Russia has deprived the lawyers of the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny of years behind bars

Russia sentenced three defense lawyers on Friday Alexei Navalny several years in prison for messages sent by the late opposition leader abroad from prison.

It comes in the middle of a massive crackdown on sentences Moscow’s attack on Ukraine and Russia wants to punish Navalny’s associates even after his mysterious death in an Arctic prison last February.

Vadim Kobzev, Alexey Liptser and Igor Sergunin were found guilty of participating in an “extremist organization” by the Petushki court.

Kobzev, the most influential member of Navalny’s legal team, was sentenced to 5 and a half years, Liptser to 5 years, and Sergunin to 3 and a half years.

Navalny’s widow in exile, Yulia Navalnaya“He is a political prisoner and should be released immediately,” he said.

They were almost the only people who visited Navalny in prison during his 19-year sentence.

Navalny, Putin’s main political rival, communicated with the world through his lawyers and through messages his team later posted on social media. It is a normal practice in Russian prisons to pass letters and messages through lawyers.

The men were convicted after a closed-door trial in the town, about 72 miles east of Moscow, near the Pokrov prison where Navalny was held before being transferred to a remote colony above the Arctic Circle.

Kobzev said in court last week: “We are being tried because I passed on Navalny’s ideas to other people.”

The court said that those individuals “used their attorney status to ensure regular transfer of information between Navalny and members of the extremist community, including those wanted and hiding outside the borders of the Russian Federation, while visiting the convicted Navalny.”

This allowed Navalny to continue “planning to prepare and create conditions for committing crimes of an extremist nature.”

Navalny denounced the arrest of the lawyers in October 2023 as “extraordinary” and part of a campaign to further isolate him in prison.

The rulings came days before four independent journalists accused of aiding Navalny were due to go on trial again, facing up to six years in prison.

They also come on January 17, 2021, four years after Navalny bravely returned to Russia after recovering from the poison attack that nearly killed him.

In his messages to the outside world, Navalny called the Kremlin’s attack on Ukraine “criminal” and told his supporters not to “give up”.

Just last week, Kobzev compared Moscow’s current repression of the opposition to the mass repressions of the Stalin era.

“Eight years have passed… and in the Petushki court, people are being tried again for discrediting officials and state institutions,” he said in a speech published in Novaya Gazeta newspaper.

While Russia increasingly imprisons its own citizens for opposing the Kremlin, cases against lawyers who defend these people are still rare.

The UIA International Association of Lawyers has warned that the trial raises questions about the future of the profession in Russia.

“The protection of the client, regardless of their political views or actions, is a cornerstone of the rule of law and a universal principle enshrined in international legal standards,” the organization said last month.

It “sets a dangerous precedent” in “potentially discouraging” trial lawyers from representing clients in sensitive cases.

International rights groups and some Western countries condemned the sentence.

“Today is another low point in the already dire human rights situation in the Russian Federation,” Dutch Foreign Minister Kaspar Veldkamp said on social media on Friday.

Navalny’s team accused the prison authorities of secretly recording meetings with Navalny’s lawyers and publishing the footage on social networks.

Last week, Navalny said that Russia refused to remove her late husband from the list of terrorists and extremists.

It published a letter from Russian financial watchdog Rosfinmonitoring to Navalny’s mother in December, saying the late opposition leader was still being investigated for money laundering and “financing terrorism.”

“Why does Putin need this? It is clear that it should not prevent Alexei from opening a bank account,” Navalnaya said. “Putin is doing this to scare you.”