Icon: enlarge
Alexei Navalny in court: »I was in a coma.
At that time nothing worried me any more «
Photo: Uncredited / dpa
It was eight o'clock in the evening in the Moscow City Court when Judge Natalia Repnikova entered the packed room 635.
On the left side of the hall, in a glass case, Russia's most prominent prisoner, Alexej Navalny, is waiting.
He's wearing a blue hoodie and his handcuffs have been removed.
Now he smiles encouragingly at his wife Julia, who is in the audience.
He shapes his fingers into a heart, paints a heart on the pane of glass.
But it is expected bad news that Alexej and Julia are about to hear.
The opposition politician, who was treated in Germany after being poisoned and returned to Moscow in January, has been imprisoned for almost three years.
Judge Repnikova granted the request of the Russian prison authority Fsin and the public prosecutor's office to convert a suspended sentence imposed on Navalny in 2014 into a real prison sentence for systematically violating conditions.
It seems like a bad joke: A politician who was allegedly poisoned by the Russian secret service has to be imprisoned immediately after being poisoned and returned because of a judgment that the European Court of Human Rights rejected years ago as "arbitrary".
It concerns the criminal case "Yves Rocher" - so called because a courier company owned by Alexej Navalny and his brother Oleg is said to have defrauded the cosmetics manufacturer in the mail order business.
In Strasbourg, however, no offense could be seen.
Navalny's fiery speech
But at least one thing the Russian judiciary granted the Kremlin opponent on that day: a stage.
He used it for a fiery speech against President Vladimir Putin, full of pathos and biting mockery at the same time.
It may be the last gig for a long time.
In the great hall, under portraits of Cicero and Montesquieu, Navalny calls his persecution a revenge of Putin.
"The hatred and fear of an individual" are the reasons why he, Navalny, was arrested immediately after his return to Russia.
Icon: enlarge
Julia Navalny (center) at the hearing: "Bad girl, I'm proud of you"
Photo:
- / dpa
He offended Putin by firstly surviving, secondly not hiding, thirdly by helping to clear up his poisoning.
“That drives this little con man in his bunker insane that everything has come out.
There is nothing with high polls or huge support, none of that exists.
It turns out that in order to overcome a political opponent who has neither television channels nor a party, one simply tries to kill him with chemical weapons. "Putin likes to see himself as a geopolitician, a world-class leader.
“Now he is offended that he wants to go down in history as a poisoner.
There was Alexander the Liberator and Yaroslav the Wise, in future there will be Vladimir the underpants poisoner, ”Navalny scoffs.
He made it clear at the outset that Navalny would not sit through the trial in silence.
He had the necessary audience: the trial of the Simonovsky District Court had been relocated to the Moscow City Court in order to offer the media a larger courtroom - at least that's the official reason.
Around a hundred journalists and diplomats were present, and friends or colleagues were not even allowed into the court.
In the front row sat Navalny's wife.
“Julia,” Navalny said clearly audibly to her from his glass case, “I saw you on TV in my cell.
They said you repeatedly disrupted order.
Bad girl, I'm proud of you. "
When the judge instructed him to introduce himself, Navalny gave a sharp answer: "You forgot to introduce yourself, your honor." It is also a justified objection: at the last moment the judge was changed.
The agency that requested Navalny's imprisonment, Russia's Fsin prison agency, is represented by an overwhelmed young man in a blue uniform.
He explains in a murmur that Navalny disregarded his probation requirements - both after his discharge from Charité in September 2020 and before he was poisoned.
The Fsin, it becomes clear, sees Navalny as cured with his release, and claims they did not know about any further medical treatment.
The happy prosecutor
However, the awkward Fsin representative had been given a brash attorney general.
With challenging cheerfulness, like a kindergarten teacher, Yekaterina Frolova brings up her allegations - for example, that Navalny contacted the FSIN on a Thursday in January 2020 instead of the following Monday.
But Monday appointments had been made, "and a Thursday has nothing to do with a Monday."
"Is it true, Alexei Anatolyevich, that the Fsin did not bother you with demands during your hospital stay?
Yes or no? ”Asks Prosecutor Frolova triumphantly.
“I was in a coma.
Nothing bothered me at all back then, ”replies Navalny.
Frolova happily recalls that Navalny had already been sentenced to imprisonment twice, which were subsequently suspended.
This leniency is unique to Russia and shows "the privileges" that Navalny enjoys.
But the condemned did not appreciate the proven humanity of the Russian judiciary and systematically violated conditions.
He apparently did not step on the road to recovery.
The view of the European Court of Human Rights does not matter
In the end, as is customary in Russia, the judge follows the proposals of the public prosecutor.
From the prison sentence of 3.5 years imposed in 2014, however, the ten months that Navalny was already under house arrest at that time will be deducted.
The fact that the underlying ruling was devastating by the European Court of Human Rights does not matter to the judge.
But that is also to be expected.
“I was in a coma.
At that time nothing worried me anymore. "
Alexei Navalny
At this point, Navalny had already said the most important things.
More precisely: He literally shouted it out in his speech.
“There are times when lawlessness and arbitrariness are the essence of a political system, and that's terrible.
But there is worse still: when lawlessness and arbitrariness are wrapped in the uniform of the public prosecutor and the robe of the judge. "Navalny said to the judge:" Then it is everyone's duty to oppose you, and with all their might to fight with you. "
Whether his supporters will resist as uncompromisingly as himself is the question that is currently bothering many in Russia.
The Moscow City Court was largely cordoned off, potential protesters were filtered out at the nearby subway station, and personal data were checked.
The organization OVD-Info reports more than three hundred arrests.
Icon: The mirror
Collaboration: Alexander Chernyshev, Christina Hebel
