Moscow court postpones Alexey Navalny’s hearing until February

Moscow’s Simonovsky Court has changed the date of the hearing on revoking Navalny’s probation, his lawyer Olga Mikhailova told Interfax, on the evening of Monday, January 18.

“The hearing was postponed from January 29 to February 2, at ten o’clock,” she said. “The reasons for the rescheduling are unknown.”

Earlier in the day on Monday, Navalny was remanded in custody for 30 days (until February 15) pending a trial on changing his sentence in the Yves Rocher case. This came after Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service filed a complaint against Navalny seeking to revoke his probation and incarcerate him under a reinstated sentence on the grounds that he violated the terms of his parole.

Lawyers told Navalny’s press secretary Kira Yarmysh that he is now being taken to the Matrosskaya Tishina prison in Moscow. 

Navalny’s remand hearing took place at a police station in Khimki, where he was held overnight after being detained at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport upon returning to Russia from Germany on Sunday, January 17. 

Police officials claimed that the hearing was conducted at the station because Navalny didn’t have papers confirming that he had tested negative for the coronavirus, while representatives for the city court said it was so that journalists could cover the hearing in spite of pandemic restrictions.