Russian police raid home of opposition activist Lyubov Sobol, Navalny says
Police raided the home of Russian activist Lyubov Sobol, a close ally of opposition leader Alexey Navalny, early Friday and took her in for questioning.
“Today at 7 am the police came to Lyubov Sobol’s apartment,” Navalny’s team tweeted Friday. “Since 7:10 Sobol has not been in touch, and the cameras in her apartment were sealed and turned off.”
Russia’s main investigative body, the Investigative Committee, confirmed it had launched a criminal probe against activist Sobol.
The committee claimed the probe was launched after Sobol allegedly threatened a member of the country’s Federal Security Service (FSB.)
Navalny’s team earlier said that Sobol had attempted to visit the home of Konstantin Kudryavtsev, one of the FSB agents who Navalny has accused of participating in the plot to kill him.
A CNN exclusive report released this week showed a phone call in which Navalny duped the agent, Kudryavtsev, into revealing that the opposition leader was poisoned with the nerve agent Novichok applied to his underwear.
On Monday, after the report was published, Sobol went to Kudryavtsev’s apartment to confront him.
According to a video Sobol posted on Twitter, the residential building was quickly surrounded by police and Sobol’s team was approached by a woman who introduced herself as Kudryavtsev’s mother.
Sobol was then take in for questioning but released early morning on Tuesday.
On Friday, police arrived at Sobol’s home, seizing all of the electronics belonging to the activist, her husband and her daughter, Navalny’s team said.
Ivan Zhdanov, head of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Fund, wrote on Twitter that investigators launched a probe into trespassing “with the use of violence or a threat to use it” after Sobol rang the doorbell of the FSB agent.
An investigation by CNN in cooperation with the investigative journalism website Bellingcat previously revealed that an FSB toxins team of about six to 10 agents trailed Navalny for more than three years before he was poisoned in August with the lethal nerve agent.
Navalny fell ill on a plane to Moscow and was eventually taken to Germany for treatment. He ultimately survived the attempt on his life.
The anti-corruption activist has accused the Russian state of involvement in the poisoning.
The Kremlin denies any wrongdoing.
