Allies of imprisoned Kremlin foe Navalny sound the alarm, say they haven’t heard from him in 6 days

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — Allies of imprisoned Russian opposition chief Alexei Navalny sounded the alarm on Monday, saying that neither they nor the politician’s attorneys have heard from him in six days.

Navalny, who’s serving a 19-year time period on fees of extremism, was as a consequence of seem in courtroom Monday by way of video hyperlink however didn’t, spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh mentioned. She mentioned jail officers cited electrical energy issues. Lawyers in current days additionally haven’t been capable of entry Navalny, in accordance with Yarmysh.

“It is already the sixth straight day that we don’t know where Alexei is and what is happening to him,” Yarmysh wrote on X, previously referred to as Twitter.

Navalny, 47, has been behind bars since January 2021. As President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest foe, he campaigned in opposition to official corruption and arranged main anti-Kremlin protests. His arrest stumbled on his return to Moscow from Germany, the place he recuperated from nerve agent poisoning that he blamed on the Kremlin.

Navalny has since been handed three jail phrases and spent months in isolation in a penal colony within the Vladimir area east of Moscow for alleged minor infractions. He has rejected all fees in opposition to him as politically motivated.

Last week, Yarmysh mentioned that for 3 days in a row Navalny‘s lawyers spent hours at the penal colony waiting for permission to visit him, only to be turned away at the last minute. Letters to the politician were not being delivered, and he didn’t seem at scheduled courtroom hearings by way of video hyperlink.

Yarmysh mentioned Friday that the developments had been regarding provided that Navalny not too long ago fell sick: “He felt dizzy and lay down on the floor. Prison officials rushed to him, unfolded the bed, put Alexei on it and gave him an IV drip. We don’t know what caused it, but given that he’s being deprived of food, kept in a cell without ventilation and has been offered minimal outdoor time, it looks like fainting out of hunger.”

She added that attorneys visited him after the incident and he regarded “more or less fine.”

Navalny is because of be transferred to a “special security” penal colony, a facility with the best safety degree within the Russian penitentiary system.

Russian jail transfers are infamous for taking a very long time, generally weeks, throughout which there’s no entry to prisoners, and details about their whereabouts is proscribed or unavailable.