Navalny case: an opponent prosecuted for “threat” against a suspected FSB agent

Lioubov Sobol went to the home of this suspected agent, whom Alexei Navalny accuses of having participated in his poisoning in Novichok.

Le Monde avec AFP

Alexeï Navalny’s team announced on Friday December 25 that an investigation was targeting Lioubov Sobol, a close friend of the Russian opponent. The latter is accused of threats against a suspected agent of the Russian secret service (FSB) whom the Kremlin critic accuses of having participated in his poisoning in Novichok.

The investigation was opened for “violation of the home “and” threats “. On Monday, Lioubov Sobol went to the home of this suspected agent, whom Mr. Navalny says he trapped. The maximum penalty for this offense is two years in prison.

Mr. Navalny on Monday posted a video of a telephone conversation in which he leads, calling him under a false name, a certain Konstantin Koudriavtsev, presented as an FSB chemical weapons expert, to recount certain circumstances of the assassination attempt. Thinking of speaking to an FSB official, the individual says he participated in the destruction of evidence and explains that the poison had been applied to the opponent’s underwear.

Mr. Navalny had also published the address and telephone number of the one he designates as an FSB agent, an action now formally prohibited, according to a law passed on Tuesday at the last reading by Russian deputies.

A “medical proof”

“The patient clearly suffers from a delirium of persecution and (…) certain symptoms of megalomania”, replied the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri Peskov. The Russian intelligence services, for their part, denounced a “falsification” and a “provocation” organized with the help of foreign services.

Alexeï Navalny’s organization, the Anti-Corruption Fund , announced that he had filed a complaint against Konstantin Koudriavtsev with the Russian Investigation Committee.

Berlin doctors who treated Navalny on Wednesday released clinical details of his poisoning in Novichok, the opponent Russian welcoming the publication of this medical “proof” that Moscow has been asking for months.

“Poisoning serious with a cholinesterase inhibitor was diagnosed at Charité, “explain the scientists in an article in The Lancet. According to the article published with the consent of Mr. Navalny, the Russian opponent after the onset of his first symptoms fell into a coma, his heart rate slowed sharply and his body temperature fell to 33.5 degrees Celsius.

“His good state of health before the poisoning probably favored his recovery”, explain the scientists, contradicting the conclusions of the Russian doctors, who for a time questioned the lifestyle and general state of health of Mr. Navalny.

/Le Monde Report. View in full here.