The official representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Maria Zakharova called the appearance of foreign diplomats at the trial in the case of Alexei Navalny (she is the founder of the Anti-Corruption Foundation, included by the Ministry of Justice in the register of organizations performing the functions of a foreign agent ) as a political action. She wrote about this on her Facebook.
According to the diplomat, the norm is the presence of employees of diplomatic missions in the courts for cases of citizens from their countries. “Although this norm exists, only many Western countries are not being implemented,” she added. Zakharova explained that the American side often refuses Russian diplomats to be present at the courts on Russian affairs.
“When diplomats, especially collectively, are present at the trials on the affairs of non-citizens, we are talking about a political action,” she concluded.
Earlier, the British and Latvian embassies explained the arrival of diplomats at the trial by the fact that it was “common practice.” Representatives of the embassies of the USA, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Sweden, Austria, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Canada, Poland and Norway also came there. The Polish and Swiss embassies each sent two people to the Moscow City Court.
On February 2, a hearing is being held there to cancel Navalny's suspended sentence in the Yves Rocher case and replace it with a real one. The UFSIN asks to replace the conditional sentence of 3.5 years in prison with a real one – in the colony. Navalny was charged with 60 violations of public order after a suspended sentence.
