Vadim Ostanin, who headed Navalny’s local offices in the Siberian city of Barnaul, was only conducting “legitimate political work,” Navalny’s team wrote on the Telegram messaging app
The former head of the local arm of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny’s organization has been sentenced to nine years in a Russian prison for joining an “extremist community,” Navalny’s team announced today.
Vadim Ostanin, who headed Navalny’s local offices in the Siberian city of Barnaul, was only conducting “legitimate political work,” Navalny’s team wrote on the Telegram messaging app. He was also found guilty of participating in a non-profit organization “whose activity includes violence against civilians.”
Ostanin was arrested in December 2021 and initially held in Moscow before being transferred to Barnaul, where he went on trial.
“Upon my arrival in Barnaul from Moscow, without explanation, I was transferred to an isolation cell, about six square meters, in a basement with a window covered with rubble,” Ostanin wrote in a letter released by Navalny’s team. “About a week later, the cell was flooded with ankle-deep water…in these cells there were rats, ants, spiders,” he wrote.
Navalny’s team wrote that investigators had pressured Ostanin to plead guilty, but he refused.
Source :Skai
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