The Federal Chamber of Lawyers will check the persecution of Navalny’s lawyers

The Federal Chamber of Lawyers of Russia took control of the arrest of the defenders of opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Today, October 13, searches took place at the premises of his lawyers Vadim Kobzev, Alexey Liptser and Igor Sergunin. The last one was detained. According to the oppositionist’s comrades, his defenders are being investigated for participation in an extremist community.

“Now this case has been taken under control by the Commission for the Protection of the Rights of Lawyers of the Federal Chamber. When more specific data becomes available, we will draw substantive conclusions. The formal requirements of the Code of Criminal Procedure were met, since the Moscow Chamber was informed and its representatives were present at the search,” said Kommersant FM Chairman of the Commission of the Council for the Protection of Lawyers’ Rights Henry Resnik.

Earlier today, lawyer Vyacheslav Gimadi, who worked for Alexei Navalny reportedthat the politician’s defenders are being checked in connection with the case of participation in an extremist community. Under this article they face up to six years in prison. Other details are unknown. Politician Elvira Vikhareva (recognized by the Ministry of Justice as a foreign agent) reported that searches are also taking place at the Dalet Bar Association, which includes Alexei Liptser, Igor Sergunin and Alexei Navalny’s defender Olga Mikhailova.

Mikhail Barshchevsky, the government’s plenipotentiary representative in the Constitutional and Supreme Courts, noted that searches are justified only if the lawyers committed actions that constitute a crime on their own behalf. “But if they defended a person and acted within the framework of the law on lawyer’s activities, then the searches are absolutely unacceptable,” added Mr. Barshchevsky. He also noted that in this case Art. 48 of the Constitution on guaranteeing qualified legal assistance to every citizen.

Vyacheslav Gimadi reported that Alexey Navalny learned about the searches from his lawyers during a court hearing on his claim against the colony. As Mr. Gimadi reports, Alexey Navalny drew a parallel with Soviet times, when “not only political activists were persecuted and turned into political prisoners, but also their lawyers.”

On August 4, the Moscow City Court sentenced Alexei Navalny to 19 years of special regime in the case of creating an extremist community, in conjunction with the previous punishment. A special regime was assigned to him as a particularly dangerous repeat offender. At the end of September, the first court of appeal of general jurisdiction rejected complaints from the politician’s defense about this verdict.

Read more about the fate of Alexei Navalny in the material “A repeat offender, but not particularly dangerous”.

Anastasia Larina