A Russian court has extended the pre-trial detention of two lawyers who represented the late Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, the independent news website Mediazonareported Tuesday.Vadim Kobzev, Alexei Lipster, and Igor Sergunin werearrested last October on accusations of participating in extremist activities for passing Navalnys letters on to his associates.Russia in 2021 outlawed Navalnys political network as extremist, putting his associates at risk of criminal prosecution.Moscows Basmanny District Court ruled Tuesday to extend Kobzev and Liptsers pre-trial detention until Aug.
3, according to Mediazona.
It did not indicate whether Sergunins arrest was also extended.Video from the courtroom shared by the news outlet Rusnewsshowed Kobzev and Liptser inside a defendants cage without Sergunin.The state-run news agency RIA Novostireported Tuesday that all three lawyers have been indicted and had their pre-trial detention extended until Aug.
3.Russias financial watchdog in Novemberadded the lawyers to its list of extremists and terrorists, allowing their bank accounts to be frozen without a court order.Two other exiled lawyers who worked for Navalny Alexander Fedulov and Olga Mikhailova have been arrested in absentia on the same charges.Navalny, the most prominent figure in Russias opposition, died while serving a sentence for extremism in an Arctic penal colony in February, aged 47.
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