Jailed Russian opposition politician Aleksei Navalny has been given just over one day to get acquainted with 700 pages that form a new criminal case launched against him, the details of which have yet to be made public.
Navalny faces a hearing on April 26 on the unknown charge, which his team warned earlier this month was most likely going to be "political," adding that the activities of his Anti-Corruption Foundation since 2011 would likely be defined as extremist, allowing prosecutors to seek up to 35 years in prison for the already-jailed politician.
Navalny associate Ivan Zhdanov said on April 24 the Kremlin critic had basically no time to review documents in a case against him, given the daily timetable he has to live under while in prison. Navalny is expected to work eight hours a day while incarcerated, and has a lights-out regime from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. overnight.
Navalny, the most prominent leader among Russia's splintered opposition, has been detained and prosecuted repeatedly on charges including corruption, embezzlement, and fraud -- all of which he and his supporters say is retribution from President Vladimir Putin for the 46-year-old lawyer's pursuit of exposing corruption at the highest levels in the country.
After suffering a near-fatal poisoning in August 2020 that he blames on Russian security operatives acting at Putin's behest, Navalny was arrested on January 17, 2021, and later handed a 2 1/2-year prison sentence for violating the terms of an earlier parole during of his convalescence abroad. The Kremlin has denied any involvement in Navalny's poisoning.
Then in March 2022, Navalny was handed a nine-year prison term on charges of contempt and embezzlement through fraud that he and his supporters have repeatedly rejected as politically motivated.
Navalny's lawyer, Vadim Kobzev, said on April 18 that any additional charge his client faced is likely to involve "disrupting" activities at the prison where he is incarcerated.
Navalny associates say they had been warned through sources that prison officials were preparing to create a provocation against Navalny, who has already been locked up 13 times in a punitive isolation cell at the Melekhovo prison in the Vladimir region, some 250 kilometers northeast of Moscow.
According to Kobzev, his client refused to enter a cell on April 17 after a "hobo" inmate who ignores personal hygiene was placed there.
Kobzev said that after Navalny was forced to enter the cell, he tried to remove the cellmate, identified as Tatarchenko, from the cell, but was stopped by the guards who assaulted him with blows to the abdomen and then informed him he will be charged over the disruption.
Kobzev said at the time that Navalny may face up to five additional years in prison if found guilty on that charge.
The convictions against Navalny are all widely regarded as trumped-up and politically motivated.