Al Jazeera :
Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny faces immediate arrest once he returns to Russia, the country’s prison service has warned, claiming it was “obliged” to detain him.
Navalny, who has been convalescing in Germany following an alleged nerve agent poisoning in August that he blames on Russian authorities, said on Wednesday he plans to fly back home on Sunday.
The Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN) said in a statement on Thursday it issued an arrest warrant for Navalny in late December.
Then, the FSIN had warned Navalny he faced time in prison if he failed to report to its office in line with the terms of a suspended sentence and probation he received for a 2014 conviction on charges of embezzlement and money laundering.
Navalny rejects those charges as politically motivated. The European Court for Human Rights had ruled his conviction was unlawful.
The prison service, which has asked a Moscow court to turn Navalny’s three-and-a-half-year suspended sentence into a real one, noted it is “obliged to take all the necessary action to detain Navalny pending the court’s ruling”.
Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny faces immediate arrest once he returns to Russia, the country’s prison service has warned, claiming it was “obliged” to detain him.
Navalny, who has been convalescing in Germany following an alleged nerve agent poisoning in August that he blames on Russian authorities, said on Wednesday he plans to fly back home on Sunday.
The Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN) said in a statement on Thursday it issued an arrest warrant for Navalny in late December.
Then, the FSIN had warned Navalny he faced time in prison if he failed to report to its office in line with the terms of a suspended sentence and probation he received for a 2014 conviction on charges of embezzlement and money laundering.
Navalny rejects those charges as politically motivated. The European Court for Human Rights had ruled his conviction was unlawful.
The prison service, which has asked a Moscow court to turn Navalny’s three-and-a-half-year suspended sentence into a real one, noted it is “obliged to take all the necessary action to detain Navalny pending the court’s ruling”.
