A lawyer for Alexei Navalny, the anti-corruption blogger and street opposition leader, asked a Kirov court on Wednesday to return the case against his client to prosecutors over procedural violations.
Navalny is accused of stealing 16 million rubles ($500,000) worth of timber from a state-owned company in a case that his supporters call politically motivated.
The Kirov court last week delayed the start of the trail until Wednesday after defense lawyers said they had not had enough time to study the voluminous materials prepared by prosecutors.
On Wednesday, lawyer Vadim Kobzev told the court that his client's case couldn't be heard because of procedural violations in the indictment, including a failure by investigators to indicate the figure for the amount of damages supposedly caused by Navalny's actions, Interfax reported.
Navalny is accused of stealing the money while working as an adviser to the Kirov region's governor in 2009.
He has denied the charge, which is punishable by up to 10 years in jail.
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