UFA, Russia -- A prosecution witness at the high-profile trial of Lilia Chanysheva, the former leader of jailed opposition politician Aleksei Navalny's team in Ufa, the capital of Russia's Republic of Bashkortostan, has testified in court that she has been pressured by officers of the Interior Ministry's anti-extremist directorate.
The witness said at a hearing on March 22 that investigators also tried to recruit her as an informant during the preliminary investigations of Chanysheva’s case, Chanysheva's lawyer, Sergei Makarenko, told RFE/RL on March 23.
"The judge had to call a five-minute break after one of the witnesses started crying while answering questions. She said after she calmed down that the investigators imposed serious psychological pressure on her during a preliminary investigation, threatening her with repercussions. The witness also testified that she does not consider Chanysheva's activities in the Ufa headquarters of Navalny’s team illegal, emphasizing that Chanysheva is not guilty," Makarenko said.
Navalny's team said in a post on Telegram that the witness also testified that officers from the Interior Ministry's anti-extremism directorate forced her to sign a recruitment agreement, according to which she was supposed to become an informant with a monthly salary of 12,000 rubles ($155), about which she said she immediately informed Chanysheva at the time.
The witness, whose identity RFE/RL chose not to disclose, told RFE/RL that she was "ashamed" to testify at the trial.
"I am just horrified that I was even summoned to the trial. I thought I would manage to avoid the disgrace. I consider it torture of my conscience.... I actually answered all the questions of the investigator honestly, because Lilia [Chanysheva] did not do anything illegal. I know her as a decent person, and certainly I said at the trial that I consider the charges against her to be without grounds," the witness said.
She added that she "wanted to offer apologies to Lilia for this shame."
"I was not strong enough to keep silent during questioning. I chose my own safety, and now I wake up every day with these thoughts," the woman said.
Makarenko said the judge agreed with a prosecutor's request at the trial that the incident with the witness would not be shared with media, but he decided to make the situation public.
Chanysheva, 41, who was arrested in November, headed the local unit of Navalny's network of regional campaign groups until his team disbanded them after a Moscow prosecutor went to court to have them branded "extremist."
The court accepted the prosecutor's request, effectively outlawing the group.
Chanysheva's defense team said at the time that her arrest was the first since the movement was banned. The charges appear to be retroactive since the organization she worked for disbanded before it had been legally classified as extremist.
In January, Amnesty International urged Russian authorities to release Chanysheva "immediately," insisting that the extremism charges are absurd and should be dropped.
Navalny himself has been in prison since February last year, while several of his associates have been charged with establishing an extremist group. Many of his associates have fled the country.