MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 01st June, 2021) A penal colony in the Vladimir Region of Russia, where opposition figure Alexey Navalny initially served a sentence for fraud, insisted during a court hearing on Monday that his lawsuit against the prison was unlawful and accusations had not been verified by other inmates, a Sputnik correspondent reported.
Navalny filed three lawsuits against the prison, including challenging his designation by prison authorities as a flight risk. He claimed that because of this status the prison guards woke him up at night during routine checks. Navalny attended the Monday hearing via video conference.
"We petition to attach to the case file reports ... that no convicts, who can launch complaints with the system, submitted petitions concerning disruptions of sleep. There is another report saying that convicts who directly share the cell with Alexey Anatolyevich [Navalny] ... also did not register complaints, motions or suggestions concerning sleep disruptions," the prison's spokeswoman said.
Navalny and his defense opposed the petition, and lawyer Vadim Kobzev told journalists that reconciliation between his client and the prison is impossible. He also said that earlier in the day he had visited Navalny, who is in a hospital in a different jail at the moment, and that the 44-year-old was feeling fine.
The next hearing on Navalny's case is scheduled for June 2. The other two lawsuits concern the censorship of newspapers which are delivered to Navalny in prison, and prison staff's refusal to allow him books that he purchased.
Navalny was arrested in January upon his arrival to Russia from Germany, where he received medical treatment for an alleged poisoning. A court rescinded his suspended sentence in the 2014 Yves Rocher fraud case over multiple probation breaches and sentenced him to 2.5 years in prison.
After serving less than a month of his sentence in the initial prison � the one he sued � Navalny went on hunger strike on March 31 and was transferred to a hospital for inmates in a different prison in Vladimir Region.
