MOSCOW, May 19 (RAPSI, Lyudmila Klenko) – The Savyolovsky District Court of Moscow is going to review a lawsuit filed by Alexey Navalny, a Russian opposition politician, laid against the All-Russian State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company (VGTRK), Dmitry Kiselyev, the company’s deputy director, and journalist Yevgeny Popov, the court’s press-secretary Konstantin Timoshenko told RAPSI on Thursday.

Preparation for the hearings were conducted behind the closed doors, the defendants did not come to court.

Earlier it had been reported that the court discontinued the said action giving Navalny time until May 16 to address the claim’s deficiencies.

Navalny filed a claim against the media company over the April 10 airing of “The Browder Effect” documentary segment during “Vesti Nedeli” weekly news show on Rossiya 1 TV channel, broadcasted by VGTRK. Kiselyov is the anchor of the program, Popov is the author of the documentary.

Vyacheslav Gamadi, a Navalny’s lawyer, has said that the claim asks the court to rule the information contained in the aired segment of the documentary to be defamatory and not consistent with the facts. According to Gamadi, no monetary claim has been put forward yet; nevertheless, he did not preclude that such claim might be submitted later.

Rossiya 1 TV channel aired a documentary segment alleging that Navalny’s activities were funded by a British intelligence agency and presenting documents and correspondence claimed to be evidence of his connections to William Browder, a financer and former head of Hermitage Capital investment fund. According to the documentary segment, in 2008 Navalny’s activities were financed via a proxy person in the Moscow Helsinki Group, the fact Lyudmila Alexeyeva, the head of this NGO, had already refuted earlier.

The Russia’s General Prosecutor’s Office has informed that it is going to study the materials presented in “The Browder Effect” documentary segment aired by Rossiya 1 with regard to information of possible infringements on federal laws on the part of a number of Russian citizens and foreigners.