Thread by @pevchikh

Today was the seventh day of the trial of Alexei Navalny. The sound in the journalists’ room was still horrible, and the live feed from the courtroom cut off completely at times, but here is a chronicle of what we've managed to make out.

One of today’s witnesses was Vyacheslav Kuzin, who we expected to see yesterday. He also filed a request to classify his questioning, but also withdrew it today. He refused to answer whether he wrote that request himself and how he sent it, claiming that he couldn't remember it.

Another “victim” in this case, Alexander Karnyukhin, was also present in the courtroom. Unlike Kuzin, he stood by his request to classify his questioning. The prosecutor supported him, claiming that this is a “sacred right of a victim”.

Kuzin and Karnyukhin are different from yesterday’s witness Kostenko: they both have systematically donated to the Foundation for many years, and both now have unrelated criminal cases open against them. They were likely threatened by the investigators into slandering Navalny.

Navalny and his lawyers strongly objected to the classification of today’s hearings. There were no legal reasons for this, as there is no evident threat to the safety of the “victims”. An unmotivated classification of a court hearing is a violation of law.

The judge disappeared into the deliberation room for an hour. When she returned, she announced that today’s hearing would be classified upon Kuzin’s and Karnyukhin’s requests (even though Kuzin had withdrawn his).

The screen in the journalist’s room turned off. It was unclear whether the live feed would return after the questioning of Kuzin, or the hearing would remain classified until the end of the day.

The screen turned back on for the questioning of Karnykhin. He explained that he had indeed been transferring money to the Foundation and for Navalny’s presidential campaign since 2017. Last year, he was summoned to the Investigative Committee and “realised” he was a fraud victim

Karnyukhin said the investigators warned him that he was sponsoring an extremist organisation with his donations. “I was doing it before the Foundation was recognised as an extremist organisation, so it doesn’t count, right?” - he asked hopefully.

The following dialogue happened:
Navalny: Did I personally steal anything from you?
Karnyukhin: You didn't steal anything from me.
Navalny: Have you been hinted that you will have problems if you don’t file a complaint against me?
Karnyukhin: Well, how can I say it...

The “victim” literally said that he had only learned that his funds were stolen from an investigator. He personally doesn't think that any damage was done to him. But the “court” does. And that’s probably going to be enough for a conviction.

In his old testimony, Karnyukhin had claimed that the activities of the Foundation were aimed at "discrediting the authorities" and "organising extremist activities." Today, he said that he had made a mistake then and does not think so anymore.

The court summoned Natalia Kryukova, the expert who conducted a linguistic expertise of Navalny’s words during the previous trial. She works as a maths teacher, but claimed that she has a large background in sociocultural studies and is more than qualified for such expertises.

Navalny had not used any actual swear words, he had resorted to euphemisms that can be translated as “damn” or “bloody hell”. However, the “expert” considered them equivalent to obscene language and wants Alexei to be charged for that.

The “expert” also considered the instances of Navalny saying “Oh my god” as insults towards the judge and the court. She explained that in one of these instances, Navalny said “Oh my god, this judge will burn in hell”, which “created an offensive context”.

The prosecution finished presenting evidence. Navalnys’s lawyers were given just one day to prepare their line of defence - the hearings will resume on March 3.