Russian Activists See Political Reprisal in Court Case

MOSCOW — Just a day after the latest, and possibly last, of the large protest rallies of the election season in Russia, prosecutors in a district court in Moscow filed formal charges on Sunday against the husband of one of the protest movement’s leaders, stirring fears of politically motivated legal reprisals.

Anton Golubev/Reuters

Aleksei Kozlov and his wife, Olga Romanova, arrived for a court hearing in Moscow on Saturday.
The case against Aleksei Kozlov, a businessman, has been in Russian courts for years but took on a political hue during the protests that began here in December. As such, activists say the scheduling of a hearing to file an indictment alleging fraud in a business deal against Mr. Kozlov, so soon after the election and the final protest, bears the hallmarks of official retribution for political activity.

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