Vadim Kobzev, Aleksei Liptser and Igor Sergunin jailed for supposedly participating in an ‘extremist organisation’  

In 2021, the Russian authorities designated Aleksei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation an extremist organisation

‘Their only ‘crime’ was standing up for justice and human rights’ - Marie Struthers

Responding to today’s sentencing of the lawyers of the late Russian prisoner of conscience Aleksei Navalny, Marie Struthers, Amnesty International’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia Director, said:

“The prosecution and sentencing of Vadim Kobzev, Aleksei Liptser and Igor Sergunin is a shameful attempt to silence those who dared to defend Aleksei Navalny and make his voice heard even from behind bars. 

“By targeting lawyers for merely doing their job, the Russian authorities are dismantling what remains of the right to legal defence, and abusing what is a criminal justice system only in name. 

“We call on the Russian authorities to immediately and unconditionally release these individuals and drop all charges against them.

“Their only ‘crime’ was standing up for justice and human rights.”

Earlier today, the Petushinsky District Court in the Vladimir Oblast sentenced Vadim Kobzev to five years and six months in prison, Aleksei Liptser to five years and Igor Sergunin to three years and six months. In addition, the court imposed a three-year ban on practising law on all three of the men.

Participating in an ‘extremist organisation’

The three lawyers were arrested last October on charges of participating in an “extremist organisation”, an arbitrary designation which the Russian government applied to Aleksei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation in 2021. The prosecution in the case alleged that the lawyers acted as “intermediaries”, passing messages from Navalny to other Anti-Corruption Foundation members, thereby facilitating communication within what the authorities deemed an “extremist network”.

In November, the Russian financial regulator added all three lawyers to the national registry of “extremists and terrorists”. Their persecution fits into a broader pattern of an unabashed misuse of “anti-extremism” legislation by the Russian authorities to target critics of the state for their peaceful activism. In recent years, numerous people affiliated with Navalny and his movement - as well as other Government critics - have faced arbitrary arrest, prosecution and severe penalties.