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Moscow court finds libel criminal case against opposition activist Navalny legal

The case concerns alegations of former investigator Pavel Karpov's involvement in the death of Hermitage Capital fund employee Sergey Magnitsky in 2009

Alexey Navalny Dmitry Serebryakov/TASS

Alexey Navalny

© Dmitry Serebryakov/TASS

MOSCOW, October 18. /TASS/. The Moscow City Court on Tuesday found legal the resolution on initiation of a libel criminal case against opposition activist and blogger Alexey Navalny, a TASS correspondent reported from the courtroom.

Thus, the court rejected Navalny lawyer Vadim Kobzev’s appeal.

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"The court left the Lyublinsky court’s resolution without changes, and dismissed the appeal," the judge announced the ruling.

Moscow’s Lyublinsky court on July 26 found legal the initiation of a criminal case against Navalny and dismissed his and his defense’s appeal against the actions of inquiry bodies.

The reason for initiation of the criminal case was a statement by former investigator Pavel Karpov. In his words, the reason for the statement was articles by Navalny posted on his website, which used reports from the film "Untouchables" that contain claims of Karpov’s alleged involvement in the death of Hermitage Capital fund employee Sergey Magnitsky in 2009, as well as links to the film.

The ex-investigator noted that in line with the ruling of Moscow’s Meshchansky court of March 10, 2016, the above-mentioned reports have been recognized untrue.

The criminal case against Navalny was initiated in May under part 2 and part 5 of Article 128.1 of Russia’s Criminal Code ("Libel"), which envisions a fine of up to 5 million rubles ($79,400) or compulsory community service for up to 480 hours.

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