Russia's rights ombudsman says the jailed brother of opposition leader Aleksei Navalny urgently needs dental surgery outside the penitentiary where he is being detained.
Ella Pamfilova said on November 17 that she had requested the state agency monitoring Russia's penitentiaries to allow Oleg Navalny to have a surgery in a decent clinic.
Pamfilova said she also asked the agency to check whether Navalny's recent placement in solitary confinement and other disciplinary measures against him in the penitentiary in the Oryol region were legal.
Navalny is serving a 3 1/2-year jail term after a court in December found him and his brother, Aleksei, guilty of defrauding a French cosmetics company.
Aleksei Navalny, the key driving force behind the 2011-12 mass protests in Moscow, received a suspended sentence in the same case.
Both brothers rejected the charges as politically motivated.