Kosovo Appeals Court Confirms War Crimes Conviction Of Ex-Guerrilla Commander, Reduces Sentence

The former head of Aleksei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, Ivan Zhdanov, said on December 13 that associates of the Russian opposition leader were unable to find him in Moscow pretrial detention centers and his whereabouts remain unknown.

The claim made by government-linked Baza news outlet earlier that Navalny had been taken from his prison in the Vladimir region to Moscow for questioning could not be confirmed, Zhdanov said.

Lawyers checked most of the pretrial detention centers in Moscow used for cases such as Navalny’s and didn’t find him, Zhdanov said.

Zhdanov pointed out that the type of pretrial investigative activities that Baza referred to are carried out only with lawyers present, and that there would be no need to bring him to Moscow because all previous investigative activities had been conducted in Vladimir.

He also cast doubt on rumors that Navalny has been hospitalized, saying that was unlikely in a prison system that hadn’t provided Navalny “normal” medical attention since he was first incarcerated in January 2021.

No one had heard from Navalny in eight days, Zhdanov, who currently resides abroad, said on X, formerly Twitter.

An aide to Navalny said earlier on December 13 that fears were rising that he could be in a dangerous situation given the secrecy surrounding it.

“At this point, we do not know where he is; he is face-to-face with people who once tried to kill him. We need to find him as soon as possible,” Navalny spokeswoman Kyra Yarmysh said on X, urging anyone who knows Navalny’s current location to let his associates know.

A day earlier, amid concerns voiced by Navalny’s lawyers and colleagues about his whereabouts, Baza reported that Navalny, who missed several court hearings since he went missing, was transported to Moscow as part of an investigation into his actions in a case of vandalism being brought against him.

There was no official confirmation of the report.

On December 11, Navalny’s lawyer was told that his client had been transferred from the prison to an unspecified institution amid rising concerns that Navalny hadn’t been heard from while his health may be in jeopardy.

Navalny is serving a total of 19 years in prison on extremism and other charges that he rejects as politically motivated.

He was expected to be transferred to a harsher “special regime” facility after his sentence was increased to 19 years in August on a charge of creating an extremist organization, which Navalny and his supporters also have rejected as politically motivated.

Navalny’s current isolation from the outside world coincided with a campaign his team launched on December 7 against President Vladimir Putin. That day, the Russian parliament’s upper chamber, the Federation Council, set March 17, 2024, as the date for a presidential election.

The European Union on December 12 reiterated its call for Navalny’s release, with the bloc’s top foreign policy official, Josep Borrell, saying it was “highly worrying” that the Russian activist was missing.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, however, said the presidential administration “has no opportunity” to follow the fate of any inmate, including Navalny.

Peskov added that “interference” into the situation around Navalny was “unacceptable.”

Navalny’s previous sentence was handed down in 2021 after he arrived in Moscow from Germany, where he had been recovering from a poisoning attack he blamed on the Kremlin, which it denied.

He was Russia’s loudest opposition voice and galvanized huge anti-government rallies before he was jailed.

With reporting by Baza and Interfax