A court in the Siberian city of Tomsk has sentenced Ksenia Fadeyeva, a local lawmaker and the former head of jailed opposition politician Aleksei Navalny's regional team, to nine years in prison for extremism, a charge she and her supporters reject.
Judge Dmitry Khudyakov of the Soviet district court handed down his decision on December 29, saying Fadeyeva was guilty of organizing the activities of an extremist group and participating in the activities of an NGO that violates "citizens' privacy and rights."
Fadeyeva's lawyer, Semyon Vodnev, called the judge's ruling "illegal, ungrounded, and unjust." Fadeyeva ended her involvement with Navalny's organization before it was labeled extremist in 2021.
"The trial has nothing to do with justice. During the trial's final week, we were literally mocked and the defense team was limited in providing evidence," Vodnev said, adding that the judge's decision will be appealed.
A day earlier, prosecutors asked the court to convict Fadeyeva and sentence her to 10 1/2 years in prison.
Media reports said on December 27 that an ambulance was called to the courtroom after Fadeyeva and her lawyer felt unwell.
Fadeyeva's supporters accused the judge of holding the trial sessions behind closed doors for 12-hour sessions each day without breaks, which affected the state of health of Fadeyeva and her lawyer.
Fadeyeva was detained in December 2021. She was later released but barred from using the Internet and from communicating with others without the permission of investigators and attending public events.
She was then placed under house arrest and in November put in a detention center for what investigators said was a violation of house-arrest conditions. After that, her trial, which started in mid-August, resumed behind closed doors.
In January 2022, Russian authorities added Fadeyeva and several other former leaders of Navalny's teams across the country to the list of extremists and terrorists.
Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation and his other organizations were labeled extremist in August 2021.
Since Russia launched its ongoing unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, several of Navalny's former associates have been charged with discrediting the Russian armed forces, distribution of "fake" news about military, and extremism.
Earlier this year, the former leaders of Navalny’s teams in the Bashkortostan and Altai regions, Lilia Chanysheva and Vadim Ostanin, were sentenced to 7 1/2 and nine years in prison respectively on extremism charges, which they and their supporters call politically motivated.