MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 11th May, 2021) The Simonovsky Court of Moscow has ruled that Lyubov Sobol, an ally of jailed opposition activist Alexey Navalny, pay 500,000 rubles ($6,750) in each of two defamation suits related to Russian businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, the mogul's company Concord said on Tuesday.
The court itself has not yet made comments.
"The court has found that the information spread by Sobol on YouTube channel Navalny LIVE and the Znak media website was unreliable and offensive, and also ordered to pay the plaintiff 500,000 rubles in each case in compensation for moral damages," the company said on Vkontakte.
Concord emphasized that the filed lawsuits were not related to Sobol's political views but were aimed at "enforcing compliance with the Russian law."
Last October, Prigozhin's lawyers began filing a series of lawsuits against Navalny and his allies � Lyubov Sobol, Leonid Volkov, Maksim Shevchenko and Vladimir Milov. Concord then said that the reason for these appeals was "the publication of offensive statements containing slanderous information" about the businessman.
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.
Prigozhin's legal representative Igor Yeliseyev has told Sputnik that most of these suits appealed for 5-7 million rubles in damages in addition to the demand that slanderous materials be removed from the internet.
