Alexei Navalny ally freed by Russian police

A close ally of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny was released from detention on Sunday, after spending 48 hours in police custody in Moscow.

Lyubov Sobol, a key figure in Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation, was detained on Friday after a day of interrogation. She was held days after Navalny said he had conducted a phone call with one of his alleged assassins. 

Russian authorities said she was charged with threats of violence and trespassing, after ringing the doorbell of an alleged security operative, who had revealed details of Navalny's supposed poisoning with a nerve agent. 

She was arrested and fined for disregarding a police officer's orders, according to the official report.

Sobol and her allies denied the accusations, and maintained that she had not violated the law by ringing the doorbell to the apartment. 

"I am completely innocent," the 33-year-old lawyer told the independent television station Dozhd.

'Revenge on Navalny'

"I believe that this criminal case against me is revenge on Navalny, no matter how absurd it may sound," she added. 

She had also filmed the police presence at the home address of the alleged employee of the Russian domestic intelligence service, the Federal Security Service (FSB).

On Monday, Navalny released the recording of a phone call he said he made to a man he identified as Konstantin Kudryavtsev and described as an alleged member of a group of officers of the FSB, which allegedly poisoned him with the Soviet-era Novichok agent in August and then tried to cover it up.

Navalny, 44, fell violently ill on a domestic Russian flight from the Siberian city of Tomsk en route to Moscow on August 20. Two days later he was medically evacuated to Berlin. He is still abroad and says he will return to Russia when possible.

lc/shs (AP, dpa)