A Moscow court rejected a request Monday filed by imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny to attend the funeral of his fellow opposition activist Boris Nemtsov, who was shot dead in Moscow on Friday.
Navalny was given a 15-day prison sentence last month for handing out leaflets in the Moscow metro to promote a protest march scheduled to take place on March 1.
The Presnensky District Court judge said that people can be released from imprisonment only in extraordinary circumstances, for instance if a close relative has died or if the prisoner is ill, Interfax reported.
Navalny's lawyer, Ivan Zhdanov, told the court that his client and Nemtsov had been close friends.
Zhdanov told Interfax that he would appeal the decision with the Moscow City Court.
Another opposition activist, Konstantin Yankauskas, was given permission to break his house arrest to attend the morning service that will take place at Moscow's Sakharov Center on Tuesday, Interfax reported.
After Nemtsov's killing, the planned protest march that Navalny was detained for advertising was replaced with a march in memory of the slain opposition politician, who was shot dead meters from the Kremlin on Friday.
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