As Kremlin critic is dragged to jail, he bravely blasts Putin’s... MOCKERY OF JUSTICE
WeSTeRN leaders rounded on Russia last night after Alexei Navalny was locked up for a month.
The Putin critic had returned home on Sunday, five months after being poisoned with the nerve agent novichok.
he was met at the plane by police, who accused him of violating the terms of a suspended sentence on what his supporters say are trumped-up charges.
After spending the night in a cell, without access to his lawyers, Mr Navalny was marched handcuffed into a makeshift courtroom yesterday. A judge ordered he be remanded in custody for 30 days.
Mr Navalny said the ruling was ‘a mockery of justice’ and urged Russians to take to the streets. The whole scene was ‘lawlessness of the highest degree’, he added.
Calls for his release came from the european Union, Washington DC and London.
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said: ‘It is appalling that Alexei Navalny, the victim of a despicable crime, has been detained by Russian authorities. he must be immediately released.
‘Rather than persecuting Mr Navalny, Russia should explain
‘Outrageous attack on his life’
how a chemical weapon came to be used on Russian soil.’
German foreign minister heiko Maas said the situation was ‘completely incomprehensible’.
european Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and US Presidentelect Joe Biden’s pick for national security adviser also called on Vladimir Putin’s government to free Mr Navalny. ‘ he should be immediately released, and the perpetrators of the outrageous attack on his life must be held accountable,’ Jake Sullivan tweeted.
Mr Navalny’s top strategist, Leonid Volkov, announced preparations for ‘large rallies’ on Saturday across Russia. ‘ Don’t be afraid, take to the streets,’ he said.
Mr Navalny said in a video statement released after the ruling was announced: ‘ Don’t come out for me, come out for yourselves and your future.’
his detention was widely expected because Russia’s prisons service said he had violated probation terms from a suspended sentence on a 2014 money-laundering conviction.
The service said it would seek to have Mr Navalny serve his threeand-a-half-year sentence behind bars, despite the charge having already been thrown out by the european Court of human Rights
Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said the Western response reflected an attempt ‘to divert attention from the crisis of the Western model of development’.
‘Navalny’s case has received a foreign policy dimension artificially and without any foundation,’ he insisted. ‘It’s a matter of observing the law.’
Mr Navalny, a 44-year-old father of two, flew to Moscow from Berlin, where he had spent five months recovering from the nerve agent attack that he blames on the Kremlin.
he was detained at passport control at Sheremetyevo airport.
Laboratories in Germany, France and Sweden, and tests by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, established that he was exposed to novichok, a Soviet- era weapon. Russian authorities claimed the doctors who treated Mr Navalny in Siberia found no traces of poison.
The prison service first accused
Mr Navalny of not appearing for probation checks on December 28 – two days before the probation period was supposed to end.
Mr Navalny said it was simply an attempt by the Kremlin to stop him coming back to Russia.
he said this would not prevent his return, pointing out that he did not leave the country by choice, but rather ‘ended up in Germany in an intensive care box’.