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On 31 August, Russian national Yuliya Yemelyanova, a former activist with Navalny’s team, was detained at Almaty airport, reports Orda.kz.
The Transport Police Department stated that she is wanted under an interstate warrant on suspicion of property-related offences and could be extradited to Russia.
After her detention at the airport, Yemelyanova was first held in a temporary detention facility and then transferred to a remand centre. The court placed her under extradition arrest for 40 days.
Lawyer Murat Adam said that she is wanted in Russia on charges of theft (Part 2, Article 158 of the Criminal Code).
“She is accused of allegedly stealing a mobile phone worth 12,000 roubles (about US$130) from a taxi driver. But in fact, she is being prosecuted because she was affiliated with Navalny’s team. In other words, she is being targeted for political reasons,” the lawyer said.
The Ark Project, which supports Russian emigrants with anti-war views, describes the case as fabricated and clarifies that it was initiated in September 2021:
“The phone that Yemelyanova allegedly stole from the taxi driver was only shown to her in the police station office, where she was taken from her home in her nightgown. It was not seized from her at her home.”
The case reached Kalininsky District Court in St Petersburg in July 2022. Yemelyanova had already left Russia by then. According to the case record on the court website, proceedings were suspended in November 2022, when it was noted that the defendant was in hiding.
The activist has lived in Tbilisi in recent years. She was flying to Vietnam and was due to transit through Almaty airport, a major city in Kazakhstan.
“She didn’t expect that she’d have to go through registration again in the border control area here. It turned out she needed to pick up her luggage and check it in again at Almaty airport, even though the airline was the same. That’s why she needed to go through registration a second time. Initially, she’d been told she wouldn’t need to re-check her baggage,” the lawyer explained.
The Ark Project reports that Yemelyanova was also an activist with the Emigration for Action and Just Help projects, and helped Russian political prisoners.