Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova reacted to the report of the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) on the case of Alexei Navalny ( founder of the Anti-Corruption Fund included by the Ministry of Justice in the register of organizations performing the functions of a foreign agent ), saying that “our desires to find the truth in this deeds coincide. ” RIA Novosti reports her words.
“Our desires to find the truth in this matter coincide. Throughout this time, the Russian side has asked, and is now demanding from the German authorities to provide data that contain, as Berlin said, important evidence of the alleged poisoning of Navalny with chemical weapons, ”she said.
Zakharova also said that Moscow hopes that “after the call of the special rapporteurs, Berlin will cease to hide” classified materials “from the international community, to delete the formulas of the discovered substances from the reports.” She recalled that Russia “repeatedly called on the Federal Republic of Germany and the OPCW to work together on this topic: they sent requests from the Russian Prosecutor General's Office to German colleagues with questions that could shed light on what had happened, they waited in Russia for OPCW specialists”, “but everything was in vain.”
“Perhaps today's statements by special rapporteurs will encourage partners to end the disinformation campaign and start joint work, which should be conducted transparently and legally. The repetition of the British cheating around the so-called “Skripal case” or the staging by the Western special services and “White Helmets” of the alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria is unacceptable, ”the Foreign Ministry spokeswoman concluded.
In early October, it became known that UN special rapporteurs had begun an investigation into the incident with Navalny. On Monday 1 March, Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions, Agnes Callamard, and Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, Irene Khan, released a statement of their inquiry.
In early February, the Simonovsky Court of Moscow replaced Navalny's suspended sentence with a real one for violating the conditions for observing the probationary period in the Yves Rocher case. The UFSIN asked to appoint him a sentence of imprisonment in a colony for a period of 3.5 years. Navalny was charged with 60 violations of public order after a suspended sentence and given him 2 years 8 months in prison, taking into account the year spent under house arrest during the preliminary investigation in the Yves Rocher case. Later, his sentence was reduced, he will spend 2.5 years in a colony.
