Watchdog

A key prosecution witness who refused to testify against jailed Russian opposition politician Aleksei Navalny in an ongoing trial has left Russia.

Fyodor Gorozhanko, a former member of Navalny’s team, told the Mozhem Obyasnit Telegram channel on February 23 that he is currently in an unspecified foreign country.

"I [left the country] due to [personal] security reasons. It is clear why, as I said too much at the trial. Repercussions were very possible. I have irritated the investigators' team more than enough already. Their reaction was imminent," Gorozhanko told the Telegram channel.

Two days earlier, Gorozhanko, who was called by prosecutors to Navalny's trial said that the case against Navalny was "absurd," adding that investigators imposed pressure on him and tried to instruct him what to say during the trial.

The trial on embezzlement charges that Navalny rejects as politically motivated is being held inside a penal colony in the Vladimir region.

Gorozhanko said that, before the start of the trial, an investigator handed him the text of his testimony to double-check if he remembered it by heart.

Some members of Navalny's team suspected that Gorozhanko had leaked that personal data of Navalny's supporters who were registered on a website of the jailed politician's supporters. The allegation has been rejected by Gorozhanko.

Gorozhanko suggested at the trial that investigators must have picked him as a key witness in the case thinking that he is at odds with his former colleagues and Navalny.

Moscow's Lefortovo district court resumed the trial on February 21 inside Correctional Colony No. 2 in the town of Pokrov in the Vladimir region, some 200 kilometers east of Moscow, where Navalny has spent the last year on a different charge after returning from abroad where he was recovering from a near-fatal poison attack that he blames on the Kremlin.

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Profile: Aleksei Navalny, Winner Of The Sakharov Prize

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The trial that started on February 15 is looking into the new case against Navalny launched in December 2020 on allegations that the 45-year-old lawyer embezzled money from his now-defunct and banned Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK). He is also accused of holding a Moscow court in contempt.

Investigators say Navalny is accused of taking $33,770 in donations that were given to his organizations and using them for his own personal benefit, accusations which the outspoken Kremlin critic and his supporters reject, calling them politically motivated.

The charges carry a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, while Navalny also faces up to six months in prison for the contempt-of-court charge.

Within weeks of returning from his convalescence in Germany in January 2021, Navalny was handed a 2 1/2-year prison sentence for violating the terms of an earlier parole. His conviction is widely regarded as the result of a trumped-up, politically motivated case.

The Kremlin has denied any role in the poisoning, which along with his arrest sparked widespread condemnation and sanctions from the West.

ASHGABAT -- Election officials in the tightly controlled Central Asian nation of Turkmenistan have announced that the registration of candidates for an early presidential election on March 12 has ended and that nine candidates, including the son of authoritarian President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, Serdar, were officially set to take part.

On February 11, Berdymukhammedov, 64, indicated at an extraordinary meeting of the upper chamber of parliament that he intends to step aside to allow power to be turned over to “young leaders.”

Most observers saw that as an indication that he is preparing to hand the reins of the country to his son, who in September turned 40 -- the minimum age required to become president under the country's constitution.

Serdar Berdymukhammedov was officially registered last week as a presidential candidate representing the ruling Democratic Party of Turkmenistan following the opening of the nomination process for the country's three registered political parties. He is expected to easily win the election as all other candidates are known for being loyal to his father.

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'Expect No Change': Turkmen Voters React To Berdymukhammedov's 'Serdar Election'

Besides the ruling Democratic Party, Turkmenistan has two more registered political parties, both controlled by Berdymukhammedov, who has been in power since 2007 when he replaced the late autocratic ruler Saparmurat Niyazov.

The Central Commission for Holding Elections and Referendums said on February 22 that the other eight candidates are Babamurat Meredov, nominated by the Party of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs of Turkmenistan, Agajan Bekmuradov, nominated by the Agrarian Party of Turkmenistan, and six other candidates nominated by initiative groups -- Maksatmurat Ovezgeldyev, Kakageldy Saryev, Berdymammet Gurbanov, Perhat Begenjov, Maksat Odeshov, and Hydyr Nunnaev.

Serdar Berdymukhammedov has been visiting the energy-rich nation's regions this week, and RFE/RL correspondents report that security measures have been beefed up, while the streets on the route of his visit have been paved and reconstructed, with new trees being planted along the way.

Four exiled opposition activists and politicians -- Ahmet Rahmanov, Murat Gurbanov, Geldy Kyarizov, and Nurmuhammet Annaev -- have said they plan to take part in the presidential election, but it remains unclear how they would be able to run since they are not allowed to return to Turkmenistan.

According to rights groups and election monitors, Turkmenistan has never held free and fair elections since becoming an independent state following the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.