A court in the Russian city of Vladimir has rejected jailed opposition politician Aleksei Navalny’s lawsuit against a decision that bans his lawyers from bringing mobile phones and laptop computers into the penitentiary during visits.
Judge Maksim Ignatovich of the Vladimir October district court ruled on July 30 that “Navalny’s administrative lawsuit must be left without satisfaction” for the plaintiff. No explanation for the decision was provided.
Navalny, one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s most vocal critics, was arrested in January upon his return from Germany, where he had spent five months recovering from a nerve-agent poisoning that he blames on the Kremlin — accusations that Russian officials reject.
Navalny was arrested in January upon his arrival from Germany where he was treated after being poisoned in Siberia with what was defined by European labs as a Novichok nerve agent in August last year. He has accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of ordering the poisoning, which the Kremlin has denied.
A Moscow court in February converted a 3 1/2 year suspended sentence on a charge that Navalny and his supporters call politically motivated to real jail time, saying he broke the terms of the original sentence by leaving Russia for Germany for the life-saving treatment he received.
The court reduced the time Navalny must spend in prison to just over 2 1/2 years because of time already served in detention.
