Navalny trial on charges of defamation postponed

A Moscow court on Wednesday postponed the renewal of the trial against Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny on the charges of defamation. Last year, the politician was accused of slamming people featured in a video promoting the constitutional reform in Russia that would allow Putin to run for another two terms. The Investigative Committee maintained that Navalny's comments "denigrate the honor and dignity" of a World War II veteran featured in the video.

Babushkinkiy District court suspended the trial until 5 February. Navalny was detained at passport control at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport after flying in Sunday evening from Berlin, where he was treated after being poisoned in August. He was ordered to pre-trial detention for 30 days Monday during a court hearing that was hastily set up at a police precinct where Navalny was being held. Russia's prison service maintains Navalny, Russia's most prominent opposition figure and anti-corruption campaigner, violated the probation terms of his suspended sentence on a 2014 money-laundering conviction.Officials are seeking to have Navalny serve the three and a half year sentence in prison.

Navalny fell into a coma while aboard a domestic flight from Siberia to Moscow on Aug. 20 and was airlifted to a Berlin hospital two days later.Labs in Germany, France and Sweden, and tests by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, established that he was exposed to a Soviet-era Novichok nerve agent.