Bailiffs Freeze Navalny’s Moscow Home Over $1.1 Million Lawsuit

(Bloomberg) -- Russian bailiffs froze assets of poisoned opposition leader Alexey Navalny over an 88 billion-ruble ($1.1 million) court ruling won by a powerful Kremlin ally in a libel case.

The court order took effect on Aug. 27, Kira Yarmysh, Navalny’s spokeswoman, said on Twitter on Thursday. “The apartment and accounts of someone lying in a coma were frozen,” she said. “This tells you everything about the Russian judicial system.”

Navalny came out of a medically-induced coma earlier this month in a Berlin hospital after falling victim to poisoning by what Germany and two other European countries have identified as weapons-grade nerve agent Novichok.

Western governments blame the Kremlin for the apparent assassination attempt on Navalny on Aug. 20 as he was flying back to Moscow from Siberia, accusations which Russian authorities reject. The opposition politician, who was discharged from the clinic on Wednesday, intends to return to Russia, according to his aides.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, a businessman close to the Kremlin known as “Putin’s Chef,” has vowed to strip the activist and his allies “naked” as he seeks to enforce the libel award over an investigation into one of his catering businesses. Prigozhin’s Concord Group said he sent 1 million rubles to Charite, the German hospital that treated Navalny when he was evacuated from Russia. The hospital sent it back, according to a post by the group.

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