Deceased Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny did not appear to have any health complaints when speaking by video link to a court on Thursday, state media reported.
Navalny did not complain about his health and “spoke actively, presenting arguments in defence of his position”, a regional court from the city of Vladimir, to the east of Moscow, told the RIA news agency.
Separately a German lawyer for Navalny said he seemed “fit and strong” during the hearing one day before his death on Friday in an Arctic prison colony.
Attorney Nikolaos Gazeas told the daily Koelner Stadt-Anzeiger that he was stunned by the news of Navalny’s death after seeing images of him participating by video link in the Russian court hearing.
“He made a fit and strong impression as usual,” he said, adding that a Russian colleague had visited Navalny on Wednesday while another was currently on his way to his prison to learn more about the circumstances of his death.
Gazeas said he would wait to make further comment on the case “out of consideration for the interests of Alexei Navalny’s family”.
Navalny had been President Vladimir Putin’s most outspoken critic for years and managed to galvanise huge street protests despite Russia’s harsh laws against demonstrations.
He was jailed in early 2021 after returning to Russia from Germany, where he was recuperating from a near-fatal poisoning attack with Novichok, a Soviet-era nerve agent.
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