Today marked the ninth hearing in Navalny’s case.
Twelve defense witnesses arrived at the penal colony today, including politician Ilya Yashin. At the start of the hearing, the prosecutor suddenly said she saw no point in questioning these witnesses. In her view, they do not possess any “special information about the criminal case, and their testimony would not be relevant to it.” So, according to the prosecution, the testimony of planted victims, math teachers conducting linguistic analyses, instructors from a men’s monastery taking offense on behalf of the judge, and paid propagandists is highly valuable and relevant to the case. But the prosecution sees no point in questioning real people who donated to Navalny for many years and can confirm in court that no one deceived them and no money was stolen.
In other words, quite literally: courts in Russia are moving toward a system where only the prosecution presents its case, and then a verdict is handed down immediately.
All the witnesses questioned today confirmed that they had transferred money to various Navalny organizations and regularly received financial reports. They do not consider Navalny’s activities extremist. They were fully satisfied with the work of the Anti-Corruption Foundation. The fact that Navalny might be barred from the presidential election was common knowledge, but it did not affect their desire to support him. One witness said she watched Alexei’s videos to help her son prepare for social studies classes, and then ended up going to a rally herself. She was detained at that rally and fined, but the Anti-Corruption Foundation helped her pay it.
Since we announced that we were looking for defense witnesses, several hundred people have written to us. Of them, 329 said they were willing to testify, either by submitting written statements or by appearing in court in person. And that stands against the four alleged victims identified by the Investigative Committee, one of whom is a pensioner misled by the pseudo-lawyer Remeslo and now withdrawing his claims in court, two businessmen facing criminal cases of their own and therefore under pressure, and a manual laborer who was also prosecuted in a drug distribution case.
It is impossible to question a hundred witnesses in court, but 10 more people have been invited for tomorrow. For now, the defense continues to present its case.
As always, we ask you at the end to share these videos. Navalny’s trial is moving toward its conclusion. While Putin wages war against Ukraine, inside our country, at this very moment, they are preparing to imprison for 15 years a man who stands for peace and tells the truth. Because those two words—peace and truth—are what Putin hates most of all. And we cannot allow this to be ignored.
There are practically no independent media outlets left in Russia. Everything is being blocked. But we still have ourselves. So talk about this case—to your relatives, friends, neighbors, to everyone you can reach.
Freedom for Alexei Navalny.