Suspect In Navalny Phone Data Case Serving Jail Time - Judicial Department

One of three people accused of illegally assisting Alexei Navalny with obtaining the phone billing data of security agents is already serving a sentence for another offense, the judicial department of Russia's Tula region said on Tuesday

YAROSLAVL (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 02nd November, 2021) One of three people accused of illegally assisting Alexei Navalny with obtaining the phone billing data of security agents is already serving a sentence for another offense, the judicial department of Russia's Tula region said on Tuesday.

"The date, time and place of the (phone billing case) trial will be announced additionally in view of the transfer of one of the defendants serving a sentence under another case," the release says.

According to the case file, Igor Zaitsev, Alexander Zelentsov and Pyotr Katkov are accused of violating the privacy of telephone conversations and forging documents and seals.

Telegram channel Baza reported that these are employees of a private detective agency who, using fake documents, received phone billing data of Federal Security Service operatives who traveled with Navalny on a flight during which the opposition figure collapsed from poisoning.

The investigation, partly disclosed in the court's release, believes that men disguised as law enforcement officers illegally obtained billing data, but it is not stated in whose interests the crime was committed. The defendants allegedly used fake IDs and fake court decisions to obtain the data.

According to Baza, the suspects were selling the data to clients on the darknet and did not know whose data they were ordered to obtain.