INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
The top lawyer of late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died in a Russian prison in February last year, told AFP she regretted
not finding the right words to stop him returning to Moscow in 2021.Olga Mikhailova, who defended Navalny for 16 years, said his return to
16 will mark the first anniversary of the charismatic politician's death in an Arctic penal colony, which his supporters regard as murder
sanctioned by the Kremlin."Today I very much regret that I didn't do everything possible, everything in my power to prevent him from
returning to Moscow," Mikhailova said in an interview in Paris
"I feel like I did not push hard enough."Navalny barely survived a poisoning in 2020 with the Soviet-designed nerve agent Novichok
Following treatment in Germany, he returned to Russia on Jan
17, 2021, and was immediately arrested and subsequently jailed.He died in a remote Arctic prison on Feb
16, 2024, in unclear circumstances
His allies and family say he was murdered on President Vladimir Putin's orders
consequences," Mikhailova said
"For him, for his lawyers, for their families, for everyone."Last Friday, a Russian court found three members of Navalny's defense team
guilty of participating in an "extremist organization." Vadim Kobzev was sentenced to five and a half years, Alexei Liptser was handed five
years and Igor Sergunin three and a half years.Even the fact that the three lawyers were sentenced on Jan
they hated him so much that they continue to take revenge against his lawyers," she added.Mikhailova was on holiday abroad when the three
lawyers were arrested in 2023
She decided against returning to Russia where a court subsequently ordered her arrest in absentia.WiretapsShe said the imprisonment of her
colleagues was the toughest blow to legal advocacy in Russia since dictator Josef Stalin, noting that for the first time in modern Russia
lawyers faced accusations "along with their client.""A lot of lawyers were purged in 1937
And afterwards there were no more cases like that in the Soviet era," she said.She said authorities had wiretapped confidential
conversations between Navalny and his lawyers in prison, later using those recordings against the defense team."Not only were they
wiretapping, as I understand, there was a person behind the wall who was writing everything down," she said.Attorney-client privilege no
longer existed in Russia, Mikhailova added.The lawyer also said the West made a "very big political mistake" by excluding Russia from the
Council of Europe after Putin invaded Ukraine, meaning Russians could no longer take cases to the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human
Rights (ECHR).Prison conditions for Navalny worsened after that, she said."The authorities did what they wanted
They realized that they could act with absolute impunity
Before, they had been held accountable," the lawyer added."Had Russia continued to remain in the Council of Europe and the European Court,
perhaps the tragedy would not have happened to Alexei or to his lawyers."'Was not to be'Mikhailova, 51, received asylum in France and is
adjusting to her new life in Paris."All this time I've been talking myself into thinking that I am in a good city, a beautiful city, one of
the most beautiful cities," she said."It just wasn't my choice, right? I just found myself in this situation and when it's not your
choice, it's very hard indeed."She is studying French every day."Alexei always told me 'learn foreign languages, learn foreign
"And so now I have to learn foreign languages."Navalny's death had crushed her, but she admitted "it has become a little bit easier to
breathe now."She has not however mustered enough courage to read "Patriot," Navalny's posthumous memoir published last October."I started
reading several times, and I knew some of the texts
I would literally start reading the first page, and I would know when it was written and how
And I would close the book, I just couldn't do it," she said."When you read it, well, it's unbearably hard," she said, adding she had
already read a few pages.Despite everything Mikhailova does not regret taking on Navalny as a client."For many years I was close to this
absolutely amazing man," she said
"I've always loved my job very much
And a sense of duty always trumps all fears."In prison Navalny read a lot and changed a lot, Mikhailova said."He had toughened up so much,
had grown up so much in every sense that I thought he would make an incredible leader for our country," she said."But this was not to be."
