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Moscow (dpa) - The Kremlin has rejected the call by the European Court of Human Rights to release the imprisoned opposition politician Alexej Navalny as “unlawful”.
The decision was "a very serious attempt to meddle in internal Russian judicial affairs," said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Thursday, according to the Interfax agency.
The Russian Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of Justice had made a similar statement the day before.
The Strasbourg court asked Russia on Wednesday to immediately release Navalny, who had recently been sentenced to several years in a prison camp in a heavily criticized case.
The court granted Nawalny's application for interim measures and pointed out that these were binding.
Russia, in turn, relies on its new constitution, which puts national interests above international law.
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"No, we are not looking for any kind of confrontation," said Peskov when asked whether Russia was considering leaving the Council of Europe, whose organ is the human rights court.
Navalny was sentenced to serve three and a half years in a prison camp more than two weeks ago. However, several months of house arrest and imprisonment periods are credited to him, so that his lawyers assume two years and eight months. The Kremlin critic is said to have violated probation conditions in an earlier criminal case while he was recovering from an attack with the neurotoxin Novichok in Germany. The verdict was widely criticized as being politically motivated.
Meanwhile, in the Moscow detention center, Navalny was classified as at risk of fleeing, according to his own statement.
He had to sign a corresponding document, it was announced on his Instagram account.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210218-99-499416 / 2