The Russian opponent Alexei Navalny is persecuted by the regime’s justice system even in jail. Russia imprisoned him in 2021 for a case of fraud opened years ago, then increased the sentence for an episode of contempt during the trial and now wants to imprison him accusing him of being involved in terrorist acts while he was in prison.

Articles on organization and financing of extremism are attributed to him. Navalny, who is currently serving an 11-year sentence, has appeared today at a court hearing. In the images distributed by videoconference, the physical deterioration of Navalny, who has lost eight kilos of weight, is evident. Now he denounces that he faces 30 more years in prison after a new process has been opened against him: this time for terrorism. Russian agencies speak of 15 years. He is being tried for extremism and from his environment they do not rule out “that they are slowly poisoning him. They kill him little by little so that he does not attract so much attention,” lamented Kira Yarsmish, opposition spokesperson, in a video posted on Twitter.

Navalny was already intoxicated in Siberia in August 2020 with the Novichok nerve agent. The Kremlin denied being behind that attack. The following year he returned to Russia after receiving medical treatment in Germany and was imprisoned by Russian justice as soon as he passed passport control.

Moscow’s Basmanny District Court gave Alexei Navalny 10 days to get acquainted with the “extremism” case brought against him, a Mediazona correspondent reports from the courtroom. The deadline to review the case materials is May 5, and the documentation spans 196 volumes.

This month Russian investigators formally linked Navalny’s supporters to the murder of Vladlen Tatarsky, a popular military propagandist and supporter of the invasion of Ukraine, who was killed by a bomb in St. Petersburg.

Navalny has denounced that it is absurd to argue that he has committed terrorist crimes while in prison. The case would be tried by a military court. So far 11 people have been included in an “international wanted list” in a process related to Navalny’s opposition work, reports the TASS news agency. Navalny’s allies have denied any connection to the murder.

Navalny denounces that the criminal case on “extremism”, which began to be considered by the Moscow Basmanny Court, the “terrorism case” was separated into a separate proceeding to be considered by the military court. “I’m facing 30 years in this case, apparently life in the next one,” the politician said.

Yevgeni Roizman, a prominent Kremlin critic and popular former mayor, appeared on trial Wednesday on charges of discrediting the Russian military over the offensive in Ukraine. He faces up to five years in prison if convicted.

The opponent pleaded “not guilty” before Judge Nikolai Taranenko. The former mayor was arrested in Yekaterinburg in August last year, after which he was accused of “public actions aimed at discrediting the use of the Russian Armed Forces”, an offense under the Criminal Code. The opponent has repeatedly spoken out against the Russian military campaign, for which he has already been fined. This time the alleged crime occurred in July of last year, when during a video broadcast he made comments that sought to convince the public of the “negative nature of the objectives of the deployment of the Armed Forces” in Ukraine, according to the investigation. His words were: “The war with Ukraine is terrible, foolish, useless, it is the most infamous, shameful and unjust war in Russian history.”

Roizman became the most prominent opposition mayor in the country in 2013. He remained for five years in office in Yekaterinburg, a city in the Urals. He campaigned against police corruption and drug trafficking. He had to leave the city council in 2018 after the Kremlin canceled the direct elections to the council, which prevented him from running for re-election.

Most of the opponents have left or are in jail. Roizman remains popular and maintains a close relationship with opposition leader Alexei Navalny. “I have no illusions,” Roizman declared last year in an interview with AFP. “But I’m not afraid either.”

According to the criteria of The Trust Project