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THE former lawyers of late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny were sentenced by a Russian court yesterday as the crackdown on dissent in the country escalates.
Vadim Kobzev, Igor Sergunin and Alexei Liptser were convicted on charges of involvement with extremist groups and sentenced to three to five years in prison by a court.
The lawyers had been in custody since their arrest in October 2023.
The case is being seen as an effort to intimidate defence lawyers from taking on political cases.
Navalny, a critic of President Vladimir Putin, and his organisations were declared to be extremist in 2021.
He was serving a 19-year sentence when he died in February 2024 in a prison above the Arctic Circle.
During the trial, Mr Kobzev said that the lawyers were being prosecuted for “transmitting Navalny’s thoughts to other people.”
Authorities accused the legal team of passing messages from Navalny to his allies.
Three journalists attending the trial were detained.
Human rights group Memorial, which won the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize, said that the lawyers were political prisoners and is calling for their immediate release.
