- Moscow court issues Navalnaya arrest order
- Accused of “participation in extremist society”
- Navalnaya calls Putin a murderer, criminal
According to official media, a Moscow court has issued an arrest order for Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s widow on extremism accusations.
According to Tass news agency, the allegations presented against Yulia Navalnaya, who lives outside Russia, in absentia, are related to her alleged “participation in an extremist society.
Navalny was Russia’s most significant opposition leader over the last decade. In February, he perished in an Arctic Circle jail. Russian authorities said he died of natural causes, but his widow said he was “tortured, starved, cut off, and killed” by Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin.
Navalny has been serving a 19-year sentence on extremism charges that were largely viewed as politically motivated.
Yulia Navalnaya responded to her arrest warrant on X, stating that Vladimir Putin is a murderer and war criminal. His place is in prison, not in The Hague, in a cosy cell with a TV, but in Russia, in the same colony and two-by-three-metre cell where he murdered Alexei.
The Moscow court determined that Ms Navalnaya, who has pledged to continue her husband’s work, should be remanded in detention and declared wanted.
The decision implies she would be arrested if she entered Russia.
The allegations could be related to a Moscow court verdict in June 2021 that prohibited three Navalny-linked organizations, labelling them as “extremists”.
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Ms Navalnaya was unable to attend his burial in March.
She has since met several Western politicians, including US President Joe Biden.
This month, she was chosen chair of the Human Rights Foundation in the United States, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting and protecting human rights worldwide.
She stated that she intends to use her position to further her husband’s fight against Mr Putin.
