MOSCOW. March 29 (Interfax) - Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov has told Interfax that he knows nothing about a repeat defamation lawsuit filed against him by opposition activist Alexei Navalny.
"No," Peskov said in response to the relevant question.
The press service for Moscow's Presnensky Court told Interfax earlier on Monday that Navalny had again filed a defamation lawsuit against the presidential press secretary.
"The court has received Alexei Navalny's defamation lawsuit against Dmitry Peskov," the press service said.
At the end of 2020, Navalny filed a similar lawsuit against Peskov, but the court returned the lawsuit to the claimant "in order to correct procedural flows that accompanied the submission of the lawsuit."
Navalny petitioned the court to recognize the following statements made by the defendant as untrue and slanderous: "Overall, given that CIA specialists work with the patient, everything that he says are words this organization put into his mouth" and "It would be better if this organization maintained dialogue with us not through him, but directly with its Russian counterparts, the SVR [Foreign Intelligence Service], GRU [military intelligence], and other security services."
The opposition activist claims that on October 1, 2020, Peskov made statements about him which are not true and are slanderous to his honor, dignity, and business reputation, citing an article headlined 'Peskov says Navalny's accusations against Putin instigated by CIA, they're unacceptable.'
Additionally, the opposition activist requested that the court order the defendant to publish a refutation on the Kremlin's website.
Peskov declined to comment on this issue on November 17, 2020.
"As you know, we never comment on legal actions, and I won't comment even now, although this concerns me," Peskov told journalists.