Alexei Navalny appeared in court via video link for the first time on Wednesday since his transfer to a notorious penal colony in Russia’s far north. The Russian opposition leader couldn’t resist joking even during the hearing.
Alexei Navalny went missing for a while last month, after which it emerged that he had been transferred from the IK-6 prison, in the Vladimir region east of Moscow, to the IK-3 penal colony in Charp, in Siberia. Some Russian journalists also had the opportunity to speak to him via video link. When asked how he was doing, he replied that “everything is fine.”
Navalny asked whether IK-6 prison staff had thrown a “naked party” after his departure – and whether that included karaoke. By joking about the “naked party”, the Kremlin critic refers to a costume party with the theme ‘almost naked’ in a nightclub in Moscow that made Russian politicians and law enforcement officers prank.
Less funny: Judge Kirill Nikiforov rejected his request for a more humane prison regime.