State prosecutors are seeking a 13-year prison sentence for a journalist and activist in the republic of Bashkortostan over her ties to Alexei Navalny’s banned political organization and for allegedly spreading “false information” about the Russian military.
Olga Komleva volunteered at the regional branch of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) for several years before the group was outlawed as “extremist” in 2021, the exiled news outlet Mediazona reported. She was arrested at pro-Navalny rallies that year and fined multiple times.
Komleva has also worked as a journalist for the independent media outlet RusNews, covering a wave of protests in Bashkortostan last year.
Her case is being heard behind closed doors at the Kirovsky District Court in the city of Ufa. A verdict is expected on July 24.
Komleva’s husband Vyacheslav told RusNews that he was not surprised by the state prosecutors’ requested sentence for his wife.
“She’s being punished because they have nothing else,” he said after Friday’s hearing. “When the prosecution has absolutely nothing, that’s when they ask for these monstrous, inhumane sentences... Any reasonable person understands what kind of trial this is.”
Komleva was earlier added to Russia’s registry of “terrorists and extremists.” She was also labeled a “foreign agent.”
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