Moscow – The leader of the Russian opposition, Alexey Navalny, who was arrested Sunday immediately after his return in Moscow after recovering from poisoning by a nerve agent, he was placed before a judge on Monday morning at a police station, instead of a normal room, so that his lawyers would not have time to prepare. if for a view. The judge accepted a request from the Russian police for Navalny to be imprisoned for 30 days.
Navalny criticized the procedure as a mockery of justice, criticized President Vladimir Putin’s 20-year rule and called on his supporters in Russia to take to the streets in protest.
“Don’t be afraid,” he said in a video posted on one of his official YouTube channels. “Don’t shut up. Resist. Take to the streets. No one but ourselves will protect us, and there are so many of us that if we want to achieve something, we will achieve it.”
The video message was recorded in the same room of a police station on the outskirts of Moscow, where the impromptu hearing previously took place. Navalny’s lawyers were not allowed to see the politician before the hearing, and they knew he was about to pass a few minutes before it began.
The judge gave Navalny’s defense team 30 minutes to familiarize himself with the case materials and another 20 minutes to communicate with his client.
“I’ve seen a lot of ridicule in justice … But that’s impossible what’s happening now,” Navalny said in a separate cell phone video posted on Twitter by his press secretary ahead of the surprise hearing. “It’s the highest degree of illegality.”
When the hearing resumed, Russian police asked the court to formally detain Navalny for 30 days and the judge granted the request. Navalny’s legal team confirmed that a hearing was scheduled for Feb. 2 for Navalny to face charges for which he was officially detained for violating the parole conditions of a previous suspended sentence.
International clamor
Navalny’s arrest was immediately withdrawn condemnation of the Europeans US officials and the United Nations.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called for the “immediate and unconditional release” of the Russian dissident in a statement issued Sunday and called his arrest “the latest in a series of attempts to silence Navalny and other opposition figures “.
U.S. President-elect Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, also called for Navalny’s immediate release.
“The perpetrators of the outrageous attack on his life must be held responsible,” Sullivan said. “The Kremlin’s attacks on Mr Navalny are not just a violation of human rights, but an affront to the Russian people who want their voice heard.”
In London, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said Russia should explain how Navalny was attacked on a flight inside Russia with a chemical weapon.
“It is horrible that Alexei Navalny, a victim of a heinous crime, has been detained by the Russian authorities. He must be released immediately,” Raab said. “Instead of pursuing Mr. Navalny, Russia should explain how a chemical weapon was used on Russian soil.”
Russian authorities have defended his arrest and on Monday Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov slammed Washington for criticizing the country’s management for justice in the midst of what he suggested was a “crisis” in western democracy.
“This allows Western politicians to think that by doing so, they will be able to divert attention from the deeper crisis in which the liberal model of development finds itself,” Lavrov told reporters in response to criticism from Washington and Europe.
Navalny announced his plan to return home from Berlin last week, although a new criminal case has recently been opened against him accused of fraud. Days earlier, Russia’s penitentiary authority also asked a court to replace Navalny’s three-and-a-half-year suspended sentence with a new prison sentence.
He would have known the risks, but on the plane he had said it was his “best day in five months,” because he was coming home.
Navalny’s supporters in the Russian opposition reject all legal threats against him as fabricated political persecution.
The Kremlin’s fiercest critic became violently ill on a domestic flight five months ago. After several days of treatment in Siberia, he was finally transferred to a coma in Berlin, where toxicology reports confirmed that he had been poisoned with the same type of nerve agent Novichok used in a 2018 attack on a Russian double agent in England.
In a 60 minute interview correspondent for Lesley Stahl, Navalny blamed his intoxication on Russian President Vladimir Putin himself.
“I don’t think so,” he said. “I’m sure he’s responsible.”
The Kremlin has denied any involvement.
Navanly was traveling Sunday with his wife and a team of allies when he returned to Moscow. The others were allowed to pass freely through border control, where Navalny was taken into custody after saying goodbye to his wife.
Charlie D’Agata and Tucker Real of CBS News contributed to this report.