Press Release, 11.09.2020

Yabloko party Chairman Nikolai Rybakov and eleven Yabloko deputies from six regional legislative assemblies forwarded to Alexander Bastrykin, head of the Investigative Committee of Russia, a statement on investigation of a crime.

Yabloko deputies urge Bastrykin to initiate a criminal case under Article 277 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“Encroachment on the life of a statesman or public figure, committed in order to terminate his public or other political activities, or out of revenge for such activities”) into the fact of poisoning of Alexei Navalny with a chemical warfare agent.

“The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia has begun a pre-investigation check due to the hospitalisation of Alexei Navalny, and at the same time the Minister of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation Vladimir Kolokoltsov publicly states that “there is no reason to believe that there is any crime in what happened to Navalny”. One can only guess what “grounds” the Minister of the Interior needs to see a crime – if the statements of the German authorities about the use of chemical warfare agents and the prolonged presence of a person in an artificial coma are not enough for him,” the document runs.

The appeal to the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation was signed by Moscow City Duma deputies Maxim Kruglov, Sergei Mitrokhin, Yevgeny Bunimovich and Daria Besedina, deputy of the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly Boris Vishnevsky, deputies of the Pskov Regional Assembly Lev Shlosberg and Artur Gaiduk, deputies of the Legislative Assembly of Karelia Emilia Slabunova and Ivan Gusev, deputy of the Astrakhan Regional Duma Dmitry Anufriyev and deputy of the Kostroma Regional Duma Vladimir Mikhailov.