Russia on Friday (Jan 17) sentenced three lawyers who defended opposition leader Alexei Navalny, for bringing his messages from prison to the outside world. 

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The lawyers have been sentenced to prison for “being part of an extremist group,” a Russian court stated.

The three lawyers, identified as Vadim Kobzev, Alexei Liptser and Igor Sergunin, were in pre-trial detention since October 2023, and now have been accused and sentenced in prison. 

Also read: Will return to Russia one day to run for president when...: Navalny's widow

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Kobzev, the most high-profile member of Navalny's legal time, has been given a five-and-a-half-year sentence. Meanwhile, Lipster was been handed five years and Sergunin three-and-a-half years in prison. 

The court said the men had "used their status as lawyers while visiting convict Navalny ... to ensure the regular transfer of information between the members of the extremist community, including those wanted and hiding outside the Russian Federation, and Navalny."

The three men were sentenced after a closed-door trial in the town about 72 miles east of Moscow, near the Pokrov prison. 

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Also read: Hope to see Putin go from being 'tsar' to ordinary prisoner: Navalny's widow

"We are on trial for passing Navalny's thoughts to other people," Kobzev said in court last week.

Navalny's exiled widow Yulia Navalnaya said that the lawyers are political prisoners and should be freed immediately".

She added that these lawyers were almost the only people visiting the opposition leader while he was in prison serving his 19-year sentence. 

Also read: Putin critic Alexei Navalny awarded Dresden Peace Prize posthumously

Navalny communicated with the world by sharing messages through his lawyers that his team used to publish on social media. 

'Shameful'

Following the court's ruling, Amnesty International condemned the sentences of lawyers and called it a "Shameful attempt to silence those dared to defend Alexei Navalny and make his voice heard even from behind bars.”

Navalny, 47, who was Putin’s fiercest critic inside Russia, died in February last year, in an Arctic penal colony where he was serving a lengthy prison sentence.

Also read: Two Russian journalists detained over ‘extremism’ after allegedly working for Navalny group

Russian authorities attributed his death to natural causes, but the media reports claimed that Navalny showed signs of poisoning before his death.

(With inputs from agencies)