2023-12-25 13:35:00
(CNN) — Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalnywas transferred to a penal colony in northwest Siberia, his team reported this Monday, two weeks following stating that they had lost contact with him.
“We have found Alexey,” his spokesperson Kira Yarmysh said in a statement on X, formerly Twitter. “He is now located in IK-3 in the Kharp settlement in the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug.”
He added that Navalny’s lawyer had visited him early Monday and that he was “fine.”
Navalny’s lawyers said on December 11 that they had lost contact with him. Until then, he was imprisoned in a penal colony regarding 240 kilometers east of Moscow.
Navalny “has never been in hiding for so long,” his team said following he was absent from two scheduled court hearings last week. They warned that he was in poor health before his disappearance following being “deprived of food” and “kept in a punishment cell without ventilation.”
His disappearance, which occurred just days following Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that he will run for re-election in March 2024, raised concerns for his well-being and safety.
Ivan Zhdanov, head of Navalny’s anti-corruption foundation, said the IK-3 penal colony in Kharp where Navalny is now detained, known as “Polar Wolf,” is “one of the northernmost and most remote colonies.”
“The conditions there are harsh, with a special regime in the permafrost zone. Getting there is very difficult and there are no letter delivery systems,” Zhdanov wrote in X.
Zhdanov said Navalny’s lawyer had not been allowed to enter the penal colony “immediately.”
“It seems that the colony was prepared in advance for his arrival. The head of the Federal Penitentiary Service, Arkady Gostev, was there in April, and maybe that was when they decided to transfer Alexey there,” he detailed.
Kharp is almost 2,000 miles from Moscow, where Navalny had previously been detained.
In August he was sentenced to 19 years in prison following being found guilty of creating an extremist community, financing extremist activities and other crimes.
Navalny’s supporters say his arrest and imprisonment are a politically motivated attempt to suppress his criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
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