Moscow – The leader of the Russian opposition Alexey Navalny, who was detained on Sunday immediately on return in Moscow, after recovering from nervous poisoning, he was put in front of a judge on Monday morning at a police station, instead of an ordinary courtroom, for a hearing his lawyers did not have time to prepare . The judge accepted a request from the Russian police for Navalny to be remanded in custody for 30 days.
Navalny criticized the procedure as a mockery of justice, criticized the 20-year rule of President Vladimir Putin and called on his Russian supporters to take to the streets in protest.
“Don’t be afraid,” he said in a video posted on one of his official YouTube channels. “He wasn’t silent. Hold on. Go out on the street. No one but ourselves will protect us and there are so many of us that if we want to do something, we will do it.”
The video was recorded in the same room of a police station on the outskirts of Moscow, where the impromptu hearing took place earlier. Navalny’s lawyers were not allowed to see the politician before the hearing, and they learned he was about to do so just minutes before it began.
The judge gave Navalny’s defense team 30 minutes to familiarize himself with the case materials and another 20 minutes to communicate with their client.
“I have seen a lot of ridicule of justice … But this is impossible what is happening now,” Navalny said in a separate mobile phone video posted on Twitter by his press secretary before the surprise hearing. “It is the highest degree of iniquity.”
When the hearing resumed, Russian police asked the court to place Navalny in official custody for 30 days, and the judge accepted the request. Navalny’s legal team confirmed that a hearing has been scheduled for February 2 for Navalny to face charges on which he was officially detained – for violating the conditions of conditional release of a previous suspended sentence.
International shout
Navalny’s detention was immediate condemnation from the European side US and United Nations officials.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called for Russian dissent’s “immediate and unconditional release,” in a statement issued Sunday, calling his detention the latest in a series of attempts to silence Navalny and other members of the opposition ”.
Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser to US President Joe Biden, also called for Navalny’s immediate release.
“The perpetrators of the outrageous attack on his life must be held accountable,” Sullivan said. “The Kremlin attacks on Mr Navalny are not just a violation of human rights, but an insult to the Russian people who want their voices heard.”
In London, Foreign Minister Dominic Raab said Russia should explain how Navalny was attacked on a flight from Russia with a chemical weapon.
“It is terrible that Alexei Navalny, the victim of a contemptuous crime, has been detained by the Russian authorities. He must be released immediately,” Raab said. “Instead of persecuting Mr Navalny, Russia should explain how a chemical weapon came to be used on Russian soil.”
Russian authorities have defended their arrest, and on Monday Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov took a slim cover in Washington for criticizing the way his country handles justice issues amid what he suggested is a “Crisis” in Western democracy.
“This allows Western politicians to believe that by doing so, they will be able to divert attention from the deepest crisis in the liberal development model,” Lavrov told reporters in response to criticism from Washington and Europe.
Navalny announced his plan to return home from Berlin last week, despite the fact that a new criminal case has recently been opened against him on charges of fraud. A few days earlier, the Russian penitentiary authority also requested a court to replace Navalny’s three-and-a-half-year suspended sentence with a new prison sentence.
He would have known the risks, but on the plane, he had said it was “the best day of the last five months,” because he was going home.
Navalny’s supporters in the Russian opposition reject all legal threats against him as fabricated political persecution.
The most ardent critic of the Kremlin became seriously ill in a domestic flight five months ago. After a few days of treatment in Siberia, he was airlifted to Berlin in a coma, where toxicology reports confirmed that he was poisoned with the same type of nerve agent Novichok used in a 2018 attack on a former Russian double agent in England. .
a 60 minute interview Correspondent Lesley Stahl, Navalny blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin for his poisoning.
“I don’t think so,” he said. – I’m sure he’s responsible.
The Kremlin has denied any involvement.
Navanly was traveling with his wife and a team of allies on Sunday when he returned to Moscow. The others were allowed to cross the border freely, where Navalny was taken into custody after saying goodbye to his wife.
Charlie D’Agata and Tucker Reals of CBS News contributed to this report.