BERLIN: The head of the activist group that brought Alexei Navalny to Germany for life-saving treatment after his poisoning said it was a “crime” that Russia had detained the Kremlin critic on his return to Russia.
Navalny was arrested at Moscow airport on Sunday evening after he flew home for the first time since being poisoned in Russia with a military-grade nerve toxin last summer.
Jaka Bizilj, head of the Berlin-based charity Cinema for Peace that arranged for him to be flown from the Russian city of Omsk to the German capital for treatment, said the decision to arrest Navalny, an outspoken opponent of President Vladimir Putin, was a political act.
“It really was just luck that he survived at all,” Bizilj told Reuters on Monday. “To get arrested again upon his arrival, and get sent to jail: that is the worst Russia can do in the eyes of the world.
“He’s still not fully recovered. And to put him in prison in this condition is an additional crime,” he added.