The court denied Alexei Navalny admission to the meeting of another lawyer – Vladimir Voronin. The reason is that Voronin is the defender of Lilia Chanysheva, the former coordinator of Navalny’s headquarters * in Ufa, who is accused of extremism.
Despite the fact that the opposition politician is accused of contempt of court and fraud, the court considered that the cases of Chanysheva and Navalny are connected, which means that Voronin cannot defend the politician. It is reported by “Mediazona” **.
The lawyer Vladimir Voronin himself is at the walls of IK-2, where an off-site session of the Lefortovo court is being held. The judge clarified that Voronin was informed in advance that he would not be able to enter the case.
“I want to draw the attention of the court and the representative of the prosecution that these are different cases. If we say that the law is the law. There is a certain criminal case on extremism – which I know about from the press releases of the Investigative Committee. I am not a suspect, not an accused there, some people are being interrogated. It has nothing to do with this process. There is not the slightest reason not to allow Voronin. We spend a lot of time on a technical question, what is the principled position? Given the fact that we are holding our meetings in rather exotic circumstances,” Navalny said.
Lawyer Olga Mikhailova said that there was “extra-procedural communication between the court and the investigator, who had already completed the investigation in this case, but had not completed the extremism case.”
The defense policy laments other restrictions as well. Thus, they were not allowed to bring equipment with case materials into the courtroom under the threat of not being admitted to the meeting. The prosecution stated that the seizure of equipment from lawyers does not violate Navalny’s rights, because there are special rules of the colony: the prosecution is also without equipment. The investigator says that “this is a purely technical issue.” Navalny, on the other hand, believes that this is not a technical issue, because his right to interrogate witnesses and rely on the case is violated.
A criminal case on fraud with the money of FBK donors was initiated at the end of 2020. The TFR then reported that the case had been opened against Navalny “and other persons.” The investigation believes that the oppositionist was the actual head of a number of organizations, including the FBK, to whose accounts more than 588 million rubles were received as donations. Of these funds, according to investigators, Navalny “spent 356 million rubles for personal purposes,” namely, “acquisition of personal property, material assets and payment for vacations abroad.”
The day before, Navalny’s team, referring to the case file, reported that the total amount of embezzlement that Navalny is charged with is 2,693,503 rubles. In the releases of the TFR, this amount was never mentioned.
Navalny himself said that the fraud case was “totally fabricated.” The politician has repeatedly stressed that he never spent the fund’s funds on personal needs.
A criminal case of contempt of court was initiated as a result of the trial of insulting veteran Ignat Artemenko. The reason for initiating the case was that during the trial, Navalny repeatedly got into a skirmish with the judge, which the state prosecutor considered contempt of court.
The lawyers also focused on the fact that Navalny is being tried in a prison uniform, and not in civilian clothes, and because of this, he a priori develops the image of a criminal. “I don’t understand why I should be judged in a robe? I am the only such person in Russia, and I am tired of this robe. But that’s not the point, they keep me in a robe, because they need to show me on TV in a baggy robe. I have civilian clothes. I don’t need a sequined tailcoat. T-shirts and jeans will be enough,” Navalny said.
