By Deutsche Welle
Dec 11, 2023, 3:41 PM EST
His lawyers went on Friday and then on Monday to “two penal colonies in the Vladimir region [este de Moscú] where Alexei Navalny could be,” but they were told “it wasn’t there,” said spokesperson Kira Iarmich.
One of these prisons indicated that the opponent “no longer appears in their records”refusing to say “where he had been transferred,” wrote “Iarmich” on the social network
The opponent did not participate in a court hearing in which he was supposed to appear by videoconference, according to authorities due to an electrical problem. “They are laughing at us,” the spokeswoman said.
Is Navalny being taken to a “special regime” prison?
Until now Navalny was detained in the Vladimir region. After a new sentence of 19 years in prison for “extremism”, pronounced in August, he had to be transferred to a “special regime” penal colony.
Transfers from one penal colony to another in Russia often require several weeks of travel by train with several stages and the relatives of the prisoners remain without news during this period.
“Special regime” colonies, that is, establishments with the harshest detention conditions in the Russian penitentiary system, are often located in very isolated regions.
Navalni, 47, was arrested in January 2021 and has been in prison for almost three years with more or less strict detention conditions.
The White House: “We are deeply concerned”
The White House expressed concern on Monday after relatives of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, imprisoned in Russia, said they had not received news of him or his whereabouts in almost a week.
“We are deeply concerned by these reports that he has been out for supposedly a week now and neither his representatives nor his family know where he is,” said National Security Council spokesman John Kirby.
“He should be released immediately. “He should never have been jailed in the first place,” Kirby told reporters flying with US President Joe Biden aboard Air Force One on a trip to Philadelphia. Kirby added: “We are going to work with our embassy in Moscow to see how much more we can find out.”
Keep reading:
– Navalny, sentenced to another 19 years in prison in Russia
– Russia confirms the transfer of Alexei Navalny to a high security prison
– Russian justice confirms the sentence of the opponent Navalni to nine years in prison