Moscow – Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny, who was Detained immediately on his return on Sunday to Moscow after recovering from nerve agent poisoning, was brought before a judge at a police station on Monday morning instead of a normal courtroom, for a trial his lawyers did not have time to prepare. The judge accepted the request of the Russian police to accept Navalny for 30 days in custody.
Navalny dismissed the proceedings as a mockery of justice, criticized President Vladimir Putin’s twenty-year rule and called on his supporters in Russia to take up the protest.
“Do not be afraid,” he said in a video posted on one of his official YouTube channels. “Do not be silent. Resist. Take the streets. No one but ourselves will protect us, and there are so many of us that if we want to achieve something, we will achieve it.”
The video message was recorded in the same room of a police station on the outskirts of Moscow where the improvisation took place earlier. Navalny’s lawyers are not allowed to see the politician before the trial, and they have learned that this would soon happen just minutes before it started.
The judge gave Navalny’s defense team 30 minutes to familiarize themselves with the case material and another 20 minutes to communicate with their client.
“I’ve seen a lot of ridicule of justice … But it’s impossible what’s happening now,” Navalny said in a separate mobile phone video his press secretary posted on Twitter ahead of the surprise trial. “This is the highest degree of lawlessness.”
When the trial resumed, Russian police asked the court to formally arrest Navalny for 30 days, and the judge granted the request. Navalny’s legal team confirmed that a trial was scheduled for February 2 for Navalny to face the charges on which he was officially detained – for violating the parole conditions of a previous suspended sentence.
International shouted
Navalny’s arrest began immediately European condemnation and U.S. officials, and the United Nations.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called for the Russian dissident’s “immediate and unconditional release” in a statement issued Sunday, calling his detention “the latest in a series of attempts to silence Navalny and other opposition figures. to make.”
Elected US Security Adviser Joe Biden’s National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan also called for immediate release of Navalny.
“The perpetrators of the outrageous attack on his life must be held accountable,” Sullivan said. “The Kremlin’s attacks on Mr Navalny are not just a violation of human rights, but an insult to the Russian people who want their voices heard.”
In London, Foreign Minister Dominic Raab said Russia should explain how Navalny was attacked on a flight inside Russia with a chemical weapon.
“It is appalling that Alexei Navalny, the victim of a despicable crime, has been detained by Russian authorities. He should be released immediately,” Raab said. “Instead of prosecuting Mr Navalny, Russia should explain how a chemical weapon was used on Russian soil.”
Russian authorities have defended his arrest, and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov took a thin veil over Washington on Monday for criticizing his country’s handling of lawsuits amid what he called a “crisis” in the West. democracy was.
“This allows Western politicians to think that they can draw attention to the deepest crisis in the liberal development model,” Lavrov told reporters in response to criticism from Washington and Europe.
Navalny announced his plan to return from Berlin last week, despite the fact that a new criminal case was recently opened against him on charges of fraud. Days earlier, the Russian prison authorities had also asked a court to replace Navalny’s suspended sentence of three and a half years with a new prison sentence.
He would have known the risks, but on the plane he said it was his ‘best day in five months’ because he was going home.
Navalny’s supporters in the Russian opposition reject all legal threats against him as fabricated political persecution.
The Kremlin’s fiercest critic became violently ill five months ago on a domestic flight. After a few days of treatment in Siberia, he was finally transported in a coma to Berlin, where toxicological reports confirmed that he had been poisoned with the same type of Novichok nerve agent used in an attack on a former Russian double agent. England was used in 2018.
In a interview with “60 minutes” correspondent Lesley Stahl, Navalny blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin for his poisoning.
“I do not think so,” he said. “I’m sure he’s responsible.”
The Kremlin has denied any involvement.
Navanly was traveling with his wife and a team of allies on Sunday when he returned to Moscow. The other may go freely through border control, where Navalny was arrested after giving his wife goodbye.
CBS News’ Charlie D’Agata and Tucker Reals contributed to this report.