3 lawyers for the late Kremlin foe Alexei Navalny are convicted and sentenced to prison

PETUSHKI, Russia — Three lawyers who once represented the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny were convicted by a court Friday as part of the Kremlin's crackdown on dissent that has reached levels unseen since Soviet times.

Vadim Kobzev, Igor Sergunin and Alexei Liptser were already in custody and were given sentences ranging from 3 1/2 to five years by a court in the town of Petushki, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) east of Moscow. They were arrested in October 2023 on charges of involvement with extremist groups, as Navalny's networks were deemed by authorities.

The case was widely seen as a way to increase pressure on the opposition to discourage defense lawyers from taking political cases.

The U.S. State Department condemned the sentences against the lawyers ''who were simply doing their jobs to ensure a political prisoner was afforded his right to legal representation, turning defense lawyers into political prisoners themselves,'' said spokesman Matthew Miller.

He called it ''yet another example of the persecution of defense lawyers by the Kremlin in its effort to undermine human rights, subvert the rule of law, and suppress dissent,'' and urged the government to release all political prisoners immediately.

At the time of his death last year in an Arctic penal colony, Navalny was serving a 19-year prison term on several criminal convictions, including extremism.

The independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta reported that Kobzev said in his final statement in court on Jan. 10 that ''we are being tried for transmitting Navalny's thoughts to other people.''

The independent Russian news outlet Mediazona reported three journalists attending the sentencing were detained and taken to a police station.

Navalny's networks were deemed extremist following a 2021 ruling that outlawed his organizations — the Foundation for Fighting Corruption and a network of regional offices — as extremist groups.

That ruling, which exposed anyone involved with the organizations to prosecution, was condemned by Kremlin critics as politically motivated and designed to stifle Navalny's activities.

According to Navalny's allies, authorities accused the lawyers of using their position to pass information from him to his team.

Navalny, an anti-corruption campaigner and outspoken opponent of President Vladimir Putin, was arrested in 2021 upon his return from Germany, where he was recuperating from a nerve agent poisoning he blamed on the Kremlin. He was ordered to serve 2 1/2 years in prison.

After two more trials, his sentence was extended to 19 years. He and his allies said the charges were politically motivated and accused the Kremlin of seeking to jail him for life.

In December 2023, Navalny was moved from a penal colony in the Vladimir region east of Moscow to one above the Arctic Circle, where he died on Feb. 16, 2024, at the age of 47 under still-unexplained circumstances. His widow, Yulia Navalnaya, and members of his team alleged he was killed on orders from the Kremlin. Officials have rejected the accusation.

Two other Navalny lawyers, Olga Mikhailova and Alexander Fedulov, are on a wanted list but no longer live in Russia. Mikhailova, who defended Navalny for a decade, said she was charged in absentia with extremism.

Kobzev, Liptser and Sergunin have been deemed to be political prisoners, according to human rights advocates from Memorial, Russia's most prominent rights group that won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022. The group demands their immediate release.

Independent Russian media reported Friday that Konstantin Kotov, an activist accused of donating to Navalny's organization, left Russia before he was due to appear in a Moscow court Friday. He told Mediazona he decided to leave after a heart surgeon, Dr. Ivan Tishchenko, was jailed for four years for donating about $34 to Navalny's organization.