Foreign
A controversial trial of prominent Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny was scheduled to officially start on Monday, his lawyer said.
The Moscow Municipal Court travelling some 260 kilometres to the prison camp where Navalny is being held for the proceedings.
Navalny has already served two years of a nine year sentence and faces another 30 years in prison.
The trial is being held north-east of Moscow in the Vladimir region.
He is facing seven new charges, including founding and financing an extremist organisation and trivialising Nazism.
The Kremlin critic rejects these accusations as political staging.
His current trial started on June 6, but only dealt with procedural issues behind closed doors.
This time the public was to be admitted, but once again no journalists, according to Navalny’s team.
Navalny was poisoned with the nerve agent Novichok during a trip to Siberia in the summer of 2020.
The staunch opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin accused the Russian domestic intelligence service FSB of being behind it.
After treatment in Germany, he returned to Russia in spite of the threat of imprisonment.
Navalny is recognised as a political prisoner by international human rights organisations. (dpa/NAN)
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Tags: Alexei Navalny
