Russia has jailed lawyers who acted for late opposition leader Alexei Navalny

Three lawyers who acted for the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny have been sentenced to up to five and a half years in prison for their involvement in an “extremist organization”.

Vadim Kobzev, Igor Sergunin and Alexei Liptser were arrested in October 2023 as Russian authorities stepped up pressure on the jailed Kremlin critic, who died suddenly in an Arctic prison colony last February.

They were tried behind closed doors in Petushkin, a town east of Moscow, and accused of “using their status” to pass messages between Navalny and his colleagues.

Navalny condemned the case as reminiscent of the Soviet era and indicative of “Russia’s rule of law”.

Igor Sergunin was the only one of the three to plead guilty, according to independent reports, and was given a lighter sentence of three and a half years.

Alexei Liptser was imprisoned for five years in a penal colony and Vadim Kobzev was given five and a half years.

Kobzev’s lawyer, Andrei Grivtsov, said the evidence against them amounts to an illegal invasion of privacy.

“They are allowed to listen to meetings between a lawyer and a client in principle in a penal colony – there is a direct legislative ban,” he told BBC Russian.

The three lawyers were tried near the Pokrov penal colony, where Navalny was originally sent when he returned to Russia in January 2021 after surviving a nerve agent attack blamed on Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

The Kremlin denied the allegation and Navalny remained in Russian penal colonies until his death, north of the Arctic Circle and 1,900 km (1,200 miles) northeast of Moscow.

His widow, Yulia Navalnaya, blamed Putin for his death, which authorities called “sudden death syndrome”.