The surprises began even before the trial began. In the morning it became known that the court changed the website a judge who must consider the FSIN's request to replace the suspended sentence of Alexei Navalny with a real one. Instead of Yulia Okuneva, Natalia Repnikova appears on the card.
It is known that she passed verdicts in the case of the Vostochny cosmodrome, where billions of rubles were stolen.
The reasons for the castling were not named, but the media immediately recalled that in mid-January The Insider published an investigation about Judge Okuneva. The journalists found out that the judge's relatives are co-owners of firms that receive contracts from law enforcement agencies, including the FSIN, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the FSO.
At 11 o'clock, Navalny's lawyer and his wife Yulia entered the courtroom, as the Mediazona correspondent reports , followed by journalists. Navalny was already in a glazed cell. At the same time, the press was banned from filming anything with cameras and phones, as well as conducting live video broadcasts.
- Press, turn off the broadcast! Who is broadcasting from the audience? - the bailiff asked the journalists.
- It's me! - retorted Navalny from the "aquarium".
At 11.22 Judge Natalia Repnikova opens the field session. When asked about his place of residence, Navalny replies: "SIZO No. 1" (Detention center № 1)... Next Repnikova introduces the parties to the process. They are Prosecutor Yekaterina Frolova, Head of Branch No. 15 of the UFSIN Alexander Yarmolin and Navalny's lawyers Vadim Kobzev and Olga Mikhailova.
At 11.35, lawyer Kobzev submitted a motion in which he asks to attach to the case a copy of the notification dated January 9 to the address of the UIS branch number 15 that Navalny will not appear for registration, as he is on vacation outside the Moscow region. The lawyer says that the UIS representative received a notification.
Kobzev also asks to attach the original from the Charite clinic, which says that Navalny was on treatment from August 22 to September 23, suffered severe organophosphate poisoning, then underwent outpatient rehabilitation, after discharge he gained about 10% of the mass and now his weight has become the same as before the incident. Document date - January 15, 2021, Berlin, head of the intensive care unit.
Lawyer Olga Mikhailova asks to attach the presentation on the criminal case and the ECHR decision in the case “Navalny v. Russia”.
Prosecutor Frolova asks to get acquainted with these documents - for this she needs a 10-minute break.
The judge announces a break for 10 minutes.
At 11.39, Interfax reports that at least 30 people have been detained at the building of the Moscow City Court at the moment, who managed to break through the police cordons posted on all adjacent streets.
11:55. The court resumes its work and submits documents from Navalny's defense - a certificate from the Charite clinic and the ECHR decision in the Yves Roche case. Prosecutor Frolova is not against this, however, claims that the notification was dated January 9, and Navalny had to appear on the first and third working Mondays of the month, that is, January 13 and 27. As for the certificate dated January 15, it was not presented to the UIS, the prosecutor says.
Then the representative of the Federal Penitentiary Service announces a claim to replace the term with a real one. He speaks very quietly and the majority of those present simply cannot hear him. According to Yarmolin, Navalny committed more than 50 violations of the probationary period and public order, as well as "duties imposed by the court". In particular, the facts of rehabilitation in the Sharite clinic have not been confirmed, since Navalny easily moved around Germany and even went in for sports, but did not appear at the Moscow penal correction system twice a month. As a result, the UFSIN asks the court to cancel the suspended sentence for Navalny and decide on the execution of the sentence in the colony.
"I ask the court to cancel Navalny's probation and decide on the execution of the sentence imposed by the Moscow Zamoskvoretsky Court, by which Navalny was sentenced to three years and six months in a colony with a fine of 500,000 rubles", - a spokesman for the FSIN said at the meeting.
At 12:21 pm, the prosecutor, as the correspondent of Ekho Moskvy reports, asked why the Federal Penitentiary Service did not send a proposal to replace Navalny's term with a real one until December 29? In response, a representative of the Federal Penitentiary Service said that his department hoped that "Navalny would take the path of correction, but he did not draw any conclusions," having violated the conditions of the probationary period 7 times in total.
In response, lawyer Kobzev points out the strangeness of a certain certificate from the Federal Penitentiary Service about the beginning of search activities. In his opinion, the title of the document completely contradicts the content - it lists not the initial events, but what preceded them.
Judge Repnikova also does not understand the content of the certificate and promises to give her assessment later. Next, the judge asks why the search for Navalny was not terminated when the FSIN received a certificate from the Charite clinic?
"Because after the treatment he had to appear in the penal correction system", - the answer of Yarmolin followed. To which the lawyer Kobzev remarked: "the whole country and the world, even the guard at the entrance, knew that Navalny was being treated, only you (the FSIN / the Federal Service for Execution of Punishment) did not know".
Yarmolin replies that the convicted person must report himself, but they could not contact the lawyer, because they did not have his phone, and as soon as they appeared, they immediately wrote a text message.
12.48 Russian Foreign Ministry Speaker Maria Zakharova called the presence of foreign diplomats in the Moscow City Court "not just interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state", but "self-exposure of the unsightly and illegal role of the collective West in attempts to contain Russia". "Or is this an attempt at psychological pressure on the judge?", - Zakharova asked a rhetorical question.
Presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov also said that diplomats who came to the trial on Navalny should not interfere in Russia's internal affairs, RIA Novosti reports.
"We are ready to consistently and patiently explain everything, but we do not intend to react to any mentoring statements and do not intend to take them into account", - the president’s press secretary explained.
Russia has every reason to believe that the situation with Navalny is a fake, since Germany does not provide any evidence of the alleged poisoning, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.
Meanwhile, in court, the parties are heatedly discussing the issue of whether the FSIN knew or did not know where and why Navalny was from August to January.
12:52
Navalny - FSIN (the Federal Service for Execution of Punishment): Dear Captain, do you respect Russian President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin?
Prosecutor's Office: Please remove the question.
Navalny: The President announced that he had sent me for treatment. You didn't know that either?
Navalny: I slipped into a coma, woke up, then left the hospital, met with the lawyers and sent you a paper about where I am and why I am there. What else could I do? You had an address. You came to my house and said that you do not know where I am...
13.05. The position of the FSIN (the Federal Service for Execution of Punishment) is as follows: only the period of treatment in the hospital in August-September is counted, everything else is not considered treatment.
“I could not get through to either the FSIN or to you personally, because you turned off the phones”, - lawyer Mikhailova almost shouts to Yarmolin. She recalls that she was not allowed to show one of the certificates during the detention of Navalny, because at the airport she was immediately cut off from her client.
Judge - FSIN (the Federal Service for Execution of Punishment): When you were told that Navalny was in a hotel in Germany, did you check this address? FSIN: They did not check...
13:13. In the Moscow City Court, the stage of questions to the representative of the FSIN from Navalny and his defense ended. The court proceeded to study the written materials of the case.
13:29 According to OVD-Info, 237 people were detained in the area of the Moscow City Court. In the paddy wagons were also representatives of the media - the correspondent of the RusNews publication was detained during a live broadcast. The police ripped off the woman's press card without explaining the reasons. The Dozhd TV channel showed riot police, whose personal badges were sealed with tape and their faces were hidden by masks.
The daughter of the municipal deputy Yulia Galyamina Evdokia was detained near the Moscow City Court, Novaya Gazeta reports.
13.54. The court announced a break. Navalny, according to Telegram channels, asked for food from McDonald's...