Former Navalny's lawyer Igor Sergunin sits in the cage during a court session in Petushki, Vladimir region, about 120 kilometers (75 miles) east of Moscow, Russia, Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

PETUSHKI, Russia (AP) — Three lawyers who once represented the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny went on trial Thursday in Russia, part of the Kremlin's unrelenting crackdown on dissent that has in recent years reached levels unseen since the Soviet times.

The three — Vadim Kobzev, Igor Sergunin and Alexei Liptser — were arrested in October 2023 on charges of involvement with an extremist group. The case has been widely seen as a means to ramp up pressure on the Kremlin's fiercest foe at the time and to discourage defense lawyers from taking on political cases.

When they were arrested, Navalny was already serving a 19-year prison term on several criminal convictions, including extremism. The extremism charges against the opposition politician stemmed from a 2021 court ruling that outlawed his organizations in Russia — the Foundation for Fighting Corruption and a vast 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 political activities.

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, effectively serving as intermediaries between Navalny and what they consider to be his “extremist group.”

Navalny, a 47-year-old anti-corruption campaigner and outspoken opponent of President Vladimir Putin, was arrested in January 2021 upon his return from Germany, where he was recuperating from a nerve agent poisoning he blamed on the Kremlin.

Shortly after the arrest, a court ordered the politician to serve 2 1/2 years in prison. In the following years, Navalny stood two more trials which extended his prison term to 19 years in total. He and his allies have vehemently rejected all charges as politically motivated and accused the Kremlin of seeking to jail him for life.

Until December 2023, Navalny was serving time in two different penal colonies in the Vladimir region east of Moscow. In December, he was transferred to a remote prison above the Arctic circle. In February 2024, he suddenly died behind bars in what his team and his widow Yulia Navalnaya charged to be a murder ordered by the Kremlin. Officials have rejected the accusations.

The trial of the three lawyers is also taking place in the Vladimir region, in the town of Petushki, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) east of the Russian capital. Their attorneys repeatedly petitioned the courts to hold the proceedings in Moscow, where the three were held in pre-trial detention, but were denied.

Russian media and rights activists reported in June that the three were transferred to a detention center in the Vladimir region.

Upon a request from the prosecution, the judge in the Petushki District Court on Thursday ordered the proceedings be closed to the media and the public, overruling objections from the defense attorneys.

Two more of Navalny’s lawyers are on a wanted list. One of them, Olga Mikhailova, who had defended the politician for a decade, said she had been charged in absentia with extremism after fleeing the country. The other, Alexander Fedulov, also said last year that he was no longer in Russia.

For many political prisoners in Russia, regular visits from lawyers — especially in remote regions — are a lifeline that allows them to keep their loved ones informed about their well-being, as well as report and push back against abuse by prison officials.

Human rights advocates from Memorial, Russia's most prominent rights group that won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022, say that Kobzev, Liptser and Sergunin are political prisoners and have demanded their immediate release.

News from © The Associated Press, 2024