In the new case, he is accused of leading an extremist group — his Anti-Corruption Foundation, which battled graft and theft by Russian officials until it was bankrupted by lawsuits brought by allies of President Vladimir Putin.
The trial was held in an unidentified room in the bowels of Penal Colony Number 6 in the Vladimir region, from which media and even Navalny’s parents were barred.
The sound quality was so poor and Judge Andrei Suvorov muttered so quietly that Russian independent media covering the event remotely via video in a separate room in the prison could hear almost nothing, one outlet, Mediazona, reported. Some journalists stood close to the video screen, straining their ears.
After just 86 minutes of arguments, the video abruptly switched off without explanation. Prosecutor Nadezhda Tikhonova called for the trial to be closed to the media, arguing there was a threat to the security of participants, without specifying the nature of the threat. It was not immediately clear why the screen went blank.
Shortly afterward, Vadim Polezhaev, a spokesman for the press service of the Moscow City Court, told journalists to leave the prison, announcing that the judge had closed the trial to media.
Navalny survived a poisoning attack by the Russian state in 2020, according to the U.S. State Department. After recovering, he was arrested upon his return to Moscow in 2021 and jailed for more than two years on alleged probation violations. Last year, he was convicted of fraud charges and sentenced another nine years. Navalny has denied all wrongdoing.
In Russia’s highly politicized justice system, he faces a hefty additional sentence on the new charges of creating an extremist community, incitement to extremism, financing extremism, rehabilitation of Nazism, involving minors in dangerous acts and creating a nongovernmental organization that infringes on citizens’ rights.
In a statement on social media, Navalny said the trial “will greatly add to my sentence.” He said the court was closed because Putin was afraid that to let him speak the truth.
“What is the most important thing about this trial? Not lawlessness, not telephone law, not the obedience of unscrupulous judges and prosecutors. The main thing is its form: It is a court inside a prison,” he said.
Navalny said Putin was not afraid of jailing the innocent, “but he is afraid of what I will say.”
“He is afraid of words. Not just mine, of course, which is why Kara-Murza and many others were tried in a closed trial,” he said, referring to another prominent Russian opposition politician, Vladimir Kara-Murza, who was recently convicted of treason and sentenced to 25 years for his criticism of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
“In essence, the task of consolidating and prolonging Putin’s power is accomplished by shutting up those who dare to speak the truth,” Navalny said.
More than 19,500 Russians have faced charges related to protests or criticisms of the war, according to OVD-Info, a Russian legal rights group.
Navalny, defense lawyers and co-defendant Daniel Kholodny, who is accused of participating and financing extremist activities, all strongly opposed the secrecy move, arguing that there was public interest in the trial and no security threat.
Last June, Russian authorities banned three Navalny-linked organizations, including the Anti-Corruption Foundation and his political network, branding them as “extremist” in a move strongly condemned by Amnesty International and other global human rights organizations.
