Russia has sentenced Vadim Ostanin, a campaigner for Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny’s organisation, to nine years in prison for participating in an “extremist community”.
Ostanin was arrested in December 2021 and held in Moscow before being transferred to the Siberian city of Barnaul, where he stood trial on Monday.
Ostanin, who had run the Anti-Corruption Foundation’s local headquarters in Barnaul, had carried out only “legal political work”, Navalny’s team said on Telegram on Monday.
In a letter, written by Ostanin and published by Navalny’s team, he said: “Upon my arrival in Barnaul from Moscow, without explanation, I was placed in a solitary cell, about six square metres, in a basement with a window covered with debris.”
“About a week later, the cell was flooded with ankle-deep water … in these cells there were rats, ants, spiders.”
Navalny’s team said investigators had pressured Ostanin to admit his “guilt”, but he refused.
Link from <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/7/24/russia-jails-navalny-campaigner-vadim-ostanin-for-extremism” target=”_blank” style=”color:blue” rel=”noopener”>www.aljazeera.com