FEARS are growing for the welfare of one of Putin’s top enemies after his name vanished from prison records six days after he disappeared.
Alexei Navalny, who suffered a serious health problem in jail just days ago, could have been moved to an even more brutal gulag prison.
Alexei Navalny – one of the Kremlin’s most vocal critics – has disappeared in jailGetty
AFPNavalny appears looking gaunt in court via video link in June 2022[/caption]
APNavalny, Putin’s vocal critic, has been dubbed the man Vlad ‘fears most’[/caption]
His lawyers today said they were told the Kremlin enemy is “no longer listed” in the region where he was serving time.
And officials are apparently refusing to tell them where he has been transferred amid fears he has been shipped off to an even more brutal prison.
The vocal Kremlin critic, anti-corruption activist and opposition leader is a defiant critic of Vladimir Putin‘s regime and has been described as the man he “fears most” by the Washington Post.
He was poisoned with the nerve agent Novichok in a 2020 attack allegedly ordered by the Kremlin and later jailed in trials slammed by Amnesty International.
His most recent sentence in 2022 replaced an earlier one, condemning him to serve around seven years in a more remote “strict regime penal colony“.
Until last week he was believed to be in a hellish gulag about 155 miles north of Moscow.
But just days ago, he reportedly collapsed in his cell and hasn’t been seen since.
Alexei Navalny’s spokesperson Kira Yarmysh spoke about the worrying situation on her official X account.
She wrote: “He fell ill in his cell last week. He got dizzy and laid down on the floor.
“The colony staff came over immediately, lowered the cot, laid Alexey down and gave him an IV.
“We don’t know what it was, but given the fact that he’s not being fed, is being kept in a punishment cell with no ventilation and the time for walks has been reduced to a minimum, it looks like a hunger faint.”
According to his team, Navalny wasn’t allowed to be seen by anyone after he’d fainted.
Lawyers were told they had to wait to see him until the time was right after repeatedly being denied entry to where he was being kept.
Navalny has since spoken to his team but all communication has been stopped since the lawyers last saw him.
Today Yarmysh revealed that his lawyer was told Navalny is no longer in the prison colony where he was last week.
“On Friday and throughout today, neither IK-6 nor IK-7 responded to them [the lawyers].
“Obviously, the command has now been given. Where Alexey is is still unknown,” she said.
He also did not appear in court via video link today.
The news comes just as Vlad announced he will run again for president in the 2024 elections in a move that could see him stay in power until at least 2030.
The tyrant leader is all but certain to be elected for a fifth time after two already brutal decades of his iron-fist rule.
Navalny has previously claimed Putin is desperate to silence him, after the major Kremlin critic and his team published a list of 200 oligarchs accused of being “directly responsible for the aggressive war launched against Ukraine.”
The list of 200 names was part of a wider “List of 6,000” Putin accomplices and Russian war enablers that angered the state leaders.
Navalny said: “The Kremlin’s really furious at our work to promote the “List of 6,000” – the list of oligarchs, bribetakers and warmongers, against whom sanctions must be imposed.
“The people on the list are very worried and are demanding measures to be taken to make the ACF (and me personally) ‘back off’.”
A video interview earlier this year with him revealed he suffers from mystery stomach aches, seizures and lost 18lbs in less than a month – sparking fears of a slow poisoning.
Navalny has also claimed he now faces extremism charges, which could tack an additional 30 years onto his sentence.
An investigator also allegedly told him he faces a fresh trial over terrorism charges which could see him imprisoned for life.
Most of his time in jail has reportedly been served in isolation.
He is married to Yulia Abrosimova and the pair have two children.
Navalny is a lawyer, activist and opposition leader who has vocally criticised Putin’s regime for years
AP:Associated PressNavalny is married with two children[/caption]
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