The lawyer who first represented Alexei Navalny and, after his death, also his mother, was arrested on Tuesday in the Russian capital Moscow. Two independent Russian news media write: Novaya Gazeta Europe and Sota. Vasily Dubkov helped mother Lyudmila Navalnaya in her efforts to get her son’s body handed over. According to Novaya Gazeta Europe Russian authorities accuse Dubkov of disrupting “public order”, without substantiating this.
Dubkov’s arrest has not yet been confirmed by the authorities, but he would not be the first lawyer around Navalny to be silenced by the Kremlin. The Russian legal system is stuck in the grip of political power. Last year, police in Moscow arrested three other lawyers who worked or had worked with Navalny. Their houses were also turned upside down. Suspicions of participation in an “extremist organization” justified this, the authorities said.
Dubkov and other lawyers stood by Navalny until his death — despite the constant threat of capture. After Navalny died in an Arctic prison camp a week and a half ago, Dubkov accompanied his mother to Salekhard, Siberia, where Navalny’s body lay in the morgue. After a week, Navalnaya finally got him.
Navalny’s public farewell will probably take place at the end of this working week in Moscow. A location for this has not yet been found, and according to Navalny’s spokesperson Kira Yarmysj, this has everything to do with the fear that owners of suitable locations have of reprisals. “We have called almost all funeral directors, commercial locations and funeral agencies,” writes Jarmysj on X. “We have been told that funeral agencies are prohibited from doing business with us.”
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