Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny is seen on a screen via a video link from his corrective colony during a hearing about his right to correspond while in jail, at the Russian Supreme Court in Moscow, Russia, 22 June 2023 (reissued 11 December 2023). Alexei Navalny is no longer listed in the IK-6 and IK-7 corrective colonies in the Vladimir region, spokeswoman of Navalny, Kira Yarmysh, published on 11 December 2023 on the X news service, formerly Twitter. ``The fact that we can`t find Alexei is particularly worrying``, she said on X. EPA/SERGEI ILNITSKY
Alexei Navalny, a jailed Kremlin opponent, was found in a prison colony in northern Russia after being missing for nearly three weeks, his spokeswoman said Monday, reported The Moscow Times. AFP contributed reporting.
The absence of Russia's most prominent opposition politician, who organised massive protests before being imprisoned in 2021, alarmed friends, rights groups, and Western governments.
"Alexei Navalny has been located." "He is now in IK-3, Kharp, Yamal-Nenets autonomous district," Kira Yarmysh posted on X, formerly Twitter.
She stated that Navalny's lawyer had visited him earlier in the day and that he is "doing well."
The Kharp district, which has a population of roughly 5,000 people, is located above the Arctic Circle.
Ivan Zhdanov, an exiled Navalny aide, described IK-3 as "one of the most northern and remote" prison camps in Russia.
"There are harsh conditions there, with a special regime in the permafrost zone." It's extremely difficult to contact, and there are no mechanisms in place to mail letters or make phone calls," Zhdanov wrote.
"The situation with Alexei is a vivid example of how the system treats political prisoners, trying to isolate and suppress them," he added, linking Navalny's isolation to Russia's presidential elections in 2024, in which President Vladimir Putin is projected to win a fifth term.The IK-3 prison colony is located in Kharp, Yamal-Nenets autonomous district.Google Maps.
The IK-3 prison colony is located in Kharp, Yamal-Nenets autonomous district. Google Maps.
IK-3 is famous for detaining Platon Lebedev, a one-time business partner of exiled Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who was convicted of tax evasion, money laundering, and fraud in what he and his supporters claimed was a politically driven case, at one point in the 2000s.
Navalny's whereabouts and condition have been unclear since his attorneys last spoke with him on December 5, raising concerns that the 47-year-old's life is in risk.
He was to be transported to a different prison colony as part of his new 19-year sentence for "extremism."
He was previously imprisoned at the IK-2 prison colony in the Vladimir region of central Russia, where he was serving a sentence on fraud allegations.
His associates blamed his abduction on Putin's Dec. 8 declaration that he will run for re-election in the 2024 presidential election.
In the March 15-17 election, Navalny has asked Russians to "vote for any other candidate" besides Putin.
Navalny was imprisoned in 2021 after returning to Moscow from Germany, where he had recovered from a near-fatal nerve agent poisoning with the Soviet-designed nerve agent Novichok. He claims Putin engineered the poisoning, which the Kremlin denies.
In the summer of 2021, his activist and political groups were banned as "extremist" organisations, sending his closest associates into exile. /BGNES
