U.S. Joins Call for Navalny Release as Putin Foe Taken to Secret Location

Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny is believed to have been moved from his detention centre to an unknown location. The development comes as the U.S. joined dozens of countries in condemning his imprisonment as unlawful.

The Kremlin critic had been given a sentence of two and a half years for violating parole conditions on a 2014 embezzlement charge he said was politically motivated.

He appeared to be in good spirits in an Instagram post last week from his cell in the Vladimir region. However, a tweet from his account on Friday described how his lawyers had been waiting for him in the detention centre in the town of Kolchugino since the start of the day, but had repeatedly been given excuses why they could not see him.

"Only at 2 p.m. they were told that Alexei had left," the tweet said, adding that the prison authorities had "refused to say where to."

Meanwhile, his lawyer Olga Mikhailova told the independent radio station Ekho Moskvy that his location "is unknown to us once again," and that by law, Navalny's family must be notified, which it hadn't been.

"The FSIN [Federal Penitentiary Service] is hiding Alexei's whereabouts from both his relatives and lawyers," she said, "last time we found him ourselves in the Kolchugino pre-trial detention center. Now, apparently, we have been asked again to look for him ourselves," she added.

Since his poisoning by the nerve agent Novichok, his arrest at a Moscow airport in January and subsequent jailing, international outrage at Navalny's fate has been growing.

A statement read out by Poland to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva said that actions by Russian authorities against the critic of President Vladimir Putin were "unacceptable and politically motivated".

The joint statement on behalf of 45 mainly European countries had the backing of the U.S. Canada and Japan and called for Navalny's "immediate and unconditional release."

It also said there must be an investigation into his Novichok poisoning which the Kremlin has been blamed for, though it denies responsibility.

"We are also concerned by the large number of arbitrary arrests of protesters who were expressing their support for Mr Navalny in many Russian cities," the statement added.

This referred to demonstrations across the country that followed Navalny's arrest and led to more than 11,000 people being detained following a crackdown by the authorities.

The U.S. and the European Union have also slapped sanctions on Russia in what the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) that he heads has described as a "good start."

Newsweek has contacted the FBK for comment.