Video shows Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny joking and laughing during court hearing a day before his death
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny looked healthy as he cracked jokes about his money woes during a court hearing on Thursday — just a day before he died in a brutal penal colony.
Footage from what would turn out to be Navalny’s final court appearance depicted the 47-year-old opposition leader dressed in a black prison uniform on a television screen, peering through a barred window and having a laugh with the judge.
“Your Honor, I will send you my personal account number so that you can use your huge salary as a federal judge to ‘warm up’ my personal account, because I am running out of money,” Navalny, known for his cheeky sense of humor, quipped with a smile.
The camera panned to show the court officials grinning along with the famous convict, visibly enjoying the banter.
Navalny seemed to be in high spirits and reportedly made no mention of any health concerns during the hearing.
The court appearance stemmed from an “argument” between Navalny and a prison guard who tried to confiscate the opposition leader’s pen, according to the independent Telegram news channel SOTA.
Navalny wrote later that he had been slapped with yet another 15-day stint in solitary confinement — his 27th overall since the start of his incarceration back in 2021.
What we know about Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny
- Vladimir Putin’s fiercest critic, Alexei Navalny, died in a brutal penal colony, on Friday February 16, 2024.
- Navalny had been jailed since 2021 after returning home following a nerve agent poisoning widely assumed to have been an assassination attempt.
- Navalny’s death comes a day after he appeared in a court hearing via a video link, where he was heard making jokes with the judge.
- Navalny rose to prominence in Russia more than a decade ago by making fun of the elite class around Russian President Putin and voicing allegations of corruption on a vast scale.
- Navalny, 47, got married to his wife, Yulia, in 2000 and was a father of two.
- Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service claimed that “the convict” collapsed and died after he “felt unwell” during a walk at the IK-3 penal colony in remote Kharp, about 1,200 miles northeast of Moscow.
He had been transferred in December from a prison in the Vladimir region in central Russia to a remote “special regime” penal colony above the Arctic Circle to serve a 19-year sentence on charges of extremism.
“The Yamal prison decided to break Vladimir’s record of fawning and pleasing the Moscow authorities. They just gave me 15 days in solitary confinement,” he wrote on X.
“This is the fourth solitary confinement spell in less than 2 months that I have been with them. They are being harsh,” Navalny added.
It was the last such message he wrote.
Russian prison officials claim that President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest critic collapsed and died during a walk Friday. World leaders rushed to condemn Russia.
