Russia’s federal prison service has given the Kremlin criticism of Alexey Navalny one day for reporting to his office or facing jail time.
MOSCOW – Russian federal prison service on Monday gave top critic Alexei Navalny a day to report to his office or face jail time if he returns to Russia after the deadline.
Navalny is recovering in Germany after being poisoned by a nerve in August, which he blamed on the Kremlin. Russian authorities have denied involvement.
The Federal Penitentiary Service issued a statement on Monday stating that an article published by doctors at Berlin’s Charite Hospital and in the medical journal The Lancet indicated that Navalny had fully recovered.
The prison service demanded that Navalny report to his office in accordance with the terms of a suspended 3 1/2 year sentence he received for a 2014 conviction. If he misses the deadline, he could be arrested, the statement said.
Navalny lawyer Vadal Kobzev tweeted that the agency had told the politician to show up at his office on Tuesday morning. Navalny, who had previously said he intended to return to Russia as soon as he fully recovered, mocked the claim, saying the Federal Penitentiary Service’s reference to the article in The Lancet meant the government accepted that he is poisoned.
“This means that the state has officially acknowledged the poisoning,” he tweeted. “And where is the criminal case then?”
Navalny fell into a coma on August 20 while on board a domestic flight from Siberia to Moscow. Labs in Germany, France and Sweden, and tests by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, found that he was exposed to a Soviet era of the Novichok nerve.
Russian authorities have insisted that doctors who treated Navalny in Siberia before he was transported to Germany found no trace of poison and challenged German officials to provide evidence of his poisoning. They refused to institute a full-fledged criminal investigation, citing the lack of evidence that Navalny was poisoned.
The European Union has imposed sanctions on six Russian officials and a state-run research institute after tests by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons concluded that Navalny was exposed to Novichok. Russia has hit back with its own sanctions against EU officials.
Last week, Navalny released the recording of a phone call he said he made to a man he described as a suspected member of a group of Federal Security Service (FSB) officers, who allegedly August poisoned and then tried to cover. on.
Navalny made the call hours before investigative group Bellingcat released a report alleging that FSB employees with specialized training in chemical weapons had been following him for years and that he was in the immediate area when he was poisoned.
Navalny introduced himself as a security officer and seduced his interlocutor into sharing the details of the alleged poisoning operation, admitting that he was involved in the “processing” of Navalny’s underwear so that there would be no traces of poison.
The FSB dismissed the survey released by Navalny as false.