In the Navalny family, I ask for the brother.
At 40, Oleg is less in the media than his brother was, but just as politicized.
After the death of Alexeï Navalny in the penal colony of Kharp, in Siberia (Russia) on February 16, his younger brother is once again the subject of a report by the Russian authorities, according to information reported Tuesday by the TASS agency.
The authorities did not communicate to the agency the reasons for his inclusion in the wanted persons file.
They simply indicated that Oleg Navalny was the subject of new criminal proceedings, without further details.
Convicted in the Yves Rocher affair
Born in 1983, Oleg Navalny worked for the Russian Post until 2013.
He was deputy director of automated sorting centers, then first deputy director of the express delivery company EMS Russian Post, before being implicated in the Yves Rocher affair, alongside his brother Alexeï.
He was sentenced to 3 and a half years in prison on December 30, 2014, accused in this case of fraud and money laundering.
He was released from prison on June 29, 2018 at the end of his sentence.
Alexei Navalny was given the same suspended sentence.
Oleg Navalny's last legal conviction dates back to 2021: he received a one-year suspended prison sentence, found guilty in a “health case”.
He organized a demonstration in January 2021 via social networks, in violation of the health rules in force in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the Russian authorities.
Oleg Navalny was thus placed under house arrest from January to April 2021 and forced to wear an electronic bracelet for several months, as he showed on Instagram.
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A post shared by Олег Навальный (@navalny_inmate)
Placed on the wanted list from 2022
But as the independent media Mediazona reveals, his inclusion on the wanted persons file has no link with the death of his brother.
In fact, his name had been there for several months.
The investigation site published an article on February 13 which listed all the people registered on these lists on which he already appeared.
Furthermore, the information available on his wanted notice makes it possible to establish that he is not implicated in a new case, contrary to what the Russian authorities claim.
As part of his conviction in 2021, he was forced to report regularly to the authorities as part of a judicial review.
Something he never did, says the TASS agency.
Thus, he was logically placed from 2022 on the list of people wanted by the prison services, which are responsible for ensuring the proper execution of post-conviction measures.
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A post shared by Олег Навальный (@navalny_inmate)
Mediazona adds, however, that no new case has been added to its file and can prove this thanks to the telephone number listed on Oleg Navalny's file in the "to contact" section: this refers to the prison services (in the framework of non-compliance with judicial control), and not to the Ministry of the Interior, which is nevertheless responsible for monitoring new cases.
A precedent in another case proves that if a new criminal investigation had indeed been opened against Oleg Navalny, the numbers of the two authorities would have been mentioned to signify two separate and unrelated cases.
It is therefore more of a publicity stunt by the Russian authorities than real prosecutions.
However, there is little doubt that Oleg Navalny is now, like the rest of the family, in the sights of the authorities.