MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 05th March, 2021) Moscow's Lyublino court on Friday ruled that jailed opposition figure Alexey Navalny pay 500,000 rubles ($6,700) in defamation damages to Russian businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin and retract the besmirching statements, Prigozhin's lawyer Igor Yelisevev told Sputnik.
Last October, Prigozhin filed several lawsuits against Navalny and his allies, including Lyubov Sobol and Leonid Volkov, over "offensive statements containing slanderous information."
"The court partially satisfied Prigozhin's lawsuit against Navalny, compelling the defender to remove the slanderous information and publish a retraction within ten days from the ruling's entry into force. Additionally, Navalny has been charged 500,000 rubles in moral damages," the lawyer said.
In 2019, Navalny and Sobol were fined over 88 million rubles in total for alleging that a catering company purportedly belonging to Prigozhin supplied low-quality food to schools and kindergartens under state contracts, as well as accusing the businessman of corruption and links to the militia.
Last July, Navalny publicly refused a one-million-ruble donation, which he claimed his foundation had received from Prigozhin.
