Russian politician Alexei Navalni will spend six months in a punishment cell in the penal colony where he is serving his sentence. The opponent has been punished on a dozen occasions in isolation cells, but this time the conditions will be harsher and he will not be able to receive visitors.
The most critical voice against the Kremlin of Vladimir Putin is serving a nine-year prison sentence in a maximum-security penal colony 250 kilometers east of Moscow. He was convicted of fraud in a case that he and his supporters said was politically motivated.
The members of his team, most of whom are in exile, assure that his health has deteriorated dramatically after spending twelve times in punishment cells.
Last month some 500 doctors signed a letter to Putin calling for the prisoner to have access to civilian medical care.
The administration of the Melekhovo prison, in the Vladimir province, announced on Tuesday that Navalny, 46, would be transferred from a disciplinary isolation cell, where he has spent more than a hundred days, to a different section, called in Russian ” cell-like room.
This is also within the disciplinary space of the prison. In it, inmates are deprived of family visits.
This Wednesday confirmed the transfer his lawyer, Vadim Kóbzev. Information also appeared on the politician’s social networks. “I haven’t had a visitor in eight months now and yesterday I was told that I will be transferred to a cell-like space for the maximum amount of time allowed. Visitors are not allowed there. That means over a year without a visitor. Even maniacs and murderers Serials serving a life sentence are entitled to a visit, but I am not,” said a Twitter message posted on behalf of Navalni.
Kobzev assured that his client’s health is deteriorating. Navalni cannot take antibiotics, he explained on Navalni’s team channel on Telegram. However, prison officials deliberately exposed him to being infected by a cellmate and then treated him with “large doses” of antibiotics.
Now, according to the lawyer, Navalni has severe abdominal pain and has lost seven kilograms. “These actions can only be understood as an open strategy to destroy Navalni’s health by all possible means,” he wrote.
Navalny’s spokeswoman, Kira Yarmish, directly accused the Russian president on Twitter: “Putin tried to kill Navalni quickly. Now he is slowly killing and torturing him.”
A Russian prison supervisor said two weeks ago that Navalni’s health is not in any danger.
In the summer of 2020, the politician suffered near-fatal poisoning with a substance that several Western laboratories identified as a Novichov-type nerve agent, developed for military use in Soviet times.
Navalni and his team blame the Kremlin for the poisoning, which has denied any connection to the case.
After recovering in Germany, he returned to Russia in January 2021. But he was detained at the same Moscow airport.
He was convicted of fraud in two different cases that he says were fabricated to keep him out of politics and stop his investigations into elite corruption in Russia. The courts later outlawed his organizations.
