Another lawyer for Kremlin foe Navalny faces extremism charges. She had left Russia

By DASHA LITVINOVA
Associated Press

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — A lawyer for imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny says that Russian authorities have charged her with participating in an extremist group. The same charges were brought against three other lawyers who represented Navalny and were jailed in October in a move his allies had decried as designed to put additional pressure on the politician. Navalny himself was convicted on extremism charges last year and handed a 19-year prison term. His organizations in Russia were labeled as extremist groups in 2021 and outlawed. According to Navalny’s allies, authorities accused the lawyers of using their status as defense attorneys to pass letters from the imprisoned politician to his team, thus serving as intermediaries between Navalny and his “extremist group.”