Putin critic Navalny transferred to penal colony
Feb 27, 2021
Moscow [Russia], February 27 : Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny has been transferred from a Moscow detention centre to a penal colony, according to state media.
Navalny remains behind bars after a Russian court partially rejected his appeal over a two-and-a-half-year prison sentence handed down earlier this month.
A Moscow court had sent Russian President Vladimir Putin's biggest critic to prison for more than two-and-a-half years. CNN reported the verdict was announced after a heated hearing in which the Kremlin critic ridiculed claims he broke his parole conditions while in a coma and denounced Russia's leader as "Putin the poisoner."
According to CNN, the exact location and name of the penal colony were not revealed but Alexander Kalashnikov of Russia's Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN) told reporters: "According to the court's decision, he left to where he currently should be. Everything is done within the framework of the law and the current legislation."
Kalashnikov added Navalny will be kept in "absolutely normal conditions."
On Thursday, Navalny's lawyers had told CNN he had been moved from Matrosskaya Tishina detention centre in Moscow but no details had been provided to Navalny's team or his family on where he was being moved to.
Vadim Kobzev, one of Navalny's lawyers, had told CNN on Friday that he still did not know which penal colony his client had been taken to. He said that according to Russian law, prison services have up to 10 days to inform Navalny's family where he has been moved to.
Marina Litvinovich of Moscow's Public Monitoring Commission (ONK), which observes the treatment of prisoners, told CNN that the Putin critic is due to be sent to a "general regime" penal colony, the most common type of prison in Russia.
Litvinovich said prisoners are not usually kept in cells but sleep in dormitories and are divided into groups. She added prisoners can work if they choose to do so.
The Putin critic was previously handed a three-and-a-half-year suspended sentence in the 2014 case along with five years of probation. He had to spend five months in Germany recovering from Novichok poisoning before his return to Moscow on January 17.
