Jailed Russian opposition politician Aleksei Navalny faces an additional three decades in prison in a new trial on extremism charges that the Moscow City Court decided on June 19 will be held behind closed doors.
Navalny, appearing in a makeshift courtroom at his prison in the Vladimir region some 260 kilometers east of Moscow, said he was defending himself in the case, though he also had a legal team present.
The trial is seen as yet another attempt by the Kremlin to silence one of its most prominent critics amid a nationwide crackdown on civil society during the unprovoked war against Ukraine.
"Some people collect stamps. Some collect coins. And I have a growing collection of amazing court trials," Navalny said on June 19 on Twitter.
The closed trial in a maximum-security prison is like a "confession" by the Russian authorities, he added. "In a sense, this is the new sincerity. They now say openly: we are afraid of you. We are afraid of what you will say. We are afraid of the truth," he tweeted.
He encouraged Russians to "spread the truth," which he said "is the most powerful weapon against this regime of liars, thieves, and hypocrites."
The staff of the court traveled to the Correctional Colony No. 6 for the trial, which journalists initially could observe from a separate room over a video link with barely audible sound. Navalny's parents, Anatoly and Lyudmila Navalny, were allowed to be present at the trial.
As the proceedings got under way, Navalny's legal team and his co-defendant Daniel Kholodny, who is the technical director of the Navalny Live YouTube channel, requested the recusal of Judge Andrei Suvorov, saying the trial should be held in Moscow as they both are officially registered as residents of the Russian capital and the trial is about allegations related to Moscow.
"I believe that, taking into account the current circumstances, and of criminal law, you should withdraw," Navalny, dressed in his black prison uniform, told the court.
Suvorov quickly rejected the motion.
Navalny and Kholodny face charges of creating an extremist group, making calls for extremism, creating a nonprofit organization that violates citizens' rights, financing extremism, involving a minor in criminal activities, and rehabilitating Nazism.
Shortly into the hearing, the audio feed to journalists was cut off. The representative of the press service of the court, Vadim Polezhaev, confirmed that the court had decided to hold the trial behind closed doors.
"No shame, no conscience, no honor," Navalny's father said of the court as he left the venue.
When first making public the new case in April, Navalny called the charges "absurd."
Navalny also said another case charging him with propagating terrorism and Nazism was launched in October over his self-exiled associates' statements on the Popular Politics YouTube channel.
The comments criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin and his government and condemned Moscow’s unprovoked full-scale invasion of Ukraine, launched in February 2022.
Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) claimed in April that Navalny’s associates, along with Ukraine's secret services, were involved in the assassination of pro-Kremlin journalist and propagandist Vladlen Tatarsky in Russia's second-largest city, St. Petersburg.
Navalny has been in prison since February 2021 after he was arrested a month earlier upon his return to Russia from Germany -- where he had been undergoing treatment for a near-fatal poisoning with a Novichok-type nerve agent that he says was ordered by Putin. He is serving sentences totaling 11 1/2 years.
The Kremlin has denied any role in Navalny's poisoning, even though experts say only state actors have access to the military-grade nerve agent.
On June 6, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, ordered Russia to pay 40,000 euros ($42,800) to Navalny for refusing to investigate his poisoning.