By Mark Trevelyan
(Reuters) – Jailed Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny on Tuesday condemned the arrest of three of his lawyers, calling it an illegal action that showed the weakness of the authorities.
The three lawyers were arrested last week on suspicion of belonging to an “extremist group”. Another member of Navalny’s legal team said he had fled the country on Monday.
Navalny, 47, was sentenced in August to an extra 19 years on various charges relating to “extremist activity”, extending his total prison term to more than 30 years.
At the latest of a series of hearings where he has challenged his treatment in prison, Navalny said the “flagrant and illegal” actions against his lawyers had left him “completely isolated from information”.
He ridiculed the idea that his lawyers could have engaged in illegal activity with him since he was imprisoned, saying every document that passed between them was censored and copied.
“And even here the authorities find some terrible danger, such great danger that they have to make a show of arresting three lawyers,” he said.
“These are the convulsions of the system. They’re afraid. They’re not at all as strong as they think.”
Navalny’s lawyers say the targeting of his lawyers crosses a new threshold of repression in Russia, where President Vladimir Putin has intensified a crackdown on dissent since launching his invasion of Ukraine last year.
The Kremlin, which has painted Navalny in the past as a tool of the American CIA, declines to discuss his case or even speak his name in public.
Navalny’s supporters say removing his access to lawyers – through whom he has launched frequent appeals and been able to post on social media – is a tactic to further isolate him. But at Tuesday’s hearing, he said he would keep speaking out.
“I have the right in this court to say straight out: yes, I am against Vladimir Putin, yes I am against his rule, I will fight it,” he said.
(Reporting by Mark Trevelyan; editing by Mark Heinrich)
