Russian authorities raid Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny's Moscow office
Send a link to a friend
[December 26, 2019]
By Andrew Osborn and Anastasia Teterevleva
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian authorities
raided the Moscow headquarters of opposition politician Alexei Navalny
on Thursday, using power tools to gain entry before dragging Navalny out
by force and confiscating technical equipment such as laptops.
Navalny and his allies said the raid on his Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK)
was carried out by the Federal Bailiffs Service and was connected to his
refusal to delete a video investigation which leveled graft allegations
against Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and billionaire businessman
Alisher Usmanov.
The Federal Bailiffs Service told Reuters it was carrying out
investigative activities at Navalny's foundation as part of a criminal
investigation. It said it had not detained anyone during the raid.
Usmanov brought and won a defamation lawsuit against Navalny in 2017.
That case ended with a court ordering Navalny to delete within 10 days
all references to the allegations in his video, which Medvedev and
Usmanov said were utterly false.
Navalny said on Thursday he would not delete the offending video, which
has been watched over 32 million times on YouTube since it was first
posted in March 2017.
CCTV footage of Thursday's raid showed men using power tools to saw
through the front door of Navalny's foundation. The men, some of them
masked and wearing black uniforms, could then be seen searching the
office before one of them covered a CCTV camera up with tape.
The raid occurred a day after Navalny said that the forcible military
conscription of one of his allies to a remote air base in the Arctic
amounted to kidnapping and illegal imprisonment.
[to top of second column]
|
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny delivers a speech during a
rally to demand the release of jailed protesters, who were detained
during opposition demonstrations for fair elections, in Moscow,
Russia September 29, 2019. REUTERS/Shamil Zhumatov
CRITIC OF PUTIN
Allies said Navalny, who was barred from running in a presidential
election against Vladimir Putin last year, had been due to present
his own show, which is critical of the authorities, on his online TV
channel later on Thursday.
Navalny's foundation, which specializes in publishing exposes on the
alleged corruption of state officials, is the subject of a separate
criminal investigation into alleged money laundering.
Investigators opened the money laundering case in August after
Navalny called for people to demonstrate in central Moscow over the
exclusion of opposition candidates from a local election.
Those protests grew into Moscow's biggest sustained protest movement
in years before fizzling out.
The Justice Ministry in October formally labeled Navalny's
anti-corruption group a "foreign agent", meaning it can be subjected
to spot checks and face bureaucratic scrutiny.
Navalny has called that move and others part of a coordinated and
trumped-up campaign to stifle the anti-Kremlin opposition's
activities.
(Additional reporting by Maxim Rodionov and Maria Vasilyeva; Editing
by Gareth Jones)
[© 2019 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
Copyright 2019 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content. |