Russia is jailing lawyers who worked for late opposition leader Alexei Navalny

Three lawyers who worked for the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny have been sentenced to up to five and a half years in prison on charges of involvement in an “extremist organization”.

Vadim Kobzev, Igor Sergunin and Alexei Liptser were arrested in October 2023 as Russian authorities stepped up pressure on the detained Kremlin critic, who died suddenly last February in an Arctic prison colony.

They were tried in camera in Petushki, a town east of Moscow, and accused of “using their status” to pass messages between Navalny and his colleagues.

Navalny condemned the case as similar to Soviet times and indicative of “the state of the rule of law in Russia.”

Igor Sergunin was the only one of the three to plead guilty according to independent reports and received a lighter sentence of three and a half years.

Alexey Liptser was sentenced to five years in a penal colony, and Vadim Kobzev received five and a half years.

Kobzev’s own lawyer, Andrey Grivtsov, said the evidence against them constituted an illegal invasion of privacy.

“They are generally not allowed to eavesdrop on meetings between a lawyer and a client in a penal colony – there is a direct legislative prohibition,” he told BBC Russian.

Alexei Liptser’s lawyer, Andrey Orlov, told reporters that Friday’s court decision was very sad: “But we won’t stop yet. We’ll keep moving.”

The three lawyers appeared in court near the Pokrov penal colony where Navalny was originally sent when he returned to Russia in January 2021 after surviving a nerve agent attack he blamed on Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

The Kremlin rejected the charge and Navalny remained in Russian prison colonies until his death, north of the Arctic Circle and 1,900 km (1,200 miles) northeast of Moscow.

His widow, Yulia Navalnaya, blamed Putin for his death, which authorities described as “sudden death syndrome”.

A few months after Navalny’s detention in 2021. Navalny’s anti-corruption foundation and its regional offices were banned by a Moscow court, which classified them as “extremist”.

Navalny, who was already in prison on other charges, was also convicted of founding and financing an extremist organization.

The head of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, Ivan Zhdanov, pointed out that the three lawyers were convicted on January 17 – the same day Navalny was arrested and jailed on his return to Russia from Germany: “Tell me it’s a coincidence.”

Amnesty International said that by attacking lawyers “for simply doing their jobs, the Russian authorities are destroying what remains of the right to legal protection”.

According to investigators, the three men acted as members of Navalny’s “extremist community”, meeting and exchanging information with the opposition leader.

Yulia Navalnaya said the three men were “political prisoners and should be released immediately”.

Another of Navalny’s lawyers, Olga Mikhailova, who has left Russia, said the sentences were “brutal and absurd” and that the men were punished for “honestly fulfilling their duties, their professional and moral standing”.

Ms Mihailova, whose offices were raided in 2023, says she herself has also been accused in absentia of extremism. Another of Navalny’s lawyers, Alexander Fedulov, also fled Russia after their three colleagues were detained.

After their arrest, Navalny appeared at a court hearing in October 2023. from a maximum security penal colony east of Moscow and complained that he was denied any legal representation.

“My lawyer is not here. All the other lawyers are not here. No one is allowed to visit me. I am isolated and cut off from any information,” he told the hearing.

Two months later, he was transferred to an even more remote penal colony called Polar Wolf, where he was held in a penal cell and died at the age of 47. His widow dismissed the cause of death provided by authorities as a lie.