The Council of Europe Committee of Ministers calls on Russia to immediately release opposition activist Alexei Navalny, who is critical of the Kremlin, and implement the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). Council of Europe Secretary General Marija Pejčinović Burić also formulated this demand in a letter to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, as announced by the Council of Europe in a broadcast on Friday.
Burić reminded Moscow of its obligation under international law to enforce all outstanding ECtHR judgments. This also applies even though Russia was expelled from the Council of Europe on March 16, 2022 after the start of the war of aggression against Ukraine. “Currently, 2,404 cases are under the supervision of the Committee of Ministers and are awaiting full implementation by the Russian authorities,” he said.
In more than a thousand cases, this is the payment of “fair compensation”. The outstanding amount is just over two billion euros, including about 1.87 billion euros in the case of the break-up of the oil company Yukos (Yukos) of Kremlin opponent Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
In a meeting, the Committee of Ministers criticized the fact that, despite repeated requests, Navalny has still not been released and is being held mainly in solitary confinement without access to his lawyers. The opposition figure was the victim of a poison attack during the Russian election campaign in August 2020. After treatment in Germany, he returned to Moscow in January 2021 and was arrested immediately upon arrival at the airport. Since then he has been in prison. He accuses the Russian authorities of torture in the criminal field.