The State Department on Friday warned that Russia will be held accountable by the international community for what happens to jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
Navalny's lawyers say they haven't seen him in more than a week.
"We have communicated to the Russian government that they are responsible for what happens to Mr. Navalny in their custody, and they will be held accountable by the international community," a State Department spokesperson told Axios.
Navalny had an extra 19 years in a maximum-security penal colony added to his jail term in early August in a criminal case that he said was designed to cow the Russian people into political submission.
Navalny, President Vladimir Putin's fiercest domestic critic, is already serving sentences totaling 11½ years on fraud and other charges that he says are also bogus. His political movement has been outlawed and declared "extremist."
Russia's prison service on Friday said Navalny was being moved to a new prison in another part of the country and that his arrival there will be disclosed in line with the law.
The process of moving prisoners by rail across the world's largest country can take weeks, with lawyers and family unable to obtain information about their location and well-being until they reach their destination.
Sota.vision, an online Russian-language news outlet which engages in court reporting, said a note on Navalny from the prison service in the Vladimir region, where Navalny was being held in a penal colony 145 miles east of Moscow, had been read out at a court session on Friday.
Sota.vision, whose own founder and editor-in-chief have been designated "foreign agents" by the authorities, cited the note as saying:
"Alexei Navalny left the Federal Penitentiary Institution IK-6 in the Vladimir region for a correctional facility located outside the Vladimir region, in accordance with the Moscow City Court verdict of 4 August 2023."
Information from Reuters was used in this report.
Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
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