Judge who regretted jailing me has since died, claims Navalny

THE Russian judge who sent Alexei Navalny to prison died in suspicious circumstances soon after saying she regretted it, the dissident has claimed.

Mr Navalny, 45, who was nearly killed by Novichok poisoning in 2020, made the allegation during an appeal hearing yesterday moments before a Moscow court ordered the Kremlin critic to be sent to a high-security prison for nine years.

In a rare public appearance, Mr Navalny said Natalya Repnikova – who jailed him in February 2021 –had passed on a message through friends in which she said she was “sorry about her decision and her part in it and that she thought I was a brave man”.

“Shortly after that she died of Covid,” Mr Navalny said, according to the Russian media outlet Mediazona.