Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny gestures inside a glass cage before a hearing at the Babushkinsky District Court in Moscow in February 2021. His supporters said he has been missing for days. File Photo by Yuri Kochetkov/EPA-EFE
The mystery surrounding the whereabouts of jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny reached a new level Tuesday when a scheduled hearing at which he was supposed to appear was postponed, even leaving the judge with no answers about his location.
Navalny, one of the fiercest critics of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his government, had not been in contact with his legal team in days and had been seriously ill. Advertisement
Spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said Russian officials have refused to tell them where Navalny is located, other than he is no longer at the penal colony where he had been held while serving a 19-year sentence for extremism.
Ivan Zhdanov, the director of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, said the judge presiding over Navalny’s hearing asked where the 47-year-old opposition leader was and was redirected to the Federal Penitentiary service.
Navalny’s disappearance came shortly after Putin announced he would run for another six-year term as president of Russia. Navalny and his team had urged residents to vote for opposition candidates in protest.
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said on Monday that the White House was “deeply concerned” about Navalny’s disappearance. That comment drew a sharp rebuke from longtime Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Tuesday, accusing Washington of interference. Advertisement
“We are talking here about one prisoner who, according to the law, was found guilty and is serving his sentence, and in this case, we consider any intervention by anyone, including the United States of America, unacceptable and impossible,” Peskov told journalists.
