Russian Court upholds investigators’ refusal to open probe into Navalny’s ‘poisoning’

Moscow, Mar 22 (Agency) Russia’s 235th garrison military court rejected on Monday opposition figure Alexey Navalny’s appeal against the refusal of the investigative committee’s military department to conduct a check into his alleged poisoning, a Sputnik correspondent reported from the courtroom. In his complaint, Navalny accused the investigators of taking no action in light of his statement, in which he accused the Russian Federal Security Service of playing a role in his poisoning, and requested launching a criminal probe.

“To dismiss the complaint of Alexey Anatolievich Navalny,” judge Andrey Tolkachenko said. The investigator and the prosecutor asked the court to reject the appeal, noting that Navalny’s complaint had been submitted to the interior ministry’s transport department for the Siberia, which had already refused to open a criminal probe following a long investigation, over “absence of the event of a crime.”