Russia Probes Navalny Ally for ‘Threatening Suspected Poisoner’
Image Credits: AP News
Moscow, Dec 25 (AFP/APP): Russian authorities on Friday launched a criminal probe into an ally of Kremlin foe Alexei Navalny after she tried to doorstep the apartment of a man Navalny said took part in his poisoning.
Investigators accused Lyubov Sobol of trespassing “with the use of violence or a threat to use it” after she rang the doorbell of the alleged agent from Federal Security Service (FSB), the country’s main security agency. The charges carry a maximum penalty of two years in jail. Sobol was initially taken in for questioning as a witness in the probe, but later on Friday Navalny ally Ivan Zhdanov said she became a suspect in the case.
“Lyubov Sobol is now officially a suspect in the criminal case, her status has changed,” Zhanov wrote on Twitter, adding that she was being taken into police custody for 48 hours.
Sobol’s lawyer Vladimir Voronin confirmed this information to AFP without providing further details. Russia’s Investigative Committee — which probes major crimes — said in a statement on Friday that Sobol and several others repeatedly tried to enter the “apartment of an elderly woman” in eastern Moscow, adding that they were wearing uniforms of the country’s consumer watchdog.
The statement said that Sobol tricked a delivery courier into letting her inside the apartment block and then forced her way into the woman’s flat when she opened the door. Just after 7:00 am (0400 GMT) on Friday, the 33-year-old opposition activist posted a video on Twitter from inside her apartment before going incommunicado.
In the video her seven-year-old daughter can be heard crying as someone pounds on the front door, demanding it be opened. A separate CCTV image released by Navalny’s allies shows masked men in black uniforms — one carrying a crowbar — inside Sobol’s Moscow residential building. Investigators confiscated Sobol’s tech devices as well as her daughter’s mobile phone, her associates said.
On Monday, Navalny said he had tricked an alleged chemical weapons expert with the FSB named Konstantin Kudryavtsev into admitting the domestic intelligence agency had sought to kill him this summer by placing poison in his underwear. Later Monday, Sobol went to the Moscow apartment where Kudryavtsev is believed to live. She was detained by police at the scene and questioned for hours. Sobol’s lawyer said the probe had been launched following a complaint from Kudryavtsev’s mother-in-law.
Western governments say Navalny, 44, was poisoned with the Soviet-era Novichok nerve agent in a case that has further dented Moscow’s relations with leading European countries and sparked mutual sanctions. The FSB says Navalny’s call with Kudryavtsev was “fake” but has not denied that he works for the agency. The Kremlin has admitted that security agents have tailed Navalny but denied any attempts to poison him.
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