an embezzlement conviction that critics say was designed to put pressure on his brother Alexei and smother dissent.

Zhdanov said police appeared to be conducting the searches as part of an investigation into calls to hold protests, which breached social distancing restrictions imposed because of Covid19.

‘‘They started breaking down the door,’’ he tweeted.

Zhdanov later said Oleg Navalny would remain in police custody for 48 hours on suspicion of violating sanitary and epidemiological regulations.

The Interior Ministry said in a statement earlier yesterday it had opened criminal cases against some of the participants in last week’s protests.

It did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the searches.

Zhdanov later added that police had detained Ilya Pakhomov, an aide to Alexei Navalny, outside the opposition politician’s apartment.

Zhdanov also posted video taken at another apartment showing Yulia Navalnaya, Alexei Navalny’s wife, telling police to wait for her lawyer to arrive as they banged loudly at the door.

Navalnaya’s lawyer, Veronika Polyakova, was allowed inside the apartment by police after standing outside the door for several hours. — Reuters

PHOTO: REUTERS Raids . . . Law enforcement officers leave a property of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny during a raid in Moscow, Russia, yesterday.