MOSCOW, February 20 (RAPSI) - Germany sidesteps awkward questions and refuses to cooperate with Russian authorites on the incident happened with Alexey Navalny in August, the press service of the Prosecutor General’s Office reports Saturday.

According to the statement, German competent bodies sent an answer containing one more denial to cooperate on Navalny’s hospitalization fact-finding in response to demand from Russian prosecutors dated January 21.

Russian prosecutors believe German authorities ignore obligations arising from the European Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters of April 20, 1959.

In December 2014, Navalny received a 3.5-year suspended sentence, a 500,000-ruble fine ($6,500 at the current exchange rate) for embezzlement and 5-year probation after the sentence is served. In August 2017, probation was extended for a year. 

In August 2020, a plane departed from Tomsk to Moscow with Navalny onboard urgently landed in Omsk after the blogger became heartily sick. He was taken to a hospital in coma. Later, he was transported to Berlin. Russian medics said no poison was found in his body.

Prosecutors repeatedly sent requests concerning investigation into the incident to German officials.

On January 17, the blogger was arrested at the Sheremetyevo Airport on his return from Germany based on the search warrant issued in late December and then placed in detention.