Navalny transferred to Vladimir region east of Moscow to serve jail term in penal colony

Kremlin-critic Alexei Navalny has been transferred to a Federal Prison Service institution in the Vladimir region in Russia to serve a two and a half year long term in a penal colony. Alexei Melnikov, who is a member of the commission, told the Interfax news agency that at first, Navalny will be in quarantine and then he will be transferred to his colony. It is worth noting that the opposition leader was sentenced in early February to two and a half years in a penal colony for breaching parole terms while in Germany recovering from a poisoning attack. 

The detention of Navalny has sparked condemnation both nationally and internationally. Last week, the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) asked the Vladimir Putin Administration to release Navalny citing threats to his life in Moscow’s high-security prison. However, Russia said it will ignore the ruling despite a requirement to comply as a member of the Council of Europe, calling the court’s decision “blatant and gross interference in the judicial affairs of a sovereign state”.

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Navalny’s arrest and trial 

The Kremlin critic was sentenced to a jail term for violating the terms of his probation while recuperating in Germany. Appearing in Moscow city court, Navalny appealed against his sentence and demanded immediate release, however, the judge only made a small reduction in his prison term and reduced it to a little over two-and-half years, as reported by the Associated Press. 

During the February 25 trial, the anti-corruption crusader spoke against the Putin Administration, making references from the Bible as well as the fictional book Harry Potter and show Rick and Morty. He urged Russians to resist the pressure from authorities as he called for a “fairer country.” He also the judge and prosecutors arguing that they could have much better lives in “New Russia”, a country without “constant lying”.  

Navalny was arrested by the Russian authorities soon after returning from Germany last month, where he had been since August 2020 for treatment. Navalny was flown to Berlin from Russia last year after he fell ill during a flight from Tomsk to Moscow. Upon landing in Germany, doctors concluded Navalny had been poisoned using Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok. Navalny was in a medically-induced coma for almost a month following which he was kept in the hospital for recovery treatment. 

(Image: AP) 

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